This popular election resource is funded by far-right donors. Does it matter?

In American politics, there are few dark money vehicles as powerful or influential as DonorsTrust. Established in 1999 as a donor-advised fund, it allows right-wing millionaires and billionaires to quietly funnel millions into conservative and libertarian causes and collect tax breaks in the process. Critics often describe DonorsTrust and its sister organization, the Donors Capital Fund, as a “conservative dark money clearinghouse,” and while the group obscures its donors, it is transparent about its ideology: its own donor prospectus promises to help “advance limited government, personal responsibility, and free enterprise.”​

Wealthy benefactors can use DonorsTrust to back groups like Turning Point USA, the Heritage Foundation (a driving force behind Project 2025), or the Club for Growth Foundation without their names ever appearing in IRS filings. Since its founding, DonorsTrust and its affiliates have distributed more than $1.5 billion to conservative movement organizations.​

Last month, while reviewing DonorsTrust’s recent tax disclosures for another project, one grant recipient stood out to me: a relatively obscure nonprofit called the Lucy Burns Institute (LBI). Based in Middleton, Wisconsin, LBI owns and operates Ballotpedia, the popular online encyclopedia of politics and elections. For years, the site has been used by researchers, journalists, and regular voters alike to access information about elections and candidates up and down the ballot. Major tech companies like Google, Twitter, and Amazon have even partnered with Ballotpedia to distribute election-related information and content. To build credibility among these partners and audiences, Ballotpedia has always gone to great lengths to brand itself as “neutral,” “unbiased,” and “nonpartisan,” positioning its election data and candidate profiles as civic education for all Americans. But LBI’s funding history tells a much more complicated story.

According to public filings and grant records, the Lucy Burns Institute has received over $30 million in funding from DonorsTrust and affiliated Donors Capital Fund since 2013, and it received at least $3,905,800 from DonorsTrust in 2023 alone—placing it alongside notably ideological recipients such as the Federalist Society and the Alliance Defending Freedom. DonorsTrust isn’t the only right-wing donor group funding the Lucy Burns Institute, either. Ballotpedia’s contribution history reads like a who’s who of radical conservative donors and foundations: Just in 2023, the Sarah Scaife Foundation gave the organization $350,000, the Lynde And Harry Bradley Foundation gave $200,000, the Bradley Impact Fund gave $200,000, the Ed Uihlein Family Foundation gave $100,000, and the Searle Freedom Trust gave $75,000. The Koch Brothers’ Stand Together network of groups has provided significant funds to the site over the years, as has the conservative State Policy Network. Each of these funders regularly give substantial amounts to support right-wing causes and partisan media efforts, and are well known for their political motivations. 

Taken together, that means a majority of Ballotpedia’s annual budget is funded by conservative politically-interested donors. 

“These are all central funders of the right-wing that grant carefully and strategically,” says David Armiak, Research Director of the Center for Media & Democracy, which has tracked the Lucy Burns Institute for years. “If Ballotpedia offered no assistance to the movement, they would not be sending them tens of millions of dollars.”

LBI and Ballotpedia are heavily dependent on these types of major gifts—IRS Form 990s and annual reports show that roughly 65-70% of their yearly revenue typically comes from donations rather than ad sales or premium research subscriptions. That makes its major donor base enormously influential for the organization, even as Ballotpedia claims editorial independence.​

On its website or in its annual reports, Ballotpedia does not disclose its major donors. I asked the group why they aren’t transparent about their major donors or their political lean, and if they actively pitch or solicit support from right-wing donors. A spokesperson told me in a written statement, “We have thousands of supporters from across the country and ideological spectrum. We do not disclose the names of the individuals or organizations that choose to support our efforts. We believe our donors are best positioned to speak about their decision to support us and we do not issue statements on behalf of our donors or members of our board.”

Ballotpedia’s conservative movement ties don’t end at its bank account. The Lucy Burns Institute’s founder and president, Leslie Graves, has longstanding ties to conservative donors and advocacy, and her husband, Eric O’Keefe is a key figure in the Koch Brothers’ network, having served on the board of the Wisconsin Club for Growth. O’Keefe has been deeply involved in efforts to use opaque nonprofit structures to support Republican causes across the states, the same kind of activity bankrolled through vehicles like DonorsTrust. Other staff at Ballotpedia have longstanding ties to the conservative movement. The site’s Chief Operating Officer, Director of External Relations, and Managing Editor, among others, have worked for conservative policy and media organizations or Republican campaigns. 

On occasion, Ballotpedia has partnered with right-wing media operations, like when it once hosted a webinar with the Franklin Center. It has at times produced content with an almost out-of-place focus, such as an editorial emphasis on tracking “ESG” investing or school choice. “Ballotpedia tracked every court case challenging public health orders due to the pandemic to assist American Juris Link in its support of right-wing legal challenges to upend COVID-19 health restrictions,” Armiak told me. “Right-wing donors have heavily invested in Ballotpedia so it can be a resource for [their] other grantees.”

Beyond those examples, you’d be hard-pressed to find loads of partisan-tinged content on Ballotpedia that is explicitly beneficial to the conservative movement. 

This raises difficult questions about neutrality in the political information space. If a site as visible and widely cited as Ballotpedia relies on millions of dollars a year from ideologically aligned funders, can it truly exist outside the ecosystem of influence shaping modern conservative politics? What do Ballotpedia’s conservative supporters expect the site to publish or not publish in return for their donations?

The Ballotpedia spokesperson told me their work should be exclusively judged on the merits. “We believe that whether Ballotpedia is neutral or not is solely a matter of its actual editorial content, and we are firmly committed to this neutrality,” they said in a statement. 

For journalists, researchers, and voters who rely on Ballotpedia as a source of unbiased facts, that tension is worth confronting (or at least being aware of) not because its encyclopedia entries are transparently partisan, but because the financial architecture behind them isn’t.

We’re just two weeks away from Election Day 2025, and voters are heading to the polls across the country, from Virginia to New Jersey and California. One of the marquee races this year is the contest to succeed Governor Glenn Youngkin in Virginia. Here’s where that race stands between the two leading candidates, based on a trio of recent polls released over the past week:

Despite being instrumental in forcing Joe Biden out of the 2024 presidential race over his age, 85-year-old Speaker Emerita Nancy Pelosi has thus far appeared unwilling to apply the same logic to herself. While she has yet to say whether or not she’ll run again for reelection in 2026, a new report suggests that her time in Congress may be coming to an end. Either way, San Francisco is already moving on without her.

Rumors have long held that Pelosi would step aside when her daughter, Christine, was ready to run. But despite her mother’s clout, Christine has failed to build the local enthusiasm needed to clear the field for her annointing. Instead, a political vacuum is forming — one that two very different challengers are already racing to fill, with more expected to follow.

The first is Saikat Chakrabarti, a 39-year-old tech millionaire and former chief of staff to Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. He was a leading architect of AOC’s 2018 campaign, and having launched his own campaign for Congress, he’s positioning himself as the face of a new progressive cohort in 2026. Chakrabarti has already built an organizing operation and drawn sizable crowds across San Francisco, arguing that “the establishment has failed us.” Internal polling released by his campaign showed a majority of voters were ready for new congressional leadership.

Another is State Senator Scott Wiener, a powerful fixture in California politics who initially said he wouldn’t challenge Pelosi but is now moving forward anyway. The San Francisco Standard reported last week that Wiener is expected to formally launch his campaign today. (His team prematurely updated their backend website copy yesterday to “Wiener for Congress”). Wiener’s entrance, combined with Chakrabarti’s rise, is going to crack open a fight for the heart of San Francisco’s political machine.

Pelosi, for her part, has insisted she’s focused on supporting California’s November ballot measure, Proposition 50, and will make a decision on her political future later. Just this morning, a top Pelosi advisor told POLITICO that the former Speaker would make an announcement about her future after the November election. The same story reported that Pelosi has recently been “elevating” another potential candidate for her seat, Supervisor Connie Chan. 

If Pelosi does step aside, her departure would close one of the most consequential chapters in modern Democratic politics. But for San Francisco, the race to determine what comes next has already begun.  

I’ve been having a lot of fun writing Chaotic Era the past nine months, and I hope you’ve gotten some value out of reading the newsletter. Unlike Ballotpedia, this newsletter isn’t funded by major donor contributions or dark money billionaires - just straightforward advertising dollars and generous support from readers like you. And with the midterm elections on the horizon, I’m just getting started.

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