Stopping Juvenile Detention: The Tides Foundation and Center: Brokers of the Revolution By Trevor Loudon Summary: The Tides Foundation and Tides Center are the radical left’s best kept se- cret. Together they provide tens of millions of dollars annually to some of the most extreme, destructive charities in America. Their money has gone to an assortment of questionable groups including ACORN, Media Matters for America, and the Center for Constitutional Rights. ll revolutions need wealthy back- ers who stand quietly behind the Aarmies of agitators. But revolutions also need bankers and brokers, middlemen who insulate the donor from turmoil as they transmit his funds to the agents of social and political change. To understand the progress of any revolution we need to “follow the money.” Capital Research Center has looked closely at the Democracy Alliance, the badly-named Demonstrators protest Arizona’s immigration law in Phoenix in July 2010. billionaires’ consortium set up by a frustrated George Soros after John Kerry’s presidential defeat in 2004. (See the December 2008, January 2008, and December 2006 editions of With Che Guevara and Fidel Castro looking down, Tides Foundation founder Foundation Watch.) The Democracy Alliance Drummond Pike (right) and disgraced ACORN founder Wade Rathke (left) spread channels funds from a select group of about radicalism in a visit to ACORN’s organization in the nation of Peru. 100 mega-wealthy donors to “progressive” Based in San Francisco, the spiritual heart policy groups that it evaluates and fi nds wor- of the “West Coast left,” the Tides network October 2010 thy of support. However, an equally important distributes thousands of grants to left, far-left organization is the Tides Foundation, founded and ultra-left organizations across America. CONTENTS in 1976, and its affi liated Tides Center. The Some of the groups receiving Tides money Tides network is one of the leading brokers are independent 501(c)(3) public charities The Tides Foundation and Center of the unfolding Obama Revolution that and 501(c)(4) lobby organizations. Others are Page 1 promises “nothing less than the complete Tides “projects” that are legally tied to Tides transformation of our economy,” as candidate but function largely independently of it. Many Philanthropy Notes Obama put it in announcing his energy plan Tides projects eventually spin-off from it and Page 6 for America in 2008. become independent legal entities. FoundationWatch What makes the Tides network unique is Beck has raised the alarm about Tides’s care- grants totaling $134,000), ACORN Institute that it combines the Foundation’s role as fully crafted strategy of philanthropic giving (three grants totaling $84,793), ACORN’s a donor-advised funder with the Center’s to radical nonprofi ts. But the mainstream voter mobilization arm Project Vote (11 activities, nurturing and sheltering many of media is eager to muzzle talk about Tides. grants totaling $845,000) and the Center for its fl edgling groups with legal advice and When a crazed Beck listener who shot at Constitutional Rights (three grants totaling fundraising assistance. police later told detectives that he intended $15,000). There are also large grants to what to kill “people of importance at the Tides White House press secretary Robert Gibbs Authors Tom and Gretchen Randall described Foundation and the ACLU,” Washington calls “the professional left”: well-connected Tides operations in a previous Capital Re- Post columnist Dana Milbank urged Beck groups like Catalist ($801,853), a company search Center report: “The Tides Foundation to restrain his viewers, as if Tides were a established by Bill Clinton associate Harold and its offspring, the Tides Center, effectively paranoid fantasy. Ickes that customizes its voter database to ‘launder’ donor dollars when they give to serve progressive clients; PowerPAC.org other nonprofi ts. The San Francisco-based Tides Foundation Grantmaking ($500,000), which runs leftist ballot initia- foundation receives donations for individuals The Tides Foundation claims to have distrib- tives and voter registration drives, especially and foundations and then channels them to uted $400 million in grants to progressive in California; and Media Matters for America activist groups. The result is that the original nonprofi ts since 2000. But the true amount ($500,000), David Brock’s left-wing “watch- donor can’t be linked to the ultimate recipi- must be signifi cantly higher. That’s because dog” group. ent … In theory the Foundation raises and according to the respected FoundationSearch. grants money, while the Center manages com philanthropy database, the Tides Foun- Tides Center Activities projects and organizations. A legal fi rewall dation gave 14,246 grants totaling $630.6 The much smaller Tides Center was set up divides the two organizations and keeps their million from 1999 through 2008. in 1996 as an affi liate of the Tides Founda- functions separate. In fact, each does both. tion. In 2008 it had net assets of $80 million The Foundation awards grants to groups, This places Tides squarely in the major and it received $89 million in contributions including groups not managed by the Center, leagues of leftist philanthropy. In the same (including almost $14 million from the that are promoting a kaleidoscope of liberal period, George Soros’s Open Society Insti- Tides Foundation and $9 million in fees and issues.” (See Foundation Watch, December tute, which has a much higher profi le, handed investment income. Its expenses, including 2003.) out $901.4 million. salaries, totaled $68 million. It maintains a single donor advised fund from which it made Talk show host Glenn Beck has been trying Tides had income of $114 million in 2008 $18 million in grants to other groups. Accord- to raise the public profi le of the virtually and maintained over 300 donor-advised funds ing to FoundationSearch.com, from 2005 invisible Tides network. Alone in the media, that made $105 million in grants to U.S. and through 2007 it gave 345 grants worth overseas groups. According to its 2008 IRS $25.3 million. Editor: Matthew Vadum tax form (the most recent available), the Publisher: Terrence Scanlon Foundation had net assets of $153 million. The Center is unique because it acts as a “fi s- cal sponsor” for some 200 new groups and Foundation Watch In 2008 Tides made about 1,800 grants total- individuals. That doesn’t mean that it funds is published by Capital Research ing $84 million to U.S. nonprofi ts and about the groups. Instead, it helps new groups get Center, a non-partisan education and 600 grants totaling $20 million to overseas up-and-running by offering them the shelter research organization, classifi ed by the IRS as a 501(c)(3) public charity. nonprofi ts. (The U.S. grants list is 93 pages of Tides own charitable tax status and Tides long and there are about twenty grants per health and liability insurance. Under the Address: page.) The grants vary in size from $1.5 mil- Tides Center umbrella, the new group can 1513 16th Street, N.W. lion to Third Way, a progressive economic then accept tax deductible contributions Washington, DC 20036-1480 policy advocacy group, to some 450 grants without needing to apply immediately to the Phone: (202) 483-6900 in the $5,000-$6,000 range. They went to IRS for tax-exempt 501(c)(3) public charity Long-Distance: (800) 459-3950 nonprofi ts with such names as Astraea Les- tax status. The Tides Center says its own bian Foundation for Justice, the Grassroots projects can apply to the Tides Foundation E-mail Address: [email protected] Institute for Fundraising Training, and Youth for grants—and it makes the dubious claim for Environmental Sanity. While a few grants that “no preference is given.” Web Site: go to mainstream charities, the vast major- http://www.capitalresearch.org ity support cause-related advocacy groups Besides giving a new project its seal of ap- Organization Trends welcomes let- promoting social and political change. proval the Tides Center performs a notable ters to the editor. service in showing new groups how to run Reprints are available for $2.50 pre- Particularly noteworthy are the grants an offi ce, apply for grants, conduct effective paid to Capital Research Center. to hard left activist groups like ACORN public relations, and handle the many person- ($100,000), ACORN International (three nel, payroll, and budget problems that might 2 October 2010 FoundationWatch baffl e a novice group. The Center points out people with inherited wealth how to support unpleasantness at ACORN he was chairman that many now established and independent “social change philanthropy.” of the Tides Center. Because of the embezzle- nonprofi ts began as Tides “projects.” They ment scandal he was fi red by ACORN and include People for the American Way, Social In 1976 Pike founded Tides to work with resigned from his leadership position at Venture Network, Women Donors Network, “community-based nonprofi t organizations Tides. At ACORN he developed a model and Grantmakers for Effective Organiza- and the progressive movement through in- of “community organizing” that combines tions. It’s noteworthy that the last three groups novative grantmaking.” Today he is president overt grassroots rabble-rousing with covert are themselves organizations that promote of both the Tides Foundation and the Tides political and fi nancial management. Rathke effective fundraising. Center. Besides his work at Tides, Pike is continues to serve as a “senior adviser” to also a board member and treasurer of the Tides and to several of its project entities, the The concept of “fi scal sponsorship” was Democracy Alliance and chairman of the Paradox Fund and the Frontera Fund. pioneered by Tides, but Tides has now cre- board of the Environmental Working Group, ated a network of fi scal sponsors so that other a green activist group.