About Us
At ActivistCash.com, we follow the money -- for you.This site, created by the Center for Consumer Freedom, is committed to providing detailed and up-to-date information about the funding sources of organizations and activists, whether respectable or radical. We have analyzed over 500,000 pages of IRS documents to create this database, and new information is added every month.
The organizations we track on this site are tax-exempt nonprofits. That means you have the right to know what they're up to. The same rule applies to the tax-exempt foundations that pay their bills.
As you read through the site, you may be surprised by some of the connections between these groups and individuals, with many forming a web of anti-consumer activism — promoting false science, scare campaigns, inflated public health causes, and sometimes even violent anti-consumer "direct actions."
You may be even more shocked to learn where some of them get their cash:
- People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) has used a private foundation to funnel at least $432,000 to the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine (PCRM), another animal rights group. PCRM in turn falsely promotes itself as a mainstream medical charity.
- Media mogul Ted Turner does more with his money than pay salaries for the Atlanta Braves. His own foundation lavishes over $40 million per year on anti-consumer activist groups, including those who advocate confrontation with police.
- The Ben and Jerry's Foundation has given $10,000 to Mothers for Natural Law, a radical anti-food-technology group operated by disciples of the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi.
- The Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy, a Minnesota-based activist group, has accepted a $75,000 grant from the Foundation for Deep Ecology for -- and we quote -- "a campaign to end industrial agriculture."
- The Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI) repeatedly attacks groups for accepting industry funding to conduct research. But CSPI itself took $50,000 from the Helena Rubenstein Foundation to fund an attack campaign against the fat substitute Olestra.
Sometimes the foundations aren't to blame. Grant requests may be sufficiently vague to convince donors to pay for politicized polemics under the guise of "research." But many times the foundations are not what you would expect them to be.
Though they carry names like "Ford," "Hewlett," or "Pew," in reality most of them are no longer controlled by the businesses and families that created them. Well-paid social engineers have since taken the reins. They have their own political agendas, and often direct big bucks to their friends in the activist world.
Sometimes foundation money flows through its initial recipients, and on to others. The Pew Charitable Trusts (money from the Sun Oil Company) and the David and Lucille Packard Foundation (Hewlett-Packard wealth) are just two of the financers of the shadowy Tides Foundation -- which in turn funds many of the organizations tracked on this site, preserving the anonymity of the original donors.
Another big reason activist groups are able to take the money and run: Nobody's been watching them and providing this level of research. Until now.
We welcome your comments, questions, compliments, and concerns. The Center for Consumer Freedom will not sell or share your personal information with anyone. For more information, please read our privacy policy.
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