Tracking Dark Money To The Supreme Court: How Transparent Are Donor Advised Funds?

Forbes

Dark money has arrived at the Supreme Court. Donors are increasingly pushing money into something called donor-advised funds, which operate like piggy banks for nonprofit giving. The funds then route that money to legally minded nonprofits, who help pay for lawyers, file briefs and–the donors surely hope–impact rulings.  Read the full story on Forbes: https://www.forbes.com/sites/alisondurkee/2024/06/27/how-dark-money-gets-to-the-supreme-court/  Subscribe to FORBES: https://www.youtube.com/user/Forbes?sub_confirmation=1  Fuel your success with Forbes. Gain unlimited access to premium journalism, including breaking news, groundbreaking in-depth reported stories, daily digests and more. Plus, members get a front-row seat at members-only events with leading thinkers and doers, access to premium video that can help you get ahead, an ad-light experience, early access to select products including NFT drops and more:  https://account.forbes.com/membership/?utm_source=youtube&utm_medium=display&utm_campaign=growth_non-sub_paid_subscribe_ytdescript  Stay Connected Forbes newsletters: https://newsletters.editorial.forbes.com Forbes on Facebook: http://fb.com/forbes Forbes Video on Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/forbes Forbes Video on Instagram: http://instagram.com/forbes More From Forbes:  http://forbes.com  Forbes covers the intersection of entrepreneurship, wealth, technology, business and lifestyle with a focus on people and success.

Transcript

00:00Today on Forbes, how dark money gets to the Supreme Court.

00:06You might feel like you're seeing a lot of Supreme Court decisions in the news lately.

00:10That's because the Court often announces a number of big decisions near the end of its

00:14term, usually in June.

00:17Chief Justice John Roberts made a courtroom announcement Friday that the Court's last

00:21rulings of this term will be issued Monday, including a major case that will decide whether

00:26former President Trump has immunity from prosecution.

00:31More now than ever before, so-called dark money has arrived at the Supreme Court.

00:37Donors are increasingly pushing money into something called donor-advised funds, which

00:41operate like piggy banks for non-profit giving.

00:44The funds then route that money to legally-minded non-profits, who help pay for lawyers, file

00:50briefs, and, the donors surely hope, impact rulings.

00:55Because individuals aren't giving directly to non-profits, instead moving their money

01:00through middlemen funds, the non-profits can hide the identities of the individual contributors,

01:06hence the name dark money.

01:09Tax filings from 2022, the most recent year available, show that donors sent more than

01:15$48 million through donor-advised funds to groups bringing major cases to the Supreme

01:20Court this term.

01:22That accounted for 44 percent of all money flowing to those groups, which in turn reported

01:27spending $26 million on litigation.

01:31Despite the lack of transparency, some names can slip out.

01:36Billionaire Hobby Lobby founder David Green, for instance, has confirmed donating to two

01:41major donor-advised fund providers, the National Christian Foundation and the Servant Foundation.

01:48Those two organizations sent $32 million in 2022 to Alliance Defending Freedom, a legal

01:54group behind the case that overturned Roe v. Wade and brought two cases seeking to restrict

01:59abortion this term.

02:01The amount that Green has given remains a mystery.

02:06Other lightning rods of the right, the Koch, Olin, DeVos, Searle, and Bradley families,

02:11have all been tied to DonorsTrust, another donor-advised fund provider that funnels money

02:17to conservative causes.

02:19One major beneficiary is the New Civil Liberties Alliance, a right-leaning group involved with

02:24cases on guns, social media platforms, and the federal bureaucracy.

02:30New Civil Liberties Alliance received 21 percent of its total $4.8 million budget from DonorsTrust

02:37in 2022.

02:39DonorsTrust CEO Lawson Bader says his group, quote, has no involvement directly or indirectly

02:45with any case before the U.S. Supreme Court.

02:49He stuck by his statement even after Forbes pointed out to him that groups like New Civil

02:53Liberties Alliance have received millions of dollars from people with a DonorsTrust

02:57account.

02:59Donor-advised funds are a growing trend in philanthropy, even for those not interested

03:03in pushing money into politics.

03:06One selling point is that donors can give to a fund in lump sums, take full tax deductions

03:11right away, then watch their money get doled out over an unlimited number of years.

03:17Billionaires Mark Zuckerberg, Elon Musk, Larry Page, and Paul Singer have all embraced making

03:22gifts to donor-advised funds, and people of more modest means can also use the funds.

03:28Fidelity, Charles Schwab, Vanguard, Morgan Stanley, and Goldman Sachs all have associated

03:35charities that offer donor-advised funds to members of the general public.

03:39Annual donations to donor-advised funds more than doubled from 2018 to $85.5 billion in

03:462022, according to the National Philanthropic Trust.

03:51That suggests that more and more money will keep flowing into the groups in the future,

03:56leaving less transparency into who is helping fund the country's most important court cases.

04:02For full coverage, check out Alison Durkee's piece on Forbes.com.

04:08This is Kieran Meadows from Forbes.

04:10Thanks for tuning in.

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