Nonprofits and "Dark Money"

Perhaps not surprisingly given the prominence of the Supreme Court's Americans for Prosperity Foundation decision last summer, there have been a stream of news stories about nonprofits involved in flows of funding from unknown sources. Here are several recent examples:

• Trump's Dark-Money Machine Gets a Makeover - and New Owners: Daily Beast article featuring coverage of the nonprofit America First Policies, now named America First Works, and other nonprofits with which it has had financial dealings.

• Inside the Dems' Dark Money Machine: As detailed in this Puck article, the left side of the aisle has also learned how to use the various types of nonprofits to influence politics, including with funds from sources that prefer to remain anonymous (at least to the public).

• Moms for Liberty: How an army of education activists has become a national political force: And of course politically active nonprofits are not solely the province of experience political actors; USA Today reports that the grassroots Moms for Liberty nonprofit, which as a section 501(c)(4) does not have to disclose its donors, has now spread to 33 states, riding the waive of opposition to COVID-related restrictions and objections to teaching what opponents label Critical Race Theory.

• UPDATE: Guess Who’s Secretly Backing This ‘Anti-Smoking’ Vape Group: And using nonprofits to conceal funding sources can also prove useful to businesses seeking to hide their involvement in lobbying campaigns, as the Daily Beast reports appears to be the case with the clandestine support of British American Tobacco of the World Vapers' Alliance and related groups.

Lloyd Mayer