A little-known network, funded by the Rockefellers, former Google CEO Eric Schmidt, and top foundations, is behind a disruptive climate activist group that is drawing the attention of law enforcement, according to tax records.
Over the last year, an organization known as Climate Defiance has propelled itself into the national spotlight by deploying activists to blockade the Energy Department’s office in Washington, D.C., force a Democratic senator off the stage at her book launch event, and even storm the field during an annual baseball game featuring members of Congress. For these stunts, along with others, Climate Defiance activists have been arrested for the stated purpose of pressuring Democratic lawmakers to oppose the oil and gas industry.
Now, newly filed financial disclosures revealed how Climate Defiance, which aims to “make support for any fossil fuels as unacceptable on the Left as opposing abortion or gay marriage,” keeps its lights on. More than half of Climate Defiance’s revenue of $543,000 in 2023 for its advocacy group came from a hub called the Oil and Gas Action Network.
The generous supporter, which fundraises “to end the era of fossil fuels,” receives significant funding from Rockefeller Philanthropy Advisors, the Rockefeller Family Fund, and the Schmidt Family Foundation — as well as checks by way of grantmakers such as the Tides Foundation and the charity of Ben & Jerry’s ice cream.
The donations to the Oil and Gas Action Network, which top $3.9 million, illustrate how top foundations have broadened their missions beyond the typical scope of charitable giving to prop up unconventional activism, said Thomas Pyle, president of the Institute for Energy Research.
“It’s one thing to protest, but it’s another to start crossing over into breaking the law and trespassing,” Pyle said. “The organizations that fund these efforts should be heavily scrutinized, and the IRS ought to consider stripping their tax-exempt status, or, at least, review it.
The donations are also a window into how activist hubs cosplay as grassroots while quietly relying on larger and more influential backers for resources. As the billionaire-funded Oil and Gas Action Network transferred funds to Climate Defiance, the group has called to “abolish” billionaires.
“We CAN win, but only by rightfully blaming the billionaire class who treats humanity as their servants and the planet as their personal garbage dump,” Climate Defiance also said in November of last year.
‘We make fossil fuels toxic’
In 2023, Climate Defiance was incorporated as both a tax-exempt charity and under 501(c)(4) — a section of the IRS code for “social welfare” groups that may act more politically and engage in unlimited lobbying. On paper, the group is registered at an address in Jersey City, New Jersey.
The bulk of Climate Defiance’s activity, according to financial disclosures, appears to be routed through its advocacy arm. The 501(c)(4) raised and spent hundreds of thousands of dollars more than its charity did in 2023, the most recent fiscal year for which tax records are available.
That Climate Defiance streamlines much of its work through its 501(c)(4) places it at odds with some of its closest allies, including the Climate Emergency Fund, which is behind disruptive climate protests such as traffic blocking and the vandalizing of fine art and is registered as a public charity. On its website, the Climate Emergency Fund charity has described examples of Climate Defiance and the Oil and Gas Action Network working together, including to disrupt a speech by a Harvard Law School professor in June 2023.
Moreover, the fact that Climate Defiance’s advocacy arm counts its top donor as a public charity, to the tune of roughly $300,000, is a testament to both the politicization of charities and the increasingly intertwined nature of different types of tax-exempt groups, according to Parker Thayer, an investigative researcher at the conservative Capital Research Center think tank.
Along with Climate Defiance, the California-based Oil and Gas Action Network charity is a grantee of the Climate Emergency Fund, which is backed by billionaire philanthropist Aileen Getty, Succession star Jeremy Strong, Abigail Disney, and other Hollywood celebrities. Since 2019, the network has scored over a million dollars from the Schmidt Foundation, including for “encouraging a just transition away from fossil fuels,” and also a million dollars combined from the two Rockefeller-tied groups.
The Tides Foundation, which formed in 1976 and receives funding from Democratic megadonors such as George Soros and Bill Gates, chipped in $10,000 in 2023 to the Oil and Gas Action Network.
The billionaire-funded Borealis Philanthropy nonprofit group has given $120,000 to the network, which, according to its website, “trains, networks, and builds capacity that weaves together grassroots activists, frontline communities, social movements, and strategic projects to have outsized impact.”
“We make fossil fuels toxic: Not just their dirty fuels, but the industry itself,” the Oil and Gas Action Network says on its website. “We must challenge their social license, confront their greenwashing, and strip away their political power.”
Through donor-advised funds managed by PayPal, Fidelity Investments, and Goldman Sachs, the network has received hundreds of thousands of dollars since its formation, documents show.
Other funders include the U.S. Energy Foundation, an offshoot that recently launched in Beijing and shares close ties to China’s government, the Park Foundation, the James Irvine Foundation, and the Ben & Jerry’s Foundation — which gave a slim $1,000 for “general support” in 2023.
The Walter and Elise Haas Fund, a foundation created by the late Levi Strauss & Company CEO Walter A. Haas and his wife, Elise Stern Haas, cut a $5,000 check to the Oil and Gas Action Network during the most recent fiscal year, records show.
‘We are enraged and scared’
Meanwhile, tens of thousands of dollars also flooded into the anti-oil network from a pair of foundations tied to the wife of former Democratic senator Tim Wirth and Nancy Susan Reynolds — the late daughter of R. J. Reynolds Tobacco Company founder Richard Reynolds.
“It is unusual for a 501(c)(3) like the Oil and Gas Action Network to be the largest donor to a 501(c)(4) that is as unorganized and outspokenly partisan as Climate Defiance Action,” said Thayer, the Capital Research Center employee. “It seems unlikely that the Oil and Gas Action Network is doing its due diligence to ensure that charitable funds are not being used for partisan activism.”
Climate Defiance, which did not respond to a request for comment, is now fundraising on its website through the Action Network, a software that has partnered in the past with the Democratic National Committee.
This past summer, Climate Defiance was one of the loudest voices among progressive groups calling on President Joe Biden to drop out of the 2024 race — blockading the entrance of the DNC to demand Biden pass the torch to Vice President Kamala Harris.
“Trump won. We are enraged and scared,” Climate Defiance said in a Facebook post in November following Harris’s loss to President-elect Donald Trump.
One month later, in December, 13 Climate Defiance activists were arrested outside the Energy Department’s headquarters for blockading the entrance, Climate Defiance leader Michael Greenberg announced.
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Greenberg, who is based in Washington, D.C., was pleased with the outcome.
“We shut down business as usual at the Department of Energy!” he reportedly said at the time. “We disrupted an agency of over 10,000 people, and you can bet that this protest got noticed as high up as the Secretary of Energy herself!”