The Rockefeller Brothers Fund, a $1.4 billion U.S.-based charity with funding from the Rockefeller family and other donors, has forged a "dangerous partnership with Communist China" and is pouring millions of dollars into China-based nonprofits that are advancing the Chinese Communist Party's foreign policy goals.
That's one of the findings in a new report, "The Rockefeller Network: How the Rockefeller Family Turned Their Oil Fortune into Extreme Climate Activism," out today from Americans for Public Trust, a nonprofit, nonpartisan investigative watchdog organization. The report, an advance copy of which was obtained exclusively by the Washington Free Beacon, outlines how the billion-dollar fortune of Standard Oil founder John D. Rockefeller Sr., who died in 1937, is being used "to quietly bankroll numerous radical and leftist projects."
While political spending by far-left billionaires and networks has attracted attention, the role of nonprofit organizations such as the Rockefeller network has been less extensively scrutinized, even though it is influential. If people think of Rockefeller charity at all, they might recall John D. Rockefeller Sr.'s role in founding the University of Chicago, where the Rockefeller Chapel is a campus landmark, or Abby Aldrich Rockefeller's role in founding New York City's Museum of Modern Art, where the central sculpture garden is named after her. Today's Rockefeller charities have taken a dramatic turn in a different direction, the new report says.
"The Rockefeller name used to be a symbol of philanthropy, but they have transformed into a tool of the far left," said the executive director of Americans for Public Trust, Caitlin Sutherland. "Between bankrolling China-based organizations connected to the Chinese Communist Party, including those driving the Belt and Road Initiative, and their climate activism and alarmism targeting the American energy sector, the Rockefeller Network is showing their true colors. It is long overdue for the Rockefeller Network to be exposed for the dangerous policies they are advocating for in America and around the world."
The section of the report devoted to China notes that "according to its own tax filings," the Rockefeller Brothers Fund "funneled nearly $32 million to China-based nonprofits."
"An alarming amount—well into the millions—has found its way directly into the coffers of entities that are either official vestiges of the Chinese government, or directly and irrefutably administered by the CCP and its representatives," the report says. "And many of these entities, while operating under the guise of 'green' and environmental research, are, instead, using these funds to help buttress China's foreign influence programs around the globe, especially the CCP's infamous 'Belt and Road Initiative.'"
Among the grants singled out in the report as most problematic:
— $400,000 between 2020 and 2024 to the Foreign Environment Cooperation Center, "a division of the Chinese government's Ministry of Ecology and Environment."
— Nearly $1.5 million to the China Council for International Cooperation on Environment and Development, whose "direct ties to the Chinese government are undeniable."
— Nearly $200,000 to Tsinghua University, which announced in 2024 that the school's office of the president had merged with the Chinese Communist Party to "form a new Party Committee Office that would run the school."
In a section titled "Why RBF's Grants to China are so Alarming and Dangerous," the report notes that even innocuous-seeming grants in China are troubling because the entire nonprofit sector is entangled with the Chinese Communist Party. "China completely controls its nonprofit ecosystem, and utilizes it to exert influence on, intimidate, and even attack its opponents, both foreign and domestic," the report says. "As such, it is, in essence, currently impossible for nonprofit organizations—or 'social organizations' as they are generally known in China—to engage in any type of independent policy research, education, or advocacy without the purview and permission of the state."
The Rockefeller Brothers Fund didn't immediately reply to an email seeking comment on its China activities.
The Rockefeller family and its charities have been somewhat open about communicating their shift in priorities. The charities are required to file annual tax returns that are open to the public. In 2014 two family members, Valerie Rockefeller Wayne and Steven Rockefeller, announced to the New York Times that they would divest the Rockefeller Brothers Fund from fossil fuels. Valerie joined two other fifth-generation Rockefellers, Daniel Growald and Peter Gill Case, in a 2020 publicity campaign to get banks to stop financing fossil fuel companies. The campaign targeted JPMorgan Chase; a predecessor, Chase Manhattan Bank, was led by David Rockefeller.
The report by Americans for Public Trust mines the tax returns, social media, and online records to unearth details about not only the Rockefeller Brothers Fund but about other branches of what the report describes as a "network." The other entities—the Rockefeller Foundation, with an endowment of more than $5 billion; the Rockefeller Family Fund; and Rockefeller Philanthropy Advisors—are "distinct legal organizations," but "have all ditched their philanthropic roots in pursuit of climate activism, lobbying, bankrolling left-wing agendas, and working with Communist China," the report says.
Among other highlights of the report:
— Rockefeller Foundation CEO Rajiv Shah, whose 2024 compensation was more than $1.7 million, has "been criticized for being one of the highest paid CEOs among big foundations." The foundation promised an investigation of its past history funding the pseudoscience of eugenics, but never publicly released any such study.
— Despite announcing a divestment in 2014, "as of December 31, 2025—over 10 years after … RBF amazingly still remains extensively invested in fossil fuels."
— "Despite their hefty endowment," the Rockefeller Brothers Fund "still relies on private donations—both from liberal philanthropists and foreign sources." Major domestic donors include the Soros family's Open Society Foundations, as well as the Ford Foundation and the William & Flora Hewlett Foundation. Foreign donors include entities based in China, Egypt, Singapore, Canada, and Switzerland.
— Rockefeller Brothers Fund "has also been accused of funding anti-Israel causes" via grantees that back boycotts of Israel and organize anti-Israel protests on college campuses.
— The Rockefeller Family Fund's largest grant in 2024 was nearly $10 million to "States Newsroom," a "hub of left-leaning online 'newspapers,' which give the appearance of being local or regionally based news outlets" but whose articles "more closely resemble propaganda pushing one political ideology than a traditional, independent, and trusted news source."
— Another big Rockefeller investment has been in litigation. "In 2024, Miranda Kaiser, a fifth-generation Rockefeller and the president of the Rockefeller Family Fund" said the fund was backing "more than 30 lawsuits around the U.S. against the fossil fuel industry." The suits are brought by state and local governments and by nonprofits that are Rockefeller grantees, and feature research and documents generated by other Rockefeller grantees.
"While we can never truly know what John D. Rockefeller would think of his endowment being used to fund activism instead of charity—and to attack the very American enterprise, industry, and entrepreneurialism that allowed for its creation—this report is the first step to shining a light on these inner workings," the study says.
