The Alliance for Global Justice (AGJ), which serves as the fiscal sponsor for a group the U.S. government recently determined is an arm of a Palestinian terrorist organization, has received nearly $20 million from liberal American philanthropies since 2020.
Left-of-center nonprofits like the Soros family’s Open Society Foundations and charities with ties to the Democratic Party have poured millions into AGJ in recent years, according to a Daily Caller News Foundation analysis of tax documents. Samidoun, which AGJ fiscally sponsors, took charitable contributions from donors and routed them to the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), a U.S.-designated terrorist organization, the Treasury Department announced on Tuesday.
Fiscal sponsorship is an arrangement that allows an established nonprofit, such as AGJ, to process tax-deductible donations for another group that has not registered as a charity with the Internal Revenue Service, according to the American Bar Association. Under the most common form of fiscal sponsorship agreement, the sponsor and the organization being sponsored are considered to be the same legal entity, with the sponsor being responsible for conducting oversight on its projects.
Donations from left-of-center charities to AGJ fell into roughly three categories. Some nonprofits gave AGJ funds to support its general operations, many provided donations to support its work in a given issue area and others earmarked their contribution for a specific fiscally sponsored group housed by it. In any case, AGJ collects an 8% cut of all donations intended for its various projects.
A handful of the contributions to AGJ suggest that the cash may have gone directly to Samidoun. The Soros-funded Detention Watch Network, for instance, donated roughly $127,000 to the organization to fund its “anti-detention work,” tax documents show.
Samidoun bills itself as “working to build solidarity with Palestinian prisoners in their struggle for freedom,” which is a form of “anti-detention work.”
Canada went a step further than the United States and designated Samidoun as a terrorist organization. AGJ listed Samidoun on its now-deleted page of projects as of at least late 2023, according to an archive of the organization’s website.
Many of the organizations that financially supported AGJ, beyond having a left-of-center ideological bent, also have ties to major players in the Democratic Party.
Windward Fund and New Venture Fund, two arms of the Democratic-aligned dark money network managed by the consulting firm Arabella Advisors, gave roughly $1.5 million to AGJ for non-specific programs between 2020 and 2022, tax disclosures show. The Tides Center, a component of one of the largest liberal nonprofit networks by revenue, gave about $1.4 million to AGJ between 2020 and 2022. About half of Tides’ contributions to AGJ went to non-descript “human rights” projects with the remainder earmarked for the Louisville Community Bail Fund.
“As we have said before, we condemn terrorism and violence against civilians in all forms and do not support any projects or provide any grants to organizations that fund terrorism,” a New Venture Fund spokesperson told the DCNF. “While our previous grants to Alliance for Global Justice supported domestic energy work specifically, New Venture Fund has discontinued all grantmaking to any projects hosted by Alliance for Global Justice.”
Windward Fund provided a similar statement, saying that it “does not support terrorism in any form and strongly denounces any violence against civilians” and that it “no longer provides grants for organizations that are sponsored by the Alliance for Global Justice. ”
ActBlue Charities, a charitable donation processor maintained by the company behind the largest Democratic contribution processing platform, directed roughly $56,000 to AGJ in 2021, tax documents show. The Ben & Jerry’s Foundation, the charitable arm of the famously pro-Democratic ice cream brand, donated $55,000 to AGJ in 2022 for “general support.”
Prior to the Treasury Department flagging it as a terrorist front group, Samidoun had been scrutinized for its ties to the PFLP by watchdog groups and the Israeli government. The PFLP has ordered suicide bombings, hijacked planes and shot rockets at civilians, according to the U.S. Office of the Director of National Intelligence.
The PFLP “uses Samidoun to maintain fundraising operations in both Europe and North America,” the Treasury Department announced Tuesday. Watchdogs had previously reported that multiple Samidoun leaders maintained ties with the PFLP and one of the organization’s cofounders called Hamas’ Oct. 7 terrorist attacks in Israel “a brave and heroic operation.”
Charities linked to major Democratic donors George Krupp and Michael Moritz also funded AGJ, tax documents reveal. The Crankstart and Krupp Family foundations, the family foundations of Moritz and Krupp respectively, donated a combined total of over $200,000 to AGJ between 2020 and 2022. The Loud Hound Foundation, where Moritz serves as secretary and treasurer, donated an additional $25,000 to AGJ in 2020.
Open Society Foundations, founded by billionaire philanthropist George Soros and now led by Alex Soros, gave AGJ $250,000 in 2020 to help it “catalyze Black communities into the global movement for climate justice,” grant records show. Both George Soros and his son Alex Soros are major contributors to Democratic political committees, according to campaign finance records. Open Society Foundations gave a quarter million to the Al-Haq Human Rights Organization, an Israeli-designated terrorist group, in 2023.
“There is strict U.S. anti-terrorist legislation that determines which organizations a foundation like OSF can fund,” an Open Society Foundations spokesperson told the DCNF. “We devote a lot of effort to ensuring full compliance. None of our partners have ever been designated under U.S. law as supporting terrorism.”
The spokesperson clarified that its payments to AGJ were “completely unrelated to Israel and Palestine.”
Samidoun’s Seattle chapter, in conjunction with other pro-Palestinian activists, blockaded a key American port in Tacoma, Washington in November 2023 in an attempt to stop aid from reaching Israel.
At least one of the organizations funding AGJ even has financial links to the Biden-Harris administration. Social And Environmental Entrepreneurs, which gave $335,000 to AGJ for a “collaboration grant” in 2022, received $50 million from the Environmental Protection Agency in 2023 to “fund environmental justice projects.”
“Organizations like Samidoun masquerade as charitable actors that claim to provide humanitarian support to those in need, yet in reality divert funds for much-needed assistance to support terrorist groups,” Acting Under Secretary of the Treasury for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence Bradley T. Smith said. “The United States, together with Canada and our like-minded partners, will continue to disrupt those who seek to finance the PFLP, Hamas, and other terrorist organizations.”
As a result of Tuesday’s sanctions, all transactions between U.S. persons and Samidoun are prohibited.
Samidoun, AGJ, Detention Watch Network, Windward Fund, Arabella Advisors, ActBlue, the Ben & Jerry’s Foundation, the Tides Center, the Crankstart Foundation and the Krupp Family Foundation did not respond to the DCNF’s requests for comment.
Featured Image: Mohammed Ibrahim on Unsplash
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