DonorsTrust

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American nonprofit donor-advised fund

title: "DonorsTrust" type: doc version: 1 created: 2026-02-28 author: "Wikipedia contributors" status: active scope: public tags: ["non-profit-organizations-based-in-alexandria,-virginia", "charities-based-in-virginia", "organizations-established-in-1999", "conservative-organizations-in-the-united-states", "1999-establishments-in-virginia", "501(c)(3)-organizations"] description: "American nonprofit donor-advised fund" topic_path: "geography/united-states" source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DonorsTrust" license: "CC BY-SA 4.0" wikipedia_page_id: 0 wikipedia_revision_id: 0

::summary American nonprofit donor-advised fund ::

::data[format=table title="Infobox organization"]

FieldValue
nameDonorsTrust
logoDonorsTrust logo.svg
formation1999
typeNonprofit (IRC § 501(c)(3))
tax_id52-2166327
locationAlexandria, Virginia, U.S.
coords
servicesDonor-advised fund
leader_titleCEO
leader_nameLawson Bader
board_of_directors
affiliationsDonors Capital Fund
revenue$158 million
revenue_year2023
expenses$358 million
expenses_year2023
endowment$1.29 billion in assets
endowment_year2023
website
::

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DonorsTrust is an American nonprofit donor-advised fund that was founded in 1999 with the goal of "safeguarding the intent of libertarian and conservative donors". As a donor-advised fund, DonorsTrust is not legally required to disclose the identity of its donors, and most of its donors remain anonymous. It distributes funds to various conservative and libertarian 501(c)(3) organizations.

It is affiliated with Donors Capital Fund, another donor-advised fund. In September 2015, Lawson Bader was announced as the new president of both DonorsTrust and Donors Capital Fund. Bader was formerly president of the Competitive Enterprise Institute and vice president at the Mercatus Center.

Overview

DonorsTrust is a 501(c)(3) organization. As a public charity and a donor-advised fund, DonorsTrust offers clients a variety of tax advantages compared to a private foundation.

DonorsTrust accepts donations from charitable foundations and individuals. Grants from DonorsTrust are based on the preferences of the original contributor, and the organization assures clients that their contributions will never be used to support politically liberal causes. As a donor-advised fund, DonorsTrust can offer anonymity to individual donors, with respect to their donations to DonorsTrust, as well as with respect to an individual donor's ultimate grantee.

As a donor-advised fund and public charity, DonorsTrust accepts cash or assets from donors, and in turn creates a separate account for the donor, who may recommend disbursements from the fund to other public charities. DonorsTrust president Lawson Bader said the goal of the organization is to "safeguard the intent of libertarian and conservative donors," ensuring that funds are used only to promote "liberty through limited government, responsibility, and free enterprise".

History

DonorsTrust was established in 1999 by Whitney Lynn Ball. It and Donors Capital Fund have been described as spinoffs of the Philanthropy Roundtable, a coordinating group for conservative foundations, where Ball had been executive director. According to DonorsTrust, the organization was founded by a group of donors and nonprofit executives who were "actively engaged in supporting and promoting a free society as understood in America's founding documents." A major selling point to donors is that even after their death, their money will continue to fund conservative/libertarian goals, and not change based on the attitudes of their heirs or trustees as a family foundation might.

In early 2013, DonorsTrust was the subject of reports by The Independent,

DonorsTrust raised over $1 billion in 2021, with two separate donations, each exceeding $425 million, being anonymous.

Donors

As of 2013, DonorsTrust had 193 contributors, mostly individuals, and some foundations.

The Charles G. Koch Foundation has contributed millions of dollars to DonorsTrust. Charles and David Koch were the top contributors to DonorsTrust in 2011, according to an analysis by the Columbia Journalism Review.

DonorsTrust account holders have included the John M. Olin Foundation, the Castle Rock Foundation, the Searle Freedom Trust, and the Bradley Foundation. The Bradley family contributed $650,000 between 2001 and 2010. The DeVos family foundation contributed $1 million in 2009 and $1.5 million in 2010 to Donors Trust.

Robert Mercer and Rebekah Mercer contributed nearly $20 million through DonorsTrust in 2020. Marble Freedom Trust, led by Leonard Leo, gave $41 million to DonorsTrust in 2021 after a donation from Barre Seid.

Recipients

From its founding in 1999 through 2013, DonorsTrust and Donors Capital Fund distributed nearly $400 million, and through 2015, $740 million, to various nonprofit organizations, including numerous conservative and libertarian causes. DonorsTrust requires that recipients are registered with the US Internal Revenue Service as a 501(c)(3) public charity. Whitney Ball, the former president of the Trust, told The Guardian in 2013 that it has about 1,600 grantees. In 2014, Ball said that 70 to 75 percent of grants go to public policy organizations, with the rest going to more conventional charities such as social service and educational organizations.

In 2010, the Americans for Prosperity Foundation received a DonorsTrust grant of $7 million, nearly half of the Foundation's revenue that year. Other DonorsTrust recipients have included The Heritage Foundation, Americans for Tax Reform, the National Rifle Association Freedom Action Foundation, the Competitive Enterprise Institute, the Cato Institute, the Federalist Society, the FreedomWorks Foundation, the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation, and the Center for Class Action Fairness.

DonorsTrust paid the legal fees of the Project on Fair Representation, a Washington, D.C.–based legal defense fund that assembled the plaintiff's legal team in Fisher v. University of Texas, a 2013 United States Supreme Court case concerning affirmative action college admissions policies. In 2011, the Franklin Center for Government and Public Integrity, an online conservative news organization, received $6.3 million in DonorsTrust and Donors Capital Fund grants, 95 percent of the center's revenue that year.

Other DonorsTrust recipients have included the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, the Conservative Partnership Institute, Consumers' Research, Families Against Mandatory Minimums, the Foundation for Jewish Camp, the James Randi Educational Foundation, the Marijuana Policy Project, the New Century Foundation, PragerU, Project Veritas, and VDARE.

DonorsTrust CEO Bader told Inside Philanthropy in 2021 that his fund had seen "a noticeable uptick of account rollovers" from non-ideological donor-advised funds he said had slowed or stopped grant-making to political causes.

Climate change contrarian funding

DonorsTrust and Donors Capital Fund have been major sources of funding for conservative groups with contrarian stances on climate change.

The Guardian reported DonorsTrust and Donors Capital Fund distributed nearly $120 million to 102 think tanks and action groups "which have a record of denying the existence of a human factor in climate change, or opposing environmental regulations" between 2002 and 2010. According to an analysis by Drexel University environmental sociologist Robert Brulle, between 2003 and 2010, DonorsTrust and Donors Capital Fund combined were the largest funders of organizations opposed to restrictions on carbon emissions. By 2009, approximately one-quarter of the funding of what Brulle calls the "climate change counter-movement" came from grants via DonorsTrust and Donors Capital Fund.

As of 2010, DonorsTrust grants to conservative and libertarian organizations active in climate change issues included more than $17 million to the American Enterprise Institute, a think tank; $13.5 million to the Heartland Institute, a public policy think tank; and $11 million to Americans for Prosperity, a political advocacy group. In 2011, the Committee for a Constructive Tomorrow (CFACT), a conservative Washington, D.C.–based nonprofit organization, received $1.2 million from Donors Trust, 40 percent of CFACT's revenue in that year. In 2015, The Guardian reported that Donors Trust gave $4.3 million to the Competitive Enterprise Institute over three years.

State-based policy funding

Between 2008 and 2013, DonorsTrust granted $10 million to the State Policy Network (SPN), a national network of conservative and libertarian think tanks focused on state-level policy. SPN used the grants to incubate new think tanks in Arkansas, Rhode Island and Florida. DonorsTrust also issued grants to SPN's affiliates at the state level during the same period. The American Legislative Exchange Council, a nonprofit organization of conservative state legislators and private sector representatives that drafts and shares model state-level legislation, is a DonorsTrust recipient.

Elections and the judiciary

In 2018, the organization funded more than 99% of the Judicial Education Project, a legal alias for Honest Elections Project and The 85 Fund.

Board of directors

The board of directors of DonorsTrust includes:

References

References

  1. "2017 IRS 990 FORM". ProPublica.
  2. (September 22, 2015). "DonorsTrust's New CEO". Donors Trust.
  3. "Directors & Staff - DonorsTrust". Donors Trust.
  4. (2022). "Donors Trust Inc".
  5. (March 3, 2016). "Inside DonorsTrust: What This Mission-Driven DAF Offers Philanthropists on the Right".
  6. (February 5, 2013). "Exposed: The Dark-Money ATM of the Conservative Movement".
  7. (August 23, 2017). "Inside DonorsTrust: What This Mission-Driven DAF Offers Philanthropists on the Right".
  8. Goldenberg, Suzanne. (February 15, 2013). "Media campaign against windfarms funded by anonymous conservatives". [[The Guardian]].
  9. "Mission & Principles". Donors Trust.
  10. (September 2005). "The future of donor-advised funds". [[Philanthropy Roundtable]].
  11. "FAQs". Donors Trust.
  12. "Open An Account". Donors Trust.
  13. (October 23, 2012). "Robert Brulle: Inside the Climate Change "Countermovement"". [[PBS]].
  14. "What is Donors Capital Fund?". Donors Capital Fund.
  15. (August 18, 2015). "Whitney Ball, Founder of DonorsTrust, RIP". Reason.
  16. Singer, Merrill. (2018). "Climate Change and Social Inequality: The Health and Social Costs of Global Warming". [[Taylor & Francis]].
  17. Farrell, Justin. (2019-03-18). "The growth of climate change misinformation in US philanthropy: evidence from natural language processing". [[Environmental Research Letters]].
  18. (2015-08-18). "Whitney Ball Knew the Landscape of the Conservative Movement Unlike Any Other".
  19. Kroll, Andy. (February 5, 2013). "Exposed: The Dark-Money ATM of the Conservative Movement". [[Mother Jones (magazine).
  20. Slodysko, Brian. (27 July 2020). "Wealthy donors pour millions into fight over mail-in voting". [[Minneapolis Star Tribune]].
  21. Fuchs, Hailey. (2022-11-16). "Two anonymous $425 million donations give dark money conservative group a massive haul".
  22. (January 24, 2013). "Exclusive: Billionaires secretly fund attacks on climate science". [[The Independent]].
  23. "Project Veritas received $1.7 million last year from charity associated with the Koch brothers". [[Washington Post]].
  24. Chavkin, Sasha. (April 22, 2013). "The Koch brothers' media investment". [[Columbia Journalism Review]].
  25. Miller, John J.. (November 8, 2007). "Daniel C. Searle, R.I.P.". [[National Review]].
  26. Schwartz, Brian. (2021-09-15). "Mercer family played bigger role in 2020 election than thought, giving nearly $20 million to dark money GOP fund".
  27. Griffin, Casey Tolan, Curt Devine, Drew. (2022-08-22). "Massive dark money windfall: New conservative group got $1.6 billion from single donor".
  28. Meyerson, Adam. (August 17, 2015). "Whitney Ball Was a Champion of Liberty Par Excellence".
  29. Connor, Steve. (January 24, 2013). "How the 'Kochtopus' stifled green debate; Behind the climate 'countermovement' are two billionaire brothers". [[The Independent]].
  30. (September 24, 2014). "Dark Money: The Left's unprincipled campaign against philanthropic privacy". [[National Review]].
  31. Pettersson, Edvard. (February 17, 2015). "Koch Group Gets to Keep Donors Secret in California Lawsuit". [[Bloomberg Business]].
  32. Kroll, Andy. (February 11, 2013). "Exclusive: Donors Trust, The Right's Dark-Money ATM, Paid Out $30 Million in 2011". [[Mother Jones (magazine).
  33. Zahorsky, Rachel. (April 1, 2010). "Unsettling Advocate". [[American Bar Association]].
  34. Smith, Morgan. (February 23, 2012). "One Man Standing Against Race-Based Laws". [[The New York Times]].
  35. (2013-02-14). "Koch-funded charity passes money to free-market think tanks in states".
  36. (2015-06-09). "Secretive donors gave US climate denial groups $125m over three years". [[The Guardian]].
  37. (2024). "Church Against State: How Industry Groups Lead the Religious Liberty Assault on Civil Rights, Healthcare Policy, and the Administrative State". [[The Journal of Law, Medicine & Ethics]].
  38. Blitzer, Jonathan. (2024-07-15). "Inside the Trump Plan for 2025".
  39. Mufson, Steven. (January 20, 2023). "This group is sharpening the GOP's attack on "woke" Wall Street". [[The Washington Post]].
  40. "Marijuana Policy Project". [[OpenSecrets]].
  41. (August 26, 2015). "Remembering Whitney Ball's lasting but rarely noticed work". Philanthropy Daily.
  42. Kotch, Alex. (December 27, 2018). "Who Funds PragerU's Anti-Muslim Content?". Sludge.
  43. O'Harrow, Robert Jr.. (2017-12-02). "Project Veritas received $1.7 million last year from charity associated with the Koch brothers". The Washington Post.
  44. Fraga, Brian. (January 21, 2022). "Right-wing Catholic causes got millions from group that funded some Capitol rioters". [[National Catholic Reporter]].
  45. (2021-06-09). "After Trump, What's Happening at DonorsTrust, the Right's Favorite DAF?".
  46. (2021-11-16). "Computer-assisted classification of contrarian claims about climate change". [[Scientific Reports]].
  47. (May 2021). "Obstructing action: foundation funding and US climate change counter-movement organizations". [[Climatic Change]].
  48. (February 14, 2013). "Secret funding helped build vast network of climate denial thinktanks". [[The Guardian]].
  49. (December 21, 2013). "Institutionalizing delay: foundation funding and the creation of U.S. climate change counter-movement organizations". [[Climatic Change (journal).
  50. Goldenberg, Suzanne. (February 14, 2013). "How Donors Trust distributed millions to anti-climate groups". [[The Guardian]].
  51. (February 21, 2015). "Deeper Ties to Corporate Cash for Doubtful Climate Researcher". [[The New York Times]].
  52. Basken, Paul. (February 25, 2015). "A Climate Crusader Melts, Exposing a Profitable Link to Harvard's Name". [[The Chronicle of Higher Education]].
  53. (June 9, 2015). "Secretive donors gave US climate denial groups $125m over three years". [[The Guardian]].
  54. Abowd, Paul. (February 14, 2013). "Koch-funded charity passes money to free-market think tanks in states". [[NBC News]].
  55. (2020-05-27). "Revealed: conservative group fighting to restrict voting tied to powerful dark money network". [[The Guardian]].
  56. "Leonard Leo to shape new conservative network, step aside from the Federalist Society".
  57. (2020-05-27). "Conservative 'dark money' network rebranded to push voting restrictions before 2020 election". [[OpenSecrets]].

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non-profit-organizations-based-in-alexandria,-virginiacharities-based-in-virginiaorganizations-established-in-1999conservative-organizations-in-the-united-states1999-establishments-in-virginia501(c)(3)-organizations