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A major policy and legal debate has erupted regarding the extent to which tax-exempt groups may engage in or support actions that violate the law. A high-profile case study involves Greenpeace, which earlier this year was found civilly liable for a combined $667 million due to its conduct surrounding the 2016-2017 Dakota Access Pipeline protests.

While the verdict—if it stands—would be truly monumental, Greenpeace is far from the only nonprofit whose activities have arguably bumped up against legal lines during protests. Examining a sampling of such groups in the context of environmental activism reveals some important questions about the sort of activities the American people are currently incentivizing through federal tax-exemption.

Nonprofits and protests

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Importantly, “nonviolent” does not necessarily mean “legal,” and so-called “direct actions” and/or civil disobedience can violate the law without physically hurting anyone or damaging anything.
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The Capital Research Center has previously asked whether ordinary Americans would consider 501(c)(3) nonprofits that engage in extensive public protests on controversial sociopolitical issues to be genuinely “charitable” in the broad sense—equivalent to food pantries, disaster relief groups, colleges and universities, homeless shelters, think tanks, churches, youth-development programs, and similar organizations. Would taxpayers who are willing to extend the substantial benefits of tax exemption and donation deductibility to these more-or-less consensus charities be willing to do the same with groups that organize political issue protests?

Whatever the answer to that hypothetical question might be, protests—even controversial or offensive ones—are unquestionably protected under the First Amendment. That is, until they cross the line into illegality. Nonprofits of any stripe—charities or otherwise—that encourage, support, or engage in criminality warrant serious scrutiny and appropriate consequences. Importantly, “nonviolent” does not necessarily mean “legal,” and so-called “direct actions” and/or civil disobedience can violate the law without physically hurting anyone or damaging anything.

The basic legal contours are relatively straightforward, even if in practice their application can be murky and highly fact-dependent. The law firm Adler & Colvin, which specializes in nonprofit law (Gregory Colvin literally wrote the book on fiscal sponsorship), explains that “a charity cannot be organized or operated for an illegal purpose, or for the purpose of conducting illegal activity in furtherance of a lawful goal.” Illegal activity is defined as “any activity that itself violates the law, or that urges, promotes, or facilitates violation of the law.” Any “substantial” illegal conduct—as measured both qualitatively and quantitatively—could result in (among other things) revocation of tax-exempt status. According to the firm, funders are generally not held responsible for the illegal conduct of their grantees unless they earmarked the funds for such activities or otherwise directed or participated in them.

First Amendment law professor Eugene Volokh concurs, writing that while “the government can’t strip groups of nonprofit status based on their ideological viewpoints,” their “right to express viewpoints doesn’t extend to a right to violate valid laws (such as content-neutral time, place, and manner restrictions).” While even offensive speech is protected as a Constitutional matter, “trying to serve any cause, good or bad, through deliberately violating the law…can justify denying a tax exemption.”

The IRS itself addressed the issue a half-century ago in 1975, ruling that “a nonprofit organization formed to promote world peace and disarmament by nonviolent direct action and whose primary activity is the sponsoring of antiwar protest demonstrations in which demonstrators are urged to commit violations of local ordinances and breaches of public order does not qualify for exemption under section 501(c)(3) or (4) of the [Internal Revenue Code].” The group which prompted that ruling reportedly encouraged civil disobedience, including demonstrations designed to “deliberately block vehicular or pedestrian traffic, disrupt the work of government, and prevent the movement of supplies” in violation of local laws.

The Greenpeace lawsuit

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James B. Meigs called the verdict “the first major success in exposing and penalizing the putatively legitimate nonprofits that funnel money and material support to the lawbreakers embedding themselves in these hybrid protests” . . . 
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Of course, there can be other consequences besides the loss of tax-exempt status for nonprofits that engage in illegal or otherwise wrongful conduct. One of these is civil liability. An ongoing case study for this involves Greenpeace, and its actions surrounding the Dakota Access Pipeline protests from 2016-2017. The pipeline was then being built by Energy Transfer Partners, and its route took it close to (but not across) the Standing Rock Sioux Reservation and underneath a nearby body of water. A large protest occupation of the site developed, with the objective being to block the pipeline’s construction. It ultimately involved thousands of people and numerous organizations, including Greenpeace. Some demonstrators engaged in violence and property destruction, and hundreds were ultimately arrested. Dozens were later convicted of various offenses, including serious felonies.

In 2019, Energy Transfer sued Greenpeace in state court for its role in the Dakota Access Pipeline protests, and earlier this year a North Dakota jury found the 501(c)(4) nonprofit Greenpeace, its affiliated 501(c)(3) Greenpeace Fund, and the Netherlands-based Greenpeace International liable for a combined $667 million. The Manhattan Institute’s James B. Meigs —a term he uses to describe the relatively common situation in which peaceful protesters are mixed up in the same demonstration with riotous lawbreakers. Meigs predicted that the award would “send shock waves through the loose networks of nonprofit groups that support disruptive protests around the nation.” As of October 2025, final judgment in the case has not yet been issued and Greenpeace has vowed to appeal.

Greenpeace was found liable for (among other things) trespass, defamation, conversion, and tortious interference with business. The facts as alleged, and evidently accepted by the jury, are remarkable. Energy Transfer’s amended complaint detailed what it called “violent attacks against Plaintiffs’ employees and property, soliciting money for and providing funding to support these illegal attacks, inciting protests to disrupt construction, and a vast, malicious publicity campaign against Energy Transfer and Dakota Access.” A resource published by the state of North Dakota and quoted in the complaint described the “brutality…committed by violent protesters who use[d] improvised explosive devices to attack police, use[d] hacked information to threaten officers and their families, and use[d] weapons to kill livestock, harming farmers and ranchers.”

According to Meigs, evidence at trial showed that Greenpeace had spent as much as $20,000 to send training personnel to the protest camps, and that its executive director “personally raised another $90,000 for the effort.” The group also provided a variety of materials, including so-called “lockboxes” allowing demonstrators to affix themselves to construction equipment or one another. A post on Greenpeace’s website explained that its staffers helped “run daily non-violent direct action training,” in addition to “a handful of technical blockades trainings, offered for people who were looking to escalate their tactics in a peaceful way.”

The complaint also alleged that Greenpeace provided “direct action training” to members of the Red Warrior Camp, which it characterized as “an informal organization of the most violent, most radical anti [Dakota Access Pipeline] activists in North Dakota and across the country.” Indeed, a “communique” released by Red Warrior Camp during the protests justified its “direct action” by claiming that “without the Warriors who locked down and took measures to put a stop to the work on [the pipeline], the black blood would already be flowing under the Missouri river.” The group boasted that its members eat “rubber bullets for breakfast,” and that some were “facing felony charges [and] lasting bodily harm” for their actions. Another statement from the group declared that “Red Warrior Camp came together in Standing Rock as dedicated and trained individuals committed to nonviolent direct actions and civil disobedience.”

During the protests, Greenpeace hosted a nationwide multi-city supply drive to support the Red Warrior Camp.

Supporters of Greenpeace

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Accordingly, it can be concluded that the signatories considered the conduct detailed above, for which a jury ultimately found Greenpeace liable, to be “legitimate.”
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While the saga of the Greenpeace lawsuit continues to unfold through the appeals process and separate European litigation, the allegations in Energy Transfer’s complaint have been public for years. Since this time, Greenpeace has continued to receive substantial philanthropic support. In 2023, the 501(c)(4) Greenpeace reported $40.2 million in total revenue. Its largest donor that year by far was the affiliated 501(c)(3) Greenpeace Fund, which gave it $13.1 million. Another $3.85 million came from Greenpeace International. The Greenpeace Fund in turn reported $22 million in total 2023 revenues. Major donors to the Greenpeace Fund that year included Schmidt Family Foundation ($1.7 million), the David and Lucile Packard Foundation ($1.45 million), Rockefeller Philanthropy Advisors ($679,500), the Foundation for the Carolinas ($500,000), and the Arcus Foundation ($323,017).

Many groups also publicly came out in support of Greenpeace and its actions, as evidenced by an open letter of support signed by more than 400 groups and “hundreds of thousands of individuals,” including public figures such as Alec Baldwin, Billie Eilish, Jane Fonda, Susan Sarandon, James Cromwell, and Shailene Woodley. Curiously believing that “if enough of us speak out, we can stop this abusive lawsuit,” the letter declared formal “solidarity with Greenpeace against Energy Transfer’s meritless $300 million lawsuit,” which it called “a blatant attempt to silence legitimate work to protect people and our planet.”

Accordingly, it can be concluded that the signatories considered the conduct detailed above, for which a jury ultimately found Greenpeace liable, to be “legitimate.”

At least 219 of the letter’s signatories are groups that evidently operate within the tax-exempt 501(c) nonprofit sector in some capacity—whether as a standalone nonprofit, a fiscally-sponsored project, or through some other arrangement. IRS Form 990 financial returns from 2023 could be located for 142 of these groups—though in two cases these were not available and 2022/2024 financials were substituted. The combined total revenues of those nonprofits in that year were an astonishing $1.57 billion. This is excluding the University of Arizona, whose presence on the list of signatories was eyebrow-raising enough to warrant skepticism as to whether this truly represented an official institutional position.

The three largest U.S. nonprofit signatories by revenue were all major left-wing 501(c)(5) labor unions: the Service Employees International Union (SEIU), the United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW), and the American Federation of Teachers (AFT). Other large signatories organized as 501(c)(3) charities included Amnesty International USA (2023 revenue: $63 million), Global Citizen (2023 revenue: $60.5 million), the Union of Concerned Scientists (2023 revenue: $41.7 million), and the Center for Biological Diversity (2023 revenue: $34.5 million). At least four projects of the Tides Center or the affiliated Tides Advocacy signed, as did four different projects of the Earth Island Institute.

In addition to their public support for Greenpeace, some of the letter’s signatories promote, support, and/or engage in disruptive direct action protests themselves. It is worth examining a sampling of these groups (and others) to illustrate the sort of activities that are currently being undertaken with tax-exempt—and in many cases charitable—dollars. It is also worth asking whether they might be running afoul of IRS restrictions on illegal conduct by nonprofits and/or engaging in prohibited political campaign intervention.

Honor the Earth

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[Two Bulls] wrote at the time that “militant direct action” should be “the organizing strategy, not just a tool in the toolbox”—describing such tactics as a way “to build real movements, change power dynamics, shift societies and even remove governments.”
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One of the more notable charitable signatories of the Greenpeace letter—given its own connections to the Dakota Access Pipeline protests—was Honor the Earth. Believing that “so-called ‘Israel’” and “the so-called ‘United States’” exist as “violent settler-colonial regimes, rooted in racist supremacist systems, that enact programs of extermination and land theft,” Honor the Earth’s purpose is to further a “political movement of Indigenous Peoples reclaiming sovereignty over homelands from colonial states.” It also evidently serves as fiscal sponsor by accepting tax-deductible donations on behalf of the virulently pro-terrorism Palestinian Youth Movement, a group which the Anti-Defamation League says has “co-sponsored at least 450 anti-Israel rallies in the United States,” including illegal demonstrations which have resulted in arrests.

Honor the Earth was deeply involved in supporting the 2016-2017 pipeline protests, including the extremist Red Warrior Camp. According to its 2016 annual report, multiple Honor the Earth staffers were present at the protests “until the bitter end,” supporting “the logistics, frontlines, direct action teams, and the legal teams.” The group’s then-national programs director Tara Houska was described in a Sierra Club interview as “leading logistics and legal support for Red Warrior Camp.” Houska was arrested at the protests, and years later lamented how “direct actions are often relegated to the fringe” of protest movements, and that “too often folks stick solely to marching and sign-making, as if we lack a diversity of tactics to fight injustice.” Houska has since founded a group called the Giniw Collective, which also signed the Greenpeace letter.

Honor the Earth’s current executive director is Krystal Two Bulls, who replaced longtime head Winona LaDuke in 2023 after the group was found liable in a $750,000 sexual harassment lawsuit brought by a former employee. Years earlier (before joining Honor the Earth), Two Bulls had been active in the Dakota Access Pipeline protests, and featured prominently as a co-defendant in Energy Transfer’s lawsuit against Greenpeace. In an article she co-authored during those protests, Two Bulls is described as “a leader and media coordinator at the Red Warrior Camp.” She wrote at the time that “militant direct action” should be “the organizing strategy, not just a tool in the toolbox”—describing such tactics as a way “to build real movements, change power dynamics, shift societies and even remove governments.”

Honor the Earth operates as a 501(c)(3) charity, and reported $3.6 million total revenue in its fiscal year 2024. This was down from $6.2 million the year before. Its recent major funders have included the Freedom Together Foundation ($1 million from 2022-2023), Rockefeller Philanthropy Advisors ($400,000 in 2022), the New Venture Fund ($400,000 from 2022-2023), Donor Advised Charitable Giving ($371,065 from 2022-2024), the Fidelity Investments Charitable Gift Fund ($336,943 from 2022-2023), the Schmidt Family Foundation ($300,000 from 2022-2023), and the Erol Foundation US ($300,000 from 2022-2023).

Direct Action Everywhere

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Direct Action Everywhere views civil disobedience as a way “to force a debate” through “shutting down the normal functioning of society,” and multiple activists have been charged with crimes for their actions.
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A Greenpeace letter signatory which is openly involved in illegal activities that it believes are morally justified is Direct Action Everywhere. The nonprofit conducts so-called “open rescues” of livestock, whereby activists simply walk on to commercial farms and walk off with stolen animals. Direct Action Everywhere justifies its lawbreaking by arguing that the animals in question were sick or otherwise in distress, and that it took action to save them. Ultimately, the group’s goal is “to establish a legal right to rescue animals from distress and exploitation.” Direct Action Everywhere is a 501(c)(3) charity, although by its own admission it “is not a traditional nonprofit” and engages in “bold action to create revolutionary social and political change for animals in one generation.” In 2023, it reported $894,401 in total revenue.

Direct Action Everywhere In 2023, the group’s co-founder and former president Wayne Hsiung was convicted on felony trespass charges and sentenced to 90 days in jail and probation for two separate instances in which activists illegally entered a chicken and duck farm, respectively, to remove animals. In the process, they reportedly “chained themselves to various fixtures,” caused property damage, and “effectively shut down the farm operations for hours.” Another Direct Action Everywhere activist facing felony and misdemeanor charges for her alleged illegal conduct wrote that, “I will not apologize for my actions. I will not hang my head in shame. I refuse to accept that helping a few baby birds makes me a criminal.”

Direct Action Everywhere’s website directs prospective donors to contribute to a second affiliated 501(c)(3) called Friends of DxE, which in turn makes grants to Direct Action Everywhere and a handful of other similar groups. In 2023, Friends of DxE reported $5.1 million in net assets and $1.7 million in total revenue. Recent institutional funding for both Direct Action Everywhere and Friends of DxE has come largely from donor-advised funds such as the American Online Giving Foundation and the Fidelity Investments Charitable Gift Fund. Most notably, the Vanguard Charitable Endowment Program sent a combined $2,596,900 to the two groups from 2023-2024, making it by far their most important single identifiable source of funding.

Community Movement Builders

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Community Movement Builders posted a message reading “destruction of property is not violence. The pigs killing a protester is violent. The pigs pointing guns in bouncy houses is violent. The pigs mass arresting people is violent. The pigs threatening to shoot people is violent.”
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Another signatory in defense of Greenpeace was Community Movement Builders, a 501(c)(3) charity that reported more than $2.9 million total revenue in 2023. Believing that “bourgeois representative democracy has failed to represent and execute the true will of the people,” Community Movement Builders seeks to create territorial “liberated zones” evidently to be organized around some form of racial communism, in which “Black/Afrikan people in Black/Afrikan communities collectively control where, how and with whom resources are invested in our communities.”

Indeed, Community Movement’s objective appears to be nothing less than a global revolution along such lines: it wants to “destroy” what it calls “the white supremacist power structures that control the land, economic, political and social institutions worldwide,” and replace them with “an Afrikan and Indigenous centered approach that reflects the cultural, political and economic practices that produce and sustain Black/Afrikan liberation.” Along the way, it wants free universal healthcare, a right to housing, police abolition, and more. Membership inquiries on the Community Movement Builders website begin with a threshold question asking about the applicant’s race, and direct the respondent to two different applications depending on the answer given.

Community Movement Builders is headquartered in Metro Atlanta, and it was one of the primary nonprofits behind the Stop Cop City protests, which opposed construction of the Atlanta Public Safety Training Center for police and firefighters. The group’s website claims that it was “the leading Black organization on the ground fighting to StopCopCity since its construction was announced,” and that it encouraged demonstrators to engage in “creative civil disobedience.” Before one November 2023 confrontation, in which police were forced to deploy tear gas and flash-bang grenades, Community Movement Builders founder and national director Kamau Franklin reportedly told protesters that they had a duty to engage in civil disobedience. In declaring its own “solidarity with the activists” and pledging to provide “resources and support to communities on the ground who are fighting to ensure that Cop City will never be built,” the 501(c)(3) Center for Constitutional Rights identified Community Movement Builders as the group that was “spearheading the resistance.”

Protesters at Stop Cop City took actions ranging from civil disobedience and trespass to serious violence. Among other things, demonstrators were alleged to have caused extensive property damage and even to have physically attacked police and other first responders with Molotov cocktails, fireworks, and more. In early 2024, Atlanta’s deputy chief operating officer said that protesters had committed 23 separate acts of arson, damaging or destroying 81 items. All of this contributed to substantial cost overruns for the training center. Some protesters were charged under Georgia’s Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations (RICO) Act, although these charges were dismissed by a state judge in September 2025.

In one particularly violent incident occurring in March 2023, dozens of protesters dressed in black launched what the Atlanta Police Department called “a coordinated attack on construction equipment and police officers,” throwing “large rocks, bricks, Molotov cocktails, and fireworks at police officers” and destroying “multiple pieces of construction equipment by fire and vandalism.” Days later, The pigs killing a protester is violent. The pigs pointing guns in bouncy houses is violent. The pigs mass arresting people is violent. The pigs threatening to shoot people is violent.”

Community Movement Builders also may have engaged in impermissible political campaign intervention in connection with its Stop Cop City activities. An essay co-authored by Franklin claimed that in 2021 members of the group engaged in “targeted online and canvassing” efforts against then-Atlanta City Council member Joyce Sheperd, who was up for reelection. It described Sheperd’s subsequent defeat as “a small but mighty victory for CMB and the Stop Cop City movement.” This statement appears very difficult to square with laws strictly prohibiting 501(c)(3) charities such as Community Movement Builders from “directly or indirectly participating in, or intervening in, any political campaign on behalf of (or in opposition to) any candidate for elective public office.”

Despite its far-left radicalism, Community Movement Builders has received substantial funding from across the mainstream left-of-center philanthropic sector. Since 2022, the Waverly Street Foundation, funded by Laurene Powell Jobs, has given the group at least $1 million earmarked for a project called the Earthseed Farm and Permaculture Center. Another $915,000 came from ImpactAssets, and $626,500 from the Vanguard Charitable Endowment. The Schmidt Family Foundation and the Windward Fund each gave $360,000 from 2022-2023, while the Amalgamated Charitable Foundation gave $224,500 and Borealis Philanthropy gave $215,000. Other notable funders have included the Tides Foundation, the Marguerite Casey Foundation, the Surdna Foundation, and the New Venture Fund.

Extinction Rebellion and the Climate Emergency Fund

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. . . approximately 2,000 people have been prosecuted for Extinction Rebellion actions since 2019.
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Two national chapters (Belgium and the Czech Republic) of the Extinction Rebellion movement also signed the Greenpeace open letter. Known for both its extreme climate catastrophizing and its disruptive direct action protest methods, members of Extinction Rebellion have engaged in civil disobedience worldwide. Protests were particularly widespread in the United Kingdom, and London’s Metropolitan Police reported making over 3,000 Extinction Rebellion-related arrests in 2019 alone, with hundreds more in subsequent years. According to the group’s United Kingdom branch, which announced in December 2022 that it had made “a controversial resolution to temporarily shift away from public disruption as a primary tactic,” approximately 2,000 people have been prosecuted for Extinction Rebellion actions since 2019.

Extinction Rebellion is a global movement, and in the United States it consists of a loose network of local groups—none of which signed their name to the Greenpeace letter—under a broad national umbrella called Extinction Rebellion US. There is also a separate organization called Extinction Rebellion America, which reportedly split from Extinction Rebellion US over a dispute about whether to prioritize considerations of race/ethnicity alongside its environmental activism.

The mission of Extinction Rebellion US is to produce “national, coordinated economic and government disruption on an unprecedented scale that lasts indefinitely, until the government feels forced to concede to the four [Extinction Rebellion US] demands” for far-left social-environmental public policy. Indeed, the group believes that the entire environmental movement must prepare for a “national, coordinated rebellion that targets the government and [the energy] industry as a whole.” Extinction Rebellion US believes that this sort of “sustained resistance” will eventually force the government to “concede or collapse under the pressure.”

The local Extinction Rebellion DC chapter notably participated in the 2019 Shut Down DC disruptions, during which activists systematically , reportedly leading to over 30 arrests. In addition to repeatedly obstructing roadways, Extinction Rebellion activists in the United States have been arrested for stunts such as climbing on buildings, blocking trains, breaching airport security, and vandalism.

None of this is especially shocking: radical activists can generally be expected to take radical actions. Ordinary Americans might find it much more surprising that at least some Extinction Rebellion groups operate (or claim to operate) with charitable tax-exempt status, with donors able to claim a federal tax deduction for their contributions. A fundraiser for Extinction Rebellion US claims that all donations are tax-deductible, though it provides no further information.

The Extinction Rebellion Boston chapter is fiscally sponsored by a 501(c)(3) charity called the Climate Direct Action Education Fund, which was formed in 2024 and received tax-exempt status from the IRS in 2025. Extinction Rebellion NYC and Extinction Rebellion San Francisco Bay Area are both fiscally sponsored by the 501(c)(3) Oil and Gas Action Network, a Greenpeace letter signatory which had 2023 total revenues of more than $1.8 million. Extinction Rebellion America operates as an independent nonprofit through a 501(c)(4) called XR Actions, which has regularly reported annual revenues of less than $50,000. Extinction Rebellion DC has its own 501(c)(3) tax-exempt status, reporting $42,866 in 2023 revenues.

The donation page on Extinction Rebellion DC’s website explains that “we hate capitalism too, and we wish it weren’t the case, but we need money to keep protesting.” It assures donors that contributions will allow the group to “continue to take radical disruptive action on the climate crisis.” Institutional nonprofit funders which have made grants to Extinction Rebellion DC include the Rockefeller Family Fund ($25,000 in 2020), the American Online Giving Foundation ($13,261 from 2023-2024), and the Fidelity Investments Charitable Gift Fund ($10,000 in 2023).

A major funder of United States-based Extinction Rebellion charities is a 501(c)(3) grantmaker called the Climate Emergency Fund. From 2019 through 2022, it made at least $831,024 worth of grants that were specifically earmarked for “Extinction Rebellion” or “XR” (a common abbreviation). Much of this money was evidently routed through an Arizona-based charity called the National Institute for Peer Support. Separately, in 2022 the Fund provided more than $1 million in seed funding for Just Stop Oil, the group responsible for throwing soup on a Vincent van Gogh painting, vandalizing Stonehenge with orange paint, and numerous other illegal acts that have resulted in more than 3,000 arrests. The Climate Emergency Fund also spent $200,000 on what it called “hyper-targeted protests” against former U.S. Senator Joe Manchin (D-WV), in addition to funding groups engaged in blocking roads, airports, and more.

Indeed, the Climate Emergency Fund claims to have funded “the groups responsible for almost all of the bold, disruptive protests in the United States and Europe that have garnered international media attention.” Its internal grantmaking policy is to “only fund groups that engage in or directly support disruptive tactics,” and most of this money directly pays organizers. In addition to attracting media attention, the Fund believes that disruptive protests “can inflict a tangible cost on climate villains for their crimes in the form of lost profits, or on political leaders for their inaction in the form of damaged reputation.” It

A truly astonishing case statement published by the Fund declares that “for groups of organized people seeking to exert power, nonviolent disruptive protest is the most efficient and most effective approach.” In the Fund’s view, “the costs imposed by disruption allow protesters to directly exert hard power in a way that no other tactic can, making their actions impossible to ignore.” It also claims that such protests “are very effective at securing election outcomes aligned with the interests of protesters.”

But the Climate Emergency Fund is a 501(c)(3) charity which is strictly prohibited from “directly or indirectly participating in, or intervening in, any political campaign on behalf of (or in opposition to) any candidate for elective public office.” Why is it concerned with producing specific election outcomes?

Perhaps recognizing its proximity to legal lines, the Climate Emergency Fund claims that its “robust legal team” ensures that its activities are supposedly compliant with 501(c)(3) restrictions, and it advertises itself as a tax-deductible “safe harbor for donors who want to fund disruptive activism.” Despite intentionally funding groups that openly break the law and approvingly posting their conduct on its own website, the Fund asserts that its money is only used “to support legal activities.”

In 2023 the Climate Emergency Fund made $3.6 million worth of grants, after having made $5 million in 2022. It has received significant support from Los Angeles-based private foundation called the McKay Family Foundation, which is funded and run by Hollywood director and producer Adam McKay (who personally signed the Greenpeace letter) and his wife Shira Piven. From 2022-2024, the foundation gave $4,595,000 to the Climate Emergency Fund, accounting for 85 percent of its total grantmaking over those years. McKay now sits on the Fund’s board of directors.

Other significant funders of the Climate Emergency Fund since 2022 have included the Kaplen Brothers Fund ($800,000 from 2022-2024), the Eutopia Foundation ($664,117 from 2022-2023), Onward Together ($500,000 from 2022-2023), and the Aileen Getty Foundation ($475,000 in 2022). Aileen Getty, heiress to the Getty family oil fortune, was the Climate Emergency Fund’s “founding donor” and a former member of its board.

Sunrise Movement

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Illegal actions undertaken by the group, such as blocking highways and interrupting Congressional proceedings, have resulted in numerous arrests.
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A noteworthy direct action protest group which somewhat surprisingly did not sign the Greenpeace letter is the Sunrise Movement. Officially, it consists of the 501(c)(4) Sunrise Movement and the 501(c)(3) Sunrise Movement Education Fund. There is also the Sunrise PAC political action committee. In 2023, the Sunrise Movement reported $2.46 million in total revenue, while the Sunrise Movement Education Fund reported just under $5 million.

Founded in 2017 and closely associated with proposals to enact an eco-socialist Green New Deal, the Sunrise Movement has quickly become one of the most well-known “direct action” climate groups in the country. In addition to rapid and total economic decarbonization, the Sunrise Movement also demands the abolition of police, domestic reparations for slavery and so-called “climate reparations” globally, a dramatic expansion of the federal welfare state, and direct government interventions in the economy at a scale that will supposedly create “millions of good paying union jobs.”

The Sunrise Movement’s “theory of change” is that thousands of protesters must “take to the streets and disrupt business as usual until we force the change we need.” Illegal actions undertaken by the group, such as Sunrise’s actions have targeted politicians from both parties whom the group views as insufficiently aggressive in pursuing far-left climate policy.

In 2018, more than fifty protesters were arrested for occupying Rep. Nancy Pelosi’s office during debates over the Green New Deal. Sunrise Movement activists have elsewhere been arrested for occupying former Rep. Kevin McCarthy’s office, the hallway outside then-Senator JD Vance’s office, then-president Joe Biden’s 2024 campaign headquarters, the street outside then-vice president Kamala Harris’s California home at least twice, a Donald Trump 2024 campaign office in Arizona, and more. In mid-2025, The Guardian reported that the Sunrise Movement was considering “using more disruptive nonviolent tactics than they have previously employed.”

Despite believing that philanthropy is “a tool to uphold capitalism and white supremacist culture,” and describing it as “an imperfect form of [wealth] redistribution” to be exploited until such time as billionaires cease to exist, Sunrise has received significant funding from left-of-center grantmakers. From 2022-2023, the 501(c)(4) Sunrise Movement received $500,000 from the Open Society Action Fund and $140,000 from 128 Collective Initiatives. In 2022, it received $150,000 each from the affiliated Sunrise Movement Education Fund, the Grove Action Fund, and the Way to Win Action Fund.

Since 2022, the Sunrise Movement Education Fund has received major grants from the Sequoia Climate Foundation ($2.25 million), the Freedom Together Foundation ($1.05 million), the Fidelity Investments Charitable Gift Fund ($533,836), the American Online Giving Foundation ($510,875), the Hewlett Foundation ($500,000), and the MacArthur Foundation ($500,000). The relatively unknown Cabin Road Foundation gave the Sunrise Movement Education Fund a full $10 million from 2020-2021, plus an additional $10 million to the Greenpeace Fund.

Tax-exempt consequences

Consequences should generally follow any substantial nonprofit deviations into illegality. Depending on the factual circumstances, this could take the form of civil liability (as with Greenpeace, if the verdict stands), criminal prosecutions, and/or the revocation of tax-exempt status. The American people incentivize nonprofits—especially 501(c)(3) charities—through favorable tax treatment, because the activities of such groups are seen as broadly beneficial to society. To the extent a given nonprofit is engaged in or directly supports actions that violate the law, this public policy bargain collapses.

In the context of protests, First Amendment considerations will always rightly loom large. That said, the First Amendment does not cover illegal acts such as vandalism and blocking traffic—to say nothing of more serious crimes. As the UCLA police department cautions: “civil disobedience is not protected speech under the Constitution. The Constitution does not guarantee any right to engage in civil disobedience—which, by its very definition, involves the violation of laws or regulations—without incurring consequences.” In appropriate cases, those consequences should include the loss of tax-exempt status.

Tags:  Arcus Foundation, Climate Emergency Fund, Community Movement Builders, David and Lucile Packard Foundation, Direct Action Everywhere, Extinction Rebellion, Foundation for the Carolinas, Greenpeace, Honor the Earth, Rockefeller Philanthropy Advisors, Schmidt Family Foundation, Sunrise Movement