Rockefeller Philanthropy Advisors, a left-leaning funding hub, received more than $50 million from federal agencies even as a former executive alleged serious compliance, accounting, and cybersecurity failures.
Unlike a traditional private foundation, RPA moves hundreds of millions of dollars both as a donor-advised-fund sponsor and as a fiscal sponsor for more than 100 projects, allowing donors to route money without revealing its ultimate source.
According to tax records, it has exchanged millions of dollars with other foundations in the Left’s ecosystem, such as the Tides network, the Open Society Foundations of Hungarian-American billionaire George Soros, and nonprofits previously associated with Arabella Advisors. Rockefeller Philanthropy Advisors has also funded abortion, immigration, and climate activist groups.
“As a donor advised fund, RPA takes in funding from sources it need not name and then either sends the money out as grants to left-leaning NGOs or creates fiscally sponsored projects to do some of the same work in-house,” Ken Braun, director of content at the Capital Research Center, told the Daily Signal.
Rockefeller Philanthropy Advisors’ Funding Network
According to its IRS filings, RPA directed more than $3.8 million to the abortion giant Planned Parenthood and its state affiliates between 2022 and 2024. It gave $1.7 million to the immigration group United We Dream in 2023. It gave more than $3.6 million to the American Civil Liberties Union and its affiliates between 2022 and 2024.
Rockefeller Philanthropy Advisors also directed millions to environmental groups, including $1.3 million to the Natural Resources Defense Council in 2023 and $1.5 million to the Environmental Defense Fund that same year.
“It is deeply ironic that the Rockefeller network, one of the most well known names in philanthropy, has descended into funding radical climate activism,” Caitlyn Sutherland, executive director of Americans for Public Trust, told the Daily Signal. “The Rockefeller fortune was made in oil, and is now being spent undermining American energy dominance.”
The foundation also exchanges money with other parts of the Left’s dark money network. Between 2022 and 2024, it directed more than $12.5 million to the Tides Center, $519,100 to the Tides Foundation, and $300,000 to Tides Advocacy. In 2024, the Tides Foundation gave Rockefeller Philanthropy Advisors $2.2 million.
During the same period, it directed millions to nonprofits formerly in the Arabella network: $6.5 million to New Venture Fund, $3.3 million to Hopewell Fund, and $185,000 to Windward Fund. New Venture Fund also sent RPA $1.8 million in 2024.
In 2024 alone, the Open Society Foundations gave Rockefeller Philanthropy Advisors $27 million over six grants. The largest grants supported the International Fund for Public Interest Media, which directs money to media outlets in the global South, and the Women’s Leadership Fund, a leadership development program for women.
Federal Funding
The House Judiciary Committee reported last year that RPA received more than $50 million in federal grants from the U.S. Agency for International Development and the State Department between 2021 and 2024.
One of RPA’s most prominent sponsored projects, the International Fund for Public Interest Media, received a $20 million USAID grant aimed at supporting media organizations in developing countries.
Meanwhile, multiple State Department grants through the U.S. Refugee Admissions Program aimed to help RPA and subgrantees assist refugees in the U.S.
With $706 million in reported revenue in 2024 and more than 100 sponsored projects, RPA operates at a scale comparable to some of the best-known nonprofit funding intermediaries on the Left. Yet unlike organizations such as Tides, RPA has largely escaped public scrutiny.
Turmoil at RPA
In February 2025, Rockefeller Philanthropy Advisors lost nearly one-third of its staff and struggled with a roughly $40 million deficit, Inside Philanthropy reported.
Hilary Castillo, who served as executive vice president, sued RPA for racial discrimination and retaliation, and she ultimately settled those claims out of court. Her allegations, untested and unproven in court, raise serious concerns.
Castillo’s complaint states that “within her first month” on the job, she “began identifying and reporting significant and legitimate concerns” regarding “gaps in financial management and accounting policies,” “cybersecurity risks,” and “failures relating to violations of government regulations.”
Castillo alleged that she found a “notice of a failed monitoring visit” from a State Department office. She also alleged that consultants flagged RPA’s use of “unvetted vendors” in India and Russia, and they found that “no one at RPA had credentials for RPA’s bank account” after the former chief financial officer left.
The lawsuit states the consultants brought the concerns to the Board of Directors. Valerie Rockefeller, the great-granddaughter of John D. Rockefeller and chairman of RPA’s board, was named as a defendant in the lawsuit.
Castillo also claimed that she told the board that RPA had violated government regulations in handling grants. Her complaints “particularly those that constituted violations of government regulations … were in part the reason for her administrative leave and ultimate termination,” the suit claims.
Castillo declined to comment for this story.
Separate from RPA, the broader Rockefeller philanthropic network includes organizations such as the Rockefeller Foundation, Rockefeller Brothers Fund, and Rockefeller Family Fund, though the entities are largely separate.
Rockefeller Philanthropy Advisors did not respond to the Daily Signal’s multiple requests for comment by publication time.
[Editor’s note: This story originally was published by The Daily Signal.]
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[ H/T WorldNetDaily ]
