The National Council of Nonprofits is a trade association for the left’s venture capital wing

In a June hearing titled “Public Funds, Private Agendas: NGOs Gone Wild,” a U.S. House subcommittee examined charities that engage in lefty policy advocacy, sometimes with your tax dollars. Diane Yentel, president of the National Council of Nonprofits, rejected the premise. She told the committee that her members “feed, heal, shelter, and nurture people of every age, gender, race, socioeconomic status and political persuasion.”

Her members do give generously to causes all Americans would recognize as charity. But what Yentel told Congress was not the whole truth. She is also running a trade association for the progressive-left’s venture capital wing. Many of the biggest contributors to the National Council of Nonprofits are also the largest promoters of left-wing policy advocacy.

For example, since 2008 the Ford Foundation has given $4.2 million to the National Council of Nonprofits. A forthcoming report from the Capital Research Center will reveal that Ford (net assets of $14 billion) supports left-progressive causes at a pace of $20 million per month.

That’s $27,000 for just the hour Yentel spent telling Congress this isn’t happening.

And it’s only one of her members. At least ten of the three dozen “Core Mission Partners” (i.e.: major donors) listed on the National Council of Nonprofits website share the Ford advocacy agenda.

Another of Yentel’s core partners, the Marguerite Casey Foundation, has joined with Ford to support an unapologetically communist digital magazine with a name that was inspired by the flag of the Soviet Union. Hammer & Hope (formerly the Black Radical Project), received $750,000 from Casey in 2022, and since then at least $1.25 million more from Ford.

Hammer & Hope was initially a fiscally sponsored project within the New Venture Fund, one of seven nonprofits managed by Arabella Advisors.  In April 2021 the New York Times reported that Arabella had already “funneled hundreds of millions of dollars through a daisy chain of groups supporting Democrats and progressive causes.” Later that year a headline in The Atlantic identified Arabella’s nonprofits as “The Massive Progressive Dark-Money Group You’ve Never Heard Of.”

Through 2024, according to the Foundation Search records, National Council of Nonprofit members had already given a cumulative total of $2.3 billion (yes, with a “b”) to Arabella’s dark money “daisy chain,” most of it to New Venture.

There are other large, progressive left pass-throughs funded by Yentel’s membership.

The Amalgamated Charitable Foundation, was spun off from a bank run by the left-wing Service Employees International Union. Just since 2024, Amalgamated has received $10.8 million from Ford and $18 million more from other core supporters of the National Council of Nonprofits, such as the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation ($15.4 million since 2024), the David and Lucile Packard Foundation ($1.27 million), the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation ($1.25 million) and Rockefeller Brothers Fund ($940,000)

Those five (Ford, Hewlett, Packard, MacArthur and Rockefeller Brothers) share a lot of other grant priorities.

Like Amalgamated, and legally distinct from Rockefeller Brothers Fund, Rockefeller Philanthropy Advisors (RPA) is also a major pass-through donor to left-progressive causes. As just one example, in its latest available annual IRS filing RPA reported new grants totaling at least $14 million for climate groups so extreme that they even oppose nuclear power.

Nuclear energy emits no greenhouse gas emissions and no electricity source we use can provide its combination of safety, reliability and cleanliness. Opposing it is the epitome of anti-energy extremism.

Just since 2024 Rockefeller Philanthropy Advisors has received $24 million from Ford, $11.4 million from Packard, $5.2 million from Rockefeller Brothers, $4.4 million from Hewlett, and $2.7 million from MacArthur.

Those five have also been giving directly to the most noxious anti-energy, anti-nuclear activists. In 2024 alone, Hewlett gave $25 million to the Rocky Mountain Institute (RMI). Famous recently for spearheading the movement against natural gas stoves, RMI was founded by Amory Lovins, one of the godfathers of the anti-nuclear, anti-energy movement.

The left’s venture capitalists have been making RMI stronger. A dozen years ago, $25 million exceeded RMI’s annual revenue from all sources. But for the year ending June 2024, the Rocky Mountain Institute reported taking in $164.7 million.

Concluding her remarks last month, Ms. Yentel claimed the nonprofit movement “should not divide us along political lines – it should unite us as Americans.”

Too bad her members haven’t gotten the message.

Source: https://capitalresearch.org/article/the-national-council-of-nonprofits-is-a-trade-association-for-the-lefts-venture-capital-wing/