Donors of Anti-Trump ‘Resistance’ Group Revealed
(Updated) Center for Community Change's unredacted tax forms show stealth funders
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October 4, 2017 5:00 am
The hidden donors to a prominent anti-Trump "resistance" organization are revealed in unredacted tax forms obtained by the Washington Free Beacon.
The Center for Community Change Action, a Washington, D.C.-based 501 (c)(3) progressive community organizing group that does not reveal its donors, has been involved in direct action against President Donald Trump and Republicans before and after the November elections. The organization's members sit on the boards of other prominent liberal activist groups.
The Free Beacon has obtained the group's unredacted 2015 tax forms that shed light on its funders, who provide millions of dollars in assistance. The group appears to rely heavily on a few major liberal foundations, organizations, and unions.
The Center for Community Change's largest contribution was $3,000,000 from the W.K. Kellogg Foundation, which was initially created by Will Kellogg, the food manufacturer and founder of Kellogg Company. The Ford Foundation, which was first created by the founders of the Ford Motor Company, added a $2,350,000 donation. The Open Society Foundation, a foundation run by liberal billionaire mega-donor George Soros, gave $1,750,000 to the Center for Community Change.
Other donors to the organization include the California Endowment, which gave $524,500; the Marquerite Casey Foundation, which gave $515,000; Fidelity Charitable Gift, which donated $505,100; and the National Immigration Law Center, which gave $316,000.
The Center for Community Change Action, the "social welfare" (c)(4) arm of the group, additionally relies on a handful of donors for almost all of its funding, according to its documents that do not include the privacy redactions.
Donors to its "social welfare" arm in 2015 included Every Citizen Counts ($1,750,000 contribution), a nonprofit that was created by allies of Hillary Clinton to mobilize Latino and African-American voters; the Open Society Policy Center ($1,475,000), another Soros group; the Sixteen Thirty Fund ($610,000), a progressive advocacy group; Center for Community Change ($150,000); Services Employees International Union (SEIU) ($150,000); Atlantic Philanthropies ($75,000); and the Tides Foundation ($50,000), the largest liberal donor-advised network, among other funders.
The Center for Community Change Action has been involved with anti-Trump campaigns for some time now. The group's members also sit on the advisory boards of other prominent liberal organizations.
Deepak Bhargava, the executive director of the Center for Community Change, sits on the advisory board of George Soros's Open Society Foundation.
The "Families Fight Back" voter campaign was launched during the 2016 presidential election by the Center for Community Change Action, the Latino Victory Project, an immigration group co-founded by actress Eva Longoria, and America's Voice, a group that fights for a "direct, fair, and inclusive road to citizenship for immigrants in the United States without papers."
Soros, who last year vowed to spend $15 million to court Hispanic voters, was for months the sole funder of the Immigrant Voters Win PAC, which was part of the "Families Fight Back" campaign.
Others involved with the Center for Community Change sit on boards of other resistance groups.
The Emergent Fund, a fund that consists of the Solidaire Network, the Threshold Foundation, and the Woman's Donor Network, claims a goal of pushing back against "immediate threats" to "immigrants, women, Muslim and Arab-American communities, black people, LGBTQ communities, and all people of color."
The Emergent Fund's advisory board, which decides what organizations receive money from the group, features individuals from a number of prominent liberal organizations.
Charlene Sinclair, the director of reinvestment at the Center for Community Change, sits on the board of directors of the Emergent Fund, which surpassed its initial fundraising goal of $500,000 following its inception and quickly approved $205,000 in rapid-response grants at the end of last year.
The Emergent Fund gives grants ranging from $10,000 to $50,000 and has provided financing to Black Lives Matter; the Center for Media Justice, which was created to "organize the most under-represented communities in a national movement for media rights"; the Muslim Anti-Racism Collaborative; and United We Dream, the largest immigrant youth-led organization in the United States.
The Center for Community Change later joined United We Dream for nationwide immigration protests leading up to Trump's inauguration. United We Dream was additionally behind "sanctuary campus" anti-Trump protests across the country to protect undocumented students.
Christina Jimenez, the co-founder and managing director of the United We Dream Network, herself attended high school and college as an undocumented immigrant.
The Center for Community Change did not return a request for comment by press time.
UPDATE 10:30 AM: Following publication, a representative from Fidelity Charitable said that the donations under their name was recommended from individual donors who have donor-advised fund accounts with the group, and do not represent the views or endorsement of Fidelity Charitable or Fidelity Investments.
Ford additionally added that although the charity was started by Ford family members, it is no longer connected to the Ford Motor Company.
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