Nearly half a dozen foreign charities have dumped more than a billion dollars into numerous U.S.-based leftist organizations and causes in recent years, according to a new investigative report.
Released on Friday, the new analysis by Americans for Public Trust (APT) shows how five overseas charities have collectively funneled almost $2 billion into left-wing groups, policy fights, and more “to advance their extreme, foreign, activist agenda” in America. These causes, according to the report, range from funding climate alarmist demonstrations and campaigns to environmental-related litigation.
“It is extremely alarming that five foreign charities have quietly poured almost two billion dollars into advocating for the most extreme liberal policies and protests in the United States,” APT Executive Director Caitlin Sutherland said in a statement. “Since current laws regulating foreign giving to U.S.-based nonprofit organizations are hindered by a lack of oversight and exploitable exemptions and loopholes, foreign actors have been able to advance their radical and dangerous interests virtually unchecked. Congress needs to address these serious shortfalls in our laws to protect American interests and keep foreign influence out of our politics.”
Among the organizations highlighted in the report is the Quadrature Climate Foundation (QCF), a U.K.-based grantmaking group that has reportedly given “almost $530 million in foreign money to U.S.-based groups to influence energy policy.” The QCF has additional plans to “commit $40 million in solar geoengineering research, which aims to slow climate change ‘by reflecting away more sunlight’ from the planet,” according to the APT analysis.
The U.S.-based groups flagged as recipients of the QCF’s grants include the ClimateWorks Foundation ($147 million), the Growald Climate Fund (nearly $80.7 million), the Grantham Foundation and Grantham Trust ($80 million), the Windward Fund ($49 million), and the Sunrise Project (nearly $36 million). Many of these groups, as noted in the APT report, seek to advance the left’s climate and “environmental justice” agendas.
Another foreign group flagged by APT includes the KR Foundation, a Danish charity “that gives grants to nonprofits dedicated to putting an end to the use of conventional energy,” according to InfluenceWatch.
As noted by APT, the organization has shelled out $36 million to steer U.S. energy policy, including hundreds of thousands of dollars to “fossil fuel divestment campaigns” “ending fossil fuel advertising,” and “accelerating the managed decline of oil and gas.” On top of bankrolling U.S.-based “climate litigation” and “climate protests,” the KR Foundation also notably gave roughly $300,000 to the Associated Press in 2022 “for their Global Scholars Network.”
“When this donation was revealed, the Washington Free Beacon noted that The Associated Press’ ‘climate reporting reflects many of the KR Foundation’s core beliefs,’” the APT report reads.
The report additionally highlighted the activities of British billionaire Christopher Hohn and his Children’s Investment Fund Foundation, whose financial interference in U.S. affairs were spotlighted in a recent APT investigation. Following publication of APT’s analysis of Hohn and the CIFF’s monetary support ($553 million) for a “radical green energy agenda” throughout America, the CIFF announced plans in October to “redirect its funding to, and restructure its contracts to be with, non-US NGOs.”
[READ: Meet The British Billionaire Bankrolling Leftist Causes Across America]
Other foreign-based groups flagged by APT as having subsidized left-wing causes and organizations in America include the Oak Foundation and the Laudes Foundation.
In concluding its report, APT noted how, “For far too long, foreign billionaires have had a thumb on the scale of U.S. policy fights and advocacy campaigns and are quietly using foreign money to advance foreign interests that weaken our sovereignty and independence.” The good government group additionally called on U.S. lawmakers to “consider policy reform to close the various foreign influence loopholes already on the books, and also consider a complete ban on foreign funding of 501(c)(4)s, overhauling [the Foreign Agents Registration Act], or requiring politically active groups to disclose foreign funding.”
Shawn Fleetwood is a staff writer for The Federalist and a graduate of the University of Mary Washington. He previously served as a state content writer for Convention of States Action and his work has been featured in numerous outlets, including RealClearPolitics, RealClearHealth, and Conservative Review. Follow him on Twitter @ShawnFleetwood
