New research from the National Committee of Responsive Philanthropy explores the increased investment of regressive private and public foundations in recent years.
All figures in this reporting have been converted to 2025 dollars*
Over the past decade, we have seen the fruition of a well-financed 60-year campaign to roll back major movement-won advances made on racial, gender and economic justice. NCRP researchers took a deeper look at the investments from funders who advocated for policies and resourced organizations which undermine our democracy and basic human rights. Across our Regressive Philanthropy Initiative focus areas, NCRP researchers examined the year-over-year funding to grantees and compared it to funding contributions to movements focused on sustaining the democratic society we all want. According to the most recent data, progressive funders are still outspending regressive funders. However, the investment over time from regressive funders is far outpacing their counterparts. This is happening at an especially alarming rate, as regressive funders accelerate their efforts while other progressive funders cower in self-censorship.
Anti-LGBTQ+ organizations funding increases, while funding for LGBTQ+ communities decline
NCRP researchers compared our regressive funders dataset with the latest Tracking Report published by Funders for LGBTQ Issues. This annual report has noted a decline in U.S. foundation grantmaking to LGBTQ+ communities in recent years, falling 22% from 2022 to 2023.
Looking at the average total funding from the latest three years of our data, regressive funders on average funded $223 million annually to organizations focused on limiting rights to LGBTQ+ communities. According to the tracking report, in these same years, average funding to LGBTQ+ communities was $229 million per year. While our progressive allies remain slightly ahead of regressive funders, it is increasingly only marginal.
Even adjusted for inflation, funding for anti-LGBTQ organizations has increased significantly since 2010, escalating drastically in 2016. According to data from Funders for LGBTQ Issues, total funding for LGBTQ communities has continued to decline year-over-year since a peak in 2021.
Regressive funders work to change policy and public opinion in their anti-immigrant campaign
NCRP researchers have spent the last several years documenting the pro-immigrant and refugee movement, (PIRM) ecosystem. PIRM grants data, includes organizations across a spectrum, from core movement groups to multi-issue groups offering direct services to immigrant and refugee communities. This movement ecosystem reached an all-time funding high in 2018 with $428,964,490 in grants. NCRP’s dataset of anti-immigrant organizations is much smaller, with only 46 organizations. However, in this dataset there are only two organizations whose primary focus is to deliver direct services; the rest work to lobby, litigate, shift public opinion and influence state and federal anti-immigration policies. While pro-immigration and refugee funding has begun to revert to 2016 levels, opposition funding has risen, jumping 98% from 2019 to 2020.
It is important to note alongside these estimates of foundation support for anti-LGBTQ+ and anti-immigrant organizations that their work is complimented on a massive scale by Fox News’ anti-LGBTQ+ and anti-immigrant narrative work. Fox News is on track to sell over $1 billion in ads in 2025, and the network regularly out-rates all other news networks.
Progressive funders can’t let up the gas on multi-year support for democracy organizations
Doing deep engagement work in democracy has always been difficult in the United States, but the growing opposition to progress in our federal and state legislatures continues to threaten grassroots organizations engaged in this work. Legislative trackers suggest that thousands of pieces of democracy legislation from both parties get introduced every year. Only about 10% of these bills pass. Much of this largely goes unnoticed by the public, but American democracy is feeling those slow and subtle shifts of power now.
Using the most recent available data from the year following a presidential election, the Democracy Fund projects that pro-democracy support increased from $2.5 billion in 2017 to $3.2 billion in 2021.These projections are higher than regressive funding for anti-democracy organizations in those same years ($336 million for anti-democracy organizations in 2017 and $813 million in 2021). However, all funders that care about protecting a diverse civil society and basic human rights should notice that between 2017 and 2021 post-election years, anti-democracy regressive funding almost tripled. Based on all our annual data of anti-democracy funding, NCRP researchers predict this rise in funding will only continue once 2025 data is available.
If progressive funders do not stay ahead of coordinated anti-democracy funding, they risk ceding even more ground in the years ahead. Operating from a defensive position is a losing strategy to protect democracy organizations.
Research Manager for Special Projects and current Connecting Leaders Fellow at ABFE, Katherine Ponce engages in both qualitative and quantitative research projects to advance NCRP’s mission.
Before NCRP, Katherine’s passion to strengthen the involvement of community in philanthropy grew during her time at the Sillerman Center for the Advancement of Philanthropy. Here she analyzed data trends for the center’s publications and outreach to uplift field partners focused on participatory grantmaking.
Katherine earned a dual degree, an MBA in Social Impact and MS in Global Health Policy and Management, in 2021 from the Heller School at Brandeis University, and a BA in 2015 from Towson University.
Infographic Sources:
Graph: Year-over-year investments in and against LGBTQ rights
The National Committee for Responsive Philanthropy. (2025, April 16). The Regressive Philanthropy Initiative. https://ncrp.org/the-regressive-philanthropy-initiative/
Tracking report from Funders for LGBTQ issues, 2025
LGBTQ Rights Milestones Fast Facts. (2015, June 19). CNN. https://www.cnn.com/us/lgbt-rights-milestones-fast-facts
Graph: Year-over-year investments in and against immigrant rights.
The National Committee for Responsive Philanthropy. (2025, April 16). The Regressive Philanthropy Initiative. https://ncrp.org/the-regressive-philanthropy-initiative/
NCRP PIRM data 2011-2020
Andrade, M. M., & Serrano, Dr. R. (2024). A New Wave of Hate [League of United Latin American Citizens]. LULAC. https://lulac.org/a_new_wave_of_hate/
Graph: Year-over-year investments in and against democracy
The National Committee for Responsive Philanthropy. (2025, April 16). The Regressive Philanthropy Initiative. https://ncrp.org/the-regressive-philanthropy-initiative/
Griffin, R., Lobeck, C., Botero, M., Cooper, S., Diggles, M., McKay, C., & Steffen, E. (n.d.). The State of Pro-Democracy Institutional Philanthropy. https://democracyfund.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/01/Field-in-Focus-3.pdf
Brennan Center for Justice at NYU Law. (2017, May 10). Voting Laws Roundup 2017 | Brennan Center for Justice. https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/research-reports/voting-laws-roundup-2017
Movement Advancement Project | Diverging Democracy: The Battle Over Key State Election Laws Since 2020. (n.d.). Retrieved October 21, 2025, from esearch.org/democracy-maps/2024-election-trends-report”/democracy-maps/2024-election-trends-report
