For example, conservative American Future Fund has spent at least $9.8 million in the 2016 election cycle on political expenditures, according to reports filed with the Federal Election Commission. But unlike super PACs, dark money nonprofits like American Future Fund are not required to reveal donors.
A search using the Center for Public Integrity’s new tool shows the group received $300,000 from the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America in the tax year ending December 2010.
Search Patriot Majority USA, a Democratic dark money group, and find a $1 million donation from the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, a union representing government workers, for the tax year ending December 2012 and another $650,000 for the tax year ending December 2014.
“The tool reveals some of the funding sources of nonprofits active in politics and policy that were previously invisible,” said Chris Zubak-Skees, the news developer who created it. “Or the sources were visible, but you would have to sort through a million tax forms by hand to find those.”
The database does not contain grants from tax forms filed on paper. And it doesn’t yet include grants from private foundations or from some nonprofits which received less than $200,000 in a tax year. The Center for Public Integrity’s analysis included about a quarter of the 3.4 million forms filed over five years on which grants must be disclosed. The search is just one small step toward transparency for the billions of dollars nonprofits exchange.