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Over the past few months, Tides Foundation and Tides Center have been the subjects of a growing number of misleading news articles, opinion pieces and viral emails flying across the internet. Most of these concern the relationship between Tides Foundation, Tides Center, and the Heinz Endowments. More to the point, the majority of these attacks focus on how that relationship reflects on Teresa Heinz Kerry, who chairs the Howard Heinz Endowment, sits on the board of the Vira I. Heinz Endowment and is married to presidential nominee Senator John Kerry.
These reports have included a few correct facts, a few almost-correct facts, a good deal of false innuendo and several flat out false statements.
These reports generally confuse Tides Foundation—a grantmaking institution—with Tides Center—a separate nonprofit that provides administrative services such as payroll, insurance, human resources and fiscal sponsorship to more than 200 groups across the country. These reports gravely mis-characterize the relationship between the Heinz Endowments and Tides Foundation and Tides Center. And they confuse, baselessly attack or completely invent groups that we support.
This document contains information regarding:
We also strongly encourage those interested in the facts on these issues to visit the Heinz Endowments website. The News section of www.heinz.org contains highly detailed responses to many of the false and misleading accusations leveled at that organization.
Tides Foundation, Tides Center and Tides Center (PA) have been accused of using grants from the Heinz Endowments to fund a long list of groups that have no connection whatsoever to the Heinz Endowments. There have also been completely false claims regarding the influence of the Heinz Endowments over the grantmaking and programmatic work of Tides Foundation and Tides Center.
Many of the recent stories about Tides organizations and the Heinz Endowments include false claims of "laundering" or moving "fungible money" through Tides. Many of these claims originated in an opinion column written by a researcher for the conservative, Washington, D.C.-based Capital Research Center. The crux of CRC's argument is that money directed by the Heinz Endowments to Tides is "fungible." In other words, by supporting projects through Tides, CRC alleged that Heinz has secretly funneled money to every other organization that has ever received funding or services through Tides Foundation or Tides Center.
This is entirely false.
The grants to Tides Foundation—the last being six years ago—were used for specific environmental organizations. Likewise, all monies granted from Heinz Endowments to Tides Center have been explicitly directed to specific projects in Pennsylvania and are governed by legally binding contracts. These monies cannot be redirected. These monies are the exact opposite of "fungible."
Information about every single Tides-related grant from the Heinz Endowments has always been readily available in Heinz public filings, annual reports and on their web site. Additionally, current 990 forms for Tides Foundation and Tides Center have always been available on our websites and on Guidestar. A complete listing of all Tides Foundation grants has also been made available ever since the launch of the website at www.tidesfoundation.org. Our most recent list of grantees can be seen here.
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As a by-product of the misinformation about our relationship with the Heinz Endowments, Tides Foundation and Tides Center have come under attack for the grantees and projects we support.
For the record, all of our grantee and projects are always available on our respective websites:
Tides Foundation
Tides Foundation made more than $50 million in grants to more than 6,000 nonprofit organizations working for positive social change in 2003. We have granted more than $400 million to tens of thousands of such vital organizations since 1976. The Foundation works with individual and institutional donors committed to a society based on fairness, equal justice and equally shared economic opportunities. We strongly promote an engaged and active democratic process and environmental sustainability.
The vast majority of grantmaking at Tides Foundation is through donor advised funds, the same financial vehicle administered in precisely the same way as those at Fidelity Charitable Gift Fund and similar programs operated by Schwab, Vanguard, and more than 600 community foundations across the country. Tides works under the rigors of fund accounting, restricted grants, and annual audits, ensuring that all monies released by Tides are properly distributed and accounted for.
Tides Center
Tides Center is the nation's leading fiscal sponsor for charitable initiatives. Tides Center provides administrative and financial infrastructure services to more than 200 groups across the country. The nation's foremost foundations and grantmaking institutions—including the federal government—use these services to support a broad array of nonprofit programs.
These services enable organizations to dedicate their energy to their programmatic work. Each Tides Center projects raises funds for their individual program activities, with these funds being separately accounted for and administered. Tides Center takes a fee for the infrastructure services and then disperses the funds for the specific projects for which they were granted. Tides Center is a nonprofit organization that sustains itself on this fee-for-service model. In other words, we do not accept grants for general operation.
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Several groups have been mentioned repeatedly in various reports and emails regarding Tides Foundation and Tides Center. Below is information about these groups and their relationship to Tides Foundation or Tides Center.
Contrary to many rumors and false reports, no monies from The Heinz Endowments went to these groups through any Tides organization in any way.
International Action Center
There have been many reports claiming that Tides Foundation or Tides Center have supported Ramsey Clark's International Action Center. We have made no grants to this organization nor can we find any association with it in our records.
The Democratic Justice Fund
Many articles and emails have mentioned that Tides Foundation supported the Democratic Justice Fund. We not only supported this fund—we created it.
Immediately following the horrible attacks of September 11, 2001, Tides Foundation established the Tides 9/11 Fund as a "rapid response" complement to the outpouring of contributions surrounding the aftermath of the attacks. This fund was designed to meet a specific niche needs—namely to provide immediate relief to underserved communities, to address the sharp increase in anti-immigrant sentiment and to protect civil rights and civil liberties. (Tides Foundation directed many of our donors to sister organizations—such as the New York Community Trust's September 11th Fund—for direct assistance contributions.)
Tides Foundation and our partners quickly saw a clear need for a sustained philanthropic effort to address these critical issues, and therefore developed the Democratic Justice Fund to continue this funding.
The Democratic Justice Fund did not seek to ease restrictions from "terrorist" states as many reports have claimed. Tides Foundation does not condone nor support violence of any kind.
Council on American Islamic Relations
There have been many hateful claims about Tides Foundation and the Council on Islamic Relations (CAIR). As part of the Tides 9/11 Fund, Tides Foundation made a onetime $5,000 grant to CAIR. The grant was specifically for CAIR's Interfaith Coalition Against Hate Crimes project in 2002. Based in Southern California the project was established to promote peaceful coexistence between Muslims and non-Muslims and decrease hate crimes against Muslims.
CAIR has explicitly stated that they have no ties whatsoever to any violent or discriminatory organizations. For more information please visit their website at www.cair-net.org.
National Lawyers Guild
Tides Foundation has made grants totaling approximately $30,000 over the last ten years to support the National Lawyers Guild, one of the oldest and most respected civil rights organizations in the country.
The National Lawyers Guild goals are to eliminate racism; safeguard and strengthen the rights of workers, women, farmers, and minority groups; and maintain and protect our civil rights and liberties. For more information, please visit www.nlg.org.
Iraq Peace Fund and the Peace Strategies Fund
Months before the launch of the war against Iraq, Tides Foundation publicly opposed the war and strongly supported the peace and justice movement—the largest international movement for peace in the history of the planet. Through the Iraq Peace Fund and the Peace Strategies Fund, Tides Foundation supported dozens of organizations that were working toward a just and peaceful resolution to the growing international conflict.
The Ruckus Society
Tides Foundation has granted more than $150,000 to the Ruckus Society over the last five years. The Ruckus Society—who have been wrongly characterized as "anarchists"—have in fact trained and assisted thousands of activists in the use of nonviolent direct action. Ruckus promotes and teaches strategic nonviolent direct action against unjust institutions and policies, respect for all living things and a commitment to the power of diversity.
The organization was formed in 1995, sparked by a pro-logging bill that was signed into law by President Bill Clinton in the spring of 1995 and catalyzed a well-organized response from environmental activists. For more information, please visit them at www.ruckus.org.
Barrio Warriors
Barrio Warriors received $7,000 in grants from Tides Foundation over the last three years. They have been called "a radical Hispanic group whose primary goal is to return all of Arizona, California, New Mexico and Texas to Mexico."
Barrio Warriors was in fact formed in 1992 by the director of the Gang Rescue and Support Project (GRASP). The program works with indigenous and Chicano young people who are caught in the cycle of gang violence, helping them turn their lives around for the positive. The Barrio Warriors are committed to working towards cultural awareness and self-identity through self-determination. They feel that one of the best ways to educate Barrio youth is through teaching the indigenous ways and by developing their writing, analytical and organizing skills. In addition to publishing youth writing and sponsoring events, the Barrio Warriors hold regular community discussions on Barrio unity, cultural pride and issues confronting Barrio youth such as police brutality, drugs, and community violence.
September 11th Families for Peaceful Tomorrows
It has been specifically alleged that Tides Foundation and Tides Center redirected funds from The Heinz Endowments to a Tides Center project called September 11th Families for Peaceful Tomorrows.
This is completely untrue. No monies from The Heinz Endowments went to support this group in any way, as the media has suggested.
Tides Foundation made four grants in 2002 and 2003 to Peaceful Tomorrows for a combined total of $34,665. The group recently gained national attention when they held a news conference criticizing the use of images from September 11th in political advertisements. They have asked that such images not be used by candidates of any party and that candidates of all parties vigorously discuss issues of terrorism and domestic security. For more information please visit www.peacefultomorrows.org.
Planned Parenthood, NARAL
Tides organizations have a long and continuing commitment to supporting reproductive freedom. Tides Foundation has in fact recently launched a new Reproductive Justice Fund, working to continue broadening the reproductive justice movement. For more information, please visit us at www.tidesfoundation.org.
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The above grantees and projects that have garnered so much ill-informed attention as of late represent literally a fraction of the activities at Tides Foundation and Tides Center.
From community clinics to civil rights organizations, from grasslands preservation activists to Native American youth programs, from economic justice coalitions to faith-based advocates for the homeless, Tides Foundation and Tides Center have supported an enormous breadth of organizations domestically and internationally for nearly 30 years.
All of our work is driven by our vision of a healthy society—a society based on principles of social justice, broadly shared economic opportunity, a robust democratic process and sustainable environmental practices. We are very grateful to those who support our work. We are proud of this work and will continue to work with and fund organizations and projects that help to make a positive contribution to our society.
If you disagree with our work and our values, we respect that. And if you want to let us know you disagree with our values, we respect that as well. Tides Center and Tides Foundation have been strong supporters of the freedom of expression over the years and firmly believe that all voices should be heard—as long as those voices are not intentionally spreading false and misleading information.
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