The leader of one of the country’s most influential right-leaning nonprofits said that he has cautioned White House officials against pursuing investigations of liberal philanthropic groups without clear evidence of legal wrongdoing.
Lawson Bader, the president and CEO of DonorsTrust, told The Free Press that the stream of retaliatory rhetoric since Charlie Kirk’s assassination “has the potential to weaponize philanthropy in a way that is antithetical to philanthropic freedom.” Anyone who threatens the nonprofit status of law-abiding organizations “narrows the important boundary between citizen and state,” Bader said.
Based in Alexandria, Virginia, DonorsTrust offers what are known as donor-advised funds tailored to conservative and libertarian-minded philanthropists who want to donate money anonymously and receive tax breaks. Democrats have used the phrase “dark money ATM” to describe DonorsTrust, which had over $1.2 billion in assets at the end of 2023 and paid out $351 million that year.
