Like other top members of the Trump administration, Vice President JD Vance has vowed to “go after” left-of-center grantmaking organizations in the wake of Charlie Kirk’s assassination. One such organization cited by Vance, the Ford Foundation, has funded protests and other activities that have at times turned violent.
While hosting a memorial episode of the Charlie Kirk Show on September 14, Vance stressed that there is “no unity” with organizations celebrating Kirk’s death. He specifically singled out the Soros family’s Open Society Foundations and the Ford Foundation as abusing their tax-exempt status.
Vance’s criticism was related to a piece run in The Nation, which has received funding from the Ford Foundation, in which the author argued Kirk was not worthy of mourning due to what the author described as his preaching of “hate, bigotry, and division.” The author incorrectly attributed a quote to Kirk to portray him as a racist, a fact with which the vice president took particular umbrage.
While Vance’s critique of the Ford Foundation’s tax-exempt status was limited to its support of The Nation during his podcast appearance, other administration officials have provided clues as to how the government will conduct its scrutiny of liberal philanthropies.
White House Deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller told reporters on September 15 that the vice president believes the administration should crack down on entities found to be funding violent protests and riots. Miller has also noted that nonprofit groups that “foment” political violence are in his crosshairs.
The Ford Foundation has indeed provided considerable funding to organizations responsible for behavior akin to what Miller has described.
Color of Change, for instance, is a black activist organization that has received nearly $20 million in funding from the Ford Foundation since 2017, nonprofit records show. While Color of Change has been involved in a number of protest movements in recent years, its role as an organizer in the “Stop Cop City” demonstrations may be of the most interest to administration officials.
The Stop Cop City demonstrations span from 2021 to the present, with left-wing activists seeking to block the construction of a new police training facility in Atlanta. Protesters affiliated with the movement have engaged in vandalism, destruction of property, illegal occupations of city land, and violent clashes with law enforcement. One protester, Manuel Teran, even shot an officer in the leg, prompting officers to shoot him dead. Twenty-three demonstrators involved with the protest movement were hit with domestic terrorism charges in March 2023 after dozens of rioters attacked the police training facility with rocks and firebombs.
Color of Change is proud of its role in this movement, openly touting its affiliation and support on its website. The nonprofit group, for example, distributed a multitude of petitions alongside Defend the Atlanta Forest, the organization with which many of the violent Stop Cop City demonstrators are affiliated, to pressure the mayor into canceling the public safety project and to rally support for the violent riots opposing it. When signing on to these petitions, activists are asked to provide their contact information so that they can be called on for “action opportunities,” meaning that Color of Change can mobilize them for protests like those opposing the police training center.
The nonprofit group has also pushed for protesters charged with domestic terrorism to have their charges dropped and has raised money for their legal defense.
Color of Change has, in its messaging, endorsed the illegal tactics of the Stop Cop City protesters. Among other things, it has praised the protester who shot at police officers, endorsed illegal encampments on city land, and claimed that those arrested by police were forced into jail on “trumped-up charges” and were simply “exercising their right to protest.”
The attitude of Color of Change toward political violence and illegal protesting tactics is not unique among Ford Foundation grantees.
The Center for Popular Democracy, which has received $30.4 million in Ford Foundation funding, has been involved in several demonstrations that could anger Miller and the administration.
In early 2024, the Center for Popular Democracy organized a protest outside the Heritage Foundation’s DC headquarters to oppose the think tank’s Project 2025 administrative road map. Attendees of the event yelled threats at conservative staffers.
“We need to go find out where they live, where they go to church, who they hang around with, and bird dog they asses,” one activist, who was given the podium to speak before the entire gathering, said. His statement was met with cheers.
“We have to embarrass them; that is a tactic,” the activists chanted in unison. “Find out where they live. Find out where their office is!”
Center for Popular Democracy also has a proclivity for organizing protests that have resulted in hundreds of arrests, including mass occupations of the Capitol grounds, blocking streets, storming Republican Senate offices on multiple occasions, and rallies outside corporate headquarters where law enforcement detained demonstrators on charges of disorderly conduct, resisting arrest, and attempted assault.
People’s Action Institute, which has received roughly $14 million from the Ford Foundation since 2017, has organized similar protests involving imposing roadblocks.
Of course, the Ford Foundation was only one of the two organizations named explicitly by Vance. President Donald Trump is actively considering invoking the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act against George Soros and his son Alex for their philanthropic activities.
“Protesters get paid for their profession from Soros and other people,” Trump said on Fox and Friends. “And we’re going to look into Soros, because I think it’s a RICO case against him and other people. Because this is more than, like, protests. This is real agitation.”
Protests orchestrated by groups funded by the Open Society Foundations have included the, at times violent, pro-Palestinian university encampments and the “No Kings” protests, where law enforcement arrested dozens of demonstrators. The nonprofit organization also previously provided financial support to an Israeli-designated terrorist organization and a U.S.-based nonprofit group that has long served as the U.S. parent organization for an organization that the Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control designated as “an international fundraiser for the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine terrorist organization.”
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The riots following the death of George Floyd in 2020 were a watershed moment for many on the Right in terms of how they viewed the propensity of some on the Left to engage in political violence. Such unrest saw over $1 billion in property destroyed, over 2,000 police officers injured, 19 people killed, and well over 10,000 people arrested.
UnidosUS, a Ford Foundation grantee to the tune of $13 million since 2017, was involved in organizing demonstrations following the death of Floyd.
The Ford Foundation, Color of Change, Center for Popular Democracy, UnidosUS, and White House did not respond to requests for comment.