Following the Money and the Motives

Aug 17, 2026

THIS WEEK: For Whom Do You Work?

Nonprofits: We tend to think of them as benevolent organizations always working on behalf of the public good.

Over the years, American nonprofits have helped defeat polio, curb drunk driving, and build some of the country’s most awe-inspiring museums.

But nonprofit status tells us how an organization is structured and whether it is taxed—not whose interests it actually serves.

So how do we identify whether a nonprofit is really working for the public…or simply advancing the interests of its funders?

A new investigation by the Center for Media and Democracy offers one example.

The piece took a close look at the Freedom Foundation, a nonprofit that has spent millions trying to persuade public-sector employees to leave their unions. The group describes its work as fighting for individual “workers’ freedom.”

But CMD followed the money and found something more complex: a well-funded network of uber-rich donors who are deeply invested in defanging the power base of public workers, in some cases, by misleading them.

The investigative piece is a reminder that if you want to understand what a nonprofit is really trying to accomplish, you can’t just read its mission statement.

You have to unpack who’s behind the group and what its larger goals are.

Here are some ways to do that

Start with the money

This can be harder than it sounds. Nonprofits aren’t required to publicly disclose all of their donors, which means tax docs may tell you how much money an organization took in without telling you where that money came from.

So, work backwards.

Comb the tax filings of foundations and other nonprofits that give money away. Check annual reports, donor acknowledgments and photos of fundraisers and other gatherings. Often, you can find a grant in the funder’s records that you can’t find in the recipient’s.

CMD used this approach to trace millions of dollars flowing to the Freedom Foundation from conservative foundations and donor networks.

Namesakes

Finding the money isn’t the same as establishing motive. A donation tells you who helped pay for the work. It doesn’t tell you why.

Find out who founded the organization. Who sits on its board? Where did the people who now run the org work before? What other organizations are they connected to? See who promotes the group’s research, appears at its events or joins its campaigns. What looks like a stand-alone nonprofit may be one piece of a much larger network.

Mission Control

Mission statements tell you what an organization says it exists to do. Its actions tell you where it puts its time and money. What legislation does the org support? What regulations does it oppose? What lawsuits does it bring? What does it repeatedly fight for—and against?

Who benefits?

If this organization gets what it wants, who benefits? A company? An industry? A political movement? A major donor? The people the organization says it represents?

If the same interests fund an organization, populate its network and benefit repeatedly from the policies it promotes, reporters have something worth digging into.