One of the largest left-of-center grant makers in the nation recently disclosed that it has been retaining lobbyists since April to represent its interests on nonprofit-related matters. This lobbying contract may have contributed to the demise of a widely covered Republican provision in the One Big Beautiful Bill Act.
Congressional records show that the Tides Network retained the Raben Group beginning on April 9 to lobby on “issues related to intermediary organizations.” Intermediary organizations, in nonprofit parlance, are entities that direct funding and provide administrative support services to other aligned organizations, which is one of the primary functions of Tides. Through its work as an intermediary, Tides funded a wide range of controversial pro-Palestinian protests and organizations that, in some cases, involved illegal activity and support for Hamas. Such protests spurred congressional Republicans to introduce language to the One Big Beautiful Bill Act that would have empowered the treasury secretary to go after the tax-exempt status of organizations deemed to support terrorism.
However, that provision failed to make it into the legislation that was ultimately signed by President Donald Trump on July 4, following backlash from nonprofit groups. It is unclear how much money Tides spent lobbying between retaining the Raben Group in April and the bill’s passage. However, Tides is a financial juggernaut. Across its multiple arms, it controls well over a billion dollars in assets as of its most recent tax filings..
“The Left’s catastrophizing about the so-called ‘nonprofit killer’ bill is very much overdone,” Parker Thayer, an investigative researcher at Capital Research Center, told the Washington Examiner. “Even left-leaning subject matter experts agree the provisions of the bill, in its many different forms over time, would have actually made nonprofits safer from supposed government overreach rather than allowing the arbitrary ‘killing’ of nonprofits as many, like Tides, claimed.”
A source close to the House Ways and Means Committee told the Washington Examiner that the committee is still focused on addressing nonprofits sympathetic to terrorism and stressed that, though their provision didn’t make it through the Senate, the IRS still has the power to revoke the tax-exempt status of organizations.
While several organizations were involved in bankrolling the protests that followed Hamas’s Oct. 7 terrorist attacks, Tides was one of their biggest patrons. The Tides Center, one branch of the broader Tides network, provided fiscal sponsorship services for the Adalah Justice Project, Palestine Legal, the Arab Resource and Organizing Center, and the Catalyst Project, an array of groups that both advanced pro-Hamas messaging and staged protests involving possibly illegal activities.
Many of these activities matched those targeted by Republican lawmakers. Indeed, Tides has faced explicit calls from conservative policymakers and right-of-center nonprofits to have its tax-exempt status stripped.
For instance, Adalah reposted a post calling Hamas terrorists “freedom fighters” and wrote a statement saying “Israeli colonizers believed they could indefinitely trap two million people in an open-air prison … no cage goes unchallenged” on the day of the attacks. Meanwhile, the Catalyst Project described the terrorist attacks as “a historic act of resistance” where “Palestinians in Gaza breached the apartheid wall that has imprisoned them for over 16 years.”
Additionally, AROC, another organization fiscally sponsored by Tides, partnered with Samidoun Seattle, a chapter of an organization that has been sanctioned by the United States and Canada for financing terrorists, to block road access to the port of Tacoma, Washington, to prevent workers from boarding a cargo ship they believed to be carrying weapons and equipment to Israel.
Fiscal sponsorship is an arrangement where an established nonprofit, such as the Tides Center, processes tax-deductible donations for allied groups, such as AROC or Adalah, without those groups needing to register with the IRS. Fiscal sponsors also sometimes perform administrative functions for the groups they incubate.
Tides also directed hundreds of thousands of dollars in contributions to the Alliance for Global Justice, a left-wing grant maker that was dropped by numerous payment processors following the Washington Examiner‘s reporting on its terrorism links. If Not Now and Jewish Voice for Peace, two of the most prominent pro-Palestinian protest groups, are also bankrolled by Tides.
Tides has not filed termination paperwork for its lobbying contract with the Raben Group, and conservatives haven’t lost their appetite for reining in what they view as rogue nonprofits, setting the stage for possible future confrontations.
“Reining in nonprofits that are aiding and abetting any type of illegal activity, whether it’s terrorism, rioting, or illegal immigration, is an excellent idea and should be pursued through legislation,” Thayer told the Washington Examiner. “Large sections of the nonprofit sector, particularly on the Left, clearly think that their tax status is a license to do whatever they want.”
Indeed, the introduction of the One Big Beautiful Bill Act provision continued a previous unsuccessful effort by Rep. Claudia Tenney (R-NY), closely mirroring language in legislation she advanced during a prior congressional session that failed to pass the Senate.
CONGRESSIONAL COMMITTEE DEMANDS IRS REVOKE TAX-EXEMPT STATUS OF GROUP HOSTING TERRORIST FUNDRAISERS
The House Ways and Means source told the Washington Examiner they are “actively working with the IRS.”
Tides and the Raben Group did not respond to requests for comment.