NCRP tracked $1 billion in total foundation funding from around 3,500 private and public funders between 2020 and 2022. In that time, $1 billion in total foundation funding went to 155 election denial and anti-voting rights organizations.
These anti-democracy organizations control more than $7 billion, more than each of the well-known conservative funders combined.
These anti-democracy organizations claim to mobilize 20 times as many people as the US election workforce. These organizations staff over 8,000 and reported more than 400,000 volunteers between 2020 and 2022. Local elections’ total workforce across the US, the people actually securing our election integrity, are a staff of only about 20,000.
About the data
Using internet research and 990 keyword analysis, NCRP researchers assembled a list of organizations from four queries and/or searches:
Organizations who promoted false or overblown threats to election integrity like non-citizen voting, voter fraud, and corrupt voter registration drives;
Organizations that were mentioned in Project 2025’s implementation plan;
Organizations that were linked to state pre-emption policies;
Organizations that were linked to policies criminalizing protest at the state or local level.
Based on this list of nonprofit names, NCRP used Python and compilations of IRS 990 data published by Giving Tuesday to match filings by these anti-democracy organizations to filings by their institutional funders. Anti-democracy organizations’ EINs were used to match public charity funder filings, and their organizational names were used to match private foundation funder filers.
NCRP shows flexible support as a tactic for regressive funders
Philanthropists with regressive policy plots have been highly effective in supporting the goals of a polarizing right-wing agenda. These funders have done so primarily by giving multi-year, unrestricted funding to “anti-movement” leaders and focusing on long-term, nonlinear change.
Between 2020 and 2022, 52% of all foundation funding for these anti-democracy organizations was given as unrestricted general support, and only 8% of that foundation funding was granted for a specific program, project, or campaign. Comparatively, at the peak of the pandemic in 2020, only about 38% of funding for social justice movement organizations was given as unrestricted general support, and at least 20% was project based.
The tip of the iceberg
These organizations are just one part of the deliberate and collective vision of various philanthropic networks who seek to roll back efforts of a more just society.
In 2020, the 3,000 private foundations supporting these anti-democracy organizations controlled $408 billion