John Mashey – Fakery 2: More Funny Finances, Free Of Tax – Desmogblog – 25/10/2012 – http://desmogblog.com/2012/10/23/fakery-2-more-funny-finances-free-tax
“3. Donors Trust (and Donors Capital Fund) have been studied in more detail. Robert Brulle found another Charles Koch fund, Knowledge and Progress, which seems to give money only to Donors. Added to the others he controls (Charles Koch and Claude Lambe), money can flow through three separate funds. Then some of it goes through Donors Trust and Donors Capital Fund, which anonymize it, as Whitney Ball actually writes the checks. Some “Kochtopus” tentacles are difficult to see.”
Steve Connor – Exclusive: Billionaires secretly fund attacks on climate science – The Independent, 24/01/2013 – http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/climate-change/exclusive-billionaires-secretly-fund-attacks-on-climate-science-8466312.html
“The Knowledge and Progress Fund, whose directors include Charles Koch and his wife Liz, gave $1.25m to Donors in 2007, a further $1.25m in 2008 and $2m in 2010. It does not appear to have given money to any other group and there is no mention of the fund on the websites of Koch Industries or the Charles Koch Foundation.”
Steve Connor – Exclusive: Billionaires secretly fund attacks on climate science – The Independent, 24/01/2013 – http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/climate-change/exclusive-billionaires-secretly-fund-attacks-on-climate-science-8466312.html
“However, an audit trail reveals that Donors is being indirectly supported by the American billionaire Foundation who, with his brother David, jointly owns a majority stake in Koch Industries, a large oil, gas and chemicals conglomerate based in Kansas. Millions of dollars has been paid to Donors through a third-party organisation, called the Knowledge and Progress Fund, with is operated by the Koch family but does not advertise its Koch connections … The Knowledge and Progress Fund, whose directors include Charles Koch and his wife Liz, gave $1.25m to Donors in 2007, a further $1.25m in 2008 and $2m in 2010. It does not appear to have given money to any other group and there is no mention of the fund on the websites of Koch Industries or the Charles Koch Foundation.”
EXPOSED: The State Policy Network – Center for Media and Democracy, 01/11/2013 – http://www.alecexposed.org/w/images/2/25/SPN_National_Report_FINAL.pdf
“The largest known funder behind SPN and its member think tanks are two closely related funds — Donors Trust and Donors Capital Fund. Exposed in Mother Jones as the “dark money ATM of the conservative movement,” [ref] the Donors groups are spin-offs of the Philanthropy Roundtable run by SPN board member Whitney L. Ball [ref]. They are what are called “donor-advised funds,” which means that the fund creates separate accounts for individual donors, and the donors then recommend disbursements from the accounts to different non-profits. It cloaks the identity of the original mystery donors or makes it impossible to connect donors with recipients because the funds are then distributed in the name of DT or DCF. For example, a relatively unknown Koch family foundation called the Knowledge and Progress Fund gave $4.5 million to Donors Trust between 2007 and 2010, but what organizations received that funding from Donors is unknown [ref].”
Robert J. Brulle (2014) – Institutionalizing delay: foundation funding and the creation of U.S. climate change counter-movement organizations – Climatic Change 122:681-694 doi:10.1007/s10584-013-1018-7 – Drexel University – http://www.drexel.edu/~/media/Files/now/pdfs/Institutionalizing Delay
“The rapid increase in the percentage of funding of the CCCM ]Climate CHange Countermovement] y Donors Trust/Capital and the decline in both Koch and ExxonMobil corresponds to the initiation of campaigns by the Union of Concerned Scientists and Greenpeace publicizing and criticizing both ExxonMobil and Koch Corporations as funders of climate denial. Although the correspondence is suggestive of an effort to conceal funding of the CCCM by these foundations, it is impossible to determine for certain whether or not ExxonMobil and the Koch Foundations continue to fund CCCM organizations via Donors Trust/Capital or direct corporate contributions. However, it is important to note that a Koch run foundation, the Knowledge and Progress Fund, initiated a pattern of making large grants to Donors Trust in 2008.”
Graham Readfearn – Major Climate Science Denial Groups Offer to Hide Fossil Fuel Funding, Greenpeace Investigation Finds – Desmogblog , 08/12/2015 – http://www.desmogblog.com/2015/12/08/leading-climate-science-denial-groups-offer-hide-fossil-fuel-funding-greenpeace-investigation-finds
“According to a report on the investigation at Greenpeace’s EnergyDesk website, Princeton’s Professor William Happer had revealed he had accepted cash from coal company Peabody Energy in return for providing testimony to US congress but had routed the cash through a climate denial group. Happer also offered his services but said that a new climate science denial group, CO2 Coalition, should be used to channel the funds. Groups including the Global Warming Policy Foundation and Donors Trust are also alleged to have been complicit in providing “peer review” services for fossil fuel clients and, in the case of Donors Trust, in providing an untraceable route for the fossil fuel payments. … A DeSmogBlog investigation into Donors Trust and its partner group Donors Capital Fund found that between 2005 and 2012, some $479 million of income to the two groups was untraceable. Of the amounts that were traceable, DeSmog found that $7.65 million had come from the Knowledge and Progress Fund (KPF). On the KPF board are oil billionaire and major Republican benefactor Charles Koch, his wife Liz and son Charles Chase Koch. Richard Fink, a Koch company director and long-standing aide to Charles Koch, is also a KPF director.”
