Which intermediary organizations received Ford Foundation grants between 2017–2025 that have documented involvement with No Kings‑related activities?
Executive summary
The reporting available identifies a set of intermediary organizations that received Ford Foundation grants in the 2017–2025 window and that a single investigative piece links to “No Kings” protest logistics; chief among the named intermediaries are the Black‑Led Movement Fund, Indivisible, and Families Over Billionaires (all named in that report) [1]. The Ford Foundation’s own searchable grants database confirms the foundation’s practice of awarding and cataloging grants across many partners [2] [3] [4], but independent documentation tying each grantee to specific No Kings activities beyond the one report is limited in the provided record.
1. The specific intermediaries named in the reporting
AguayoNews’ piece cataloging partners in what it calls “No Kings 2.0” explicitly names the Black‑Led Movement Fund, Indivisible, and Families Over Billionaires among more than 100 partner organizations it says received money flowing from liberal networks including George Soros‑aligned groups and from the Ford Foundation between 2017–2025 [1]. That article states the Ford Foundation provided $51.7M+ in grants to partners like the Black‑Led Movement Fund and claims those partners “supported No Kings logistics in multiple cities,” framing the funding as indirect but tied to organizing, training, and logistical support for protests [1]. Those are the only specific intermediary organizations with documented No Kings links cited in the assembled reporting.
2. What the Ford Foundation records show and do not show
The Ford Foundation maintains a public, searchable grants database that lists awarded grants from 2006 to the present and is intended for filtering by focus area and year; the foundation invites users to view active grants and download details [2] [3] [4]. The database establishes that the Ford Foundation routinely funds networks, movement‑building, and intermediary organizations, consistent with its public grantmaking practices [2] [3]. The sources provided do not, however, include a direct Ford Foundation record in this set that ties a named grant explicitly and contemporaneously to “No Kings” protest logistics; the linkage in the reporting is made by tracing flows between networks and partners rather than by citation of Ford grant language expressly funding No Kings activities [1] [2].
3. How the reporting characterizes the funding relationships
The investigative piece treats grants as part of indirect funding pathways: it traces dollars from larger liberal networks through intermediary funds and partners into grassroots organizations it says were active in No Kings mobilization, and it emphasizes scale—“over 100 partners” and substantial cumulative grant totals between 2017 and 2025 [1]. That framing implies intermediaries functioned as logistical and organizing nexuses, but the article itself describes those fund linkages as “indirect,” signaling a distinction between explicit, project‑level grants for a named protest and general support for organizing capacity [1].
4. Limits of the available evidence and alternative interpretations
The available sources include Ford’s grant infrastructure and one investigative account making specific connections; the foundation’s own materials document grantmaking practices but do not corroborate protest‑level targeting in the provided snippets [4] [2] [3]. This gap leaves two plausible interpretations: either the Ford Foundation’s grants to intermediary networks materially enabled partner groups that later participated in No Kings activities, a pathway the investigative piece asserts [1], or the grants supported broader movement building and civic capacity without an explicit or intended link to any single protest campaign—an explanation consistent with Ford’s stated focus on building institutions and networks [5]. The reporting does not supply conclusive forensic grant‑by‑grant evidence in the sources provided here that every named intermediary’s Ford funding directly financed No Kings operations.
5. Potential biases and hidden agendas in the sources
The central investigative source foregrounds connections to “liberal networks” and to high‑profile funders like George Soros while emphasizing large dollar totals, a narrative that can be leveraged to suggest coordinated elite direction of street mobilization [1]. The Ford Foundation’s public materials emphasize participatory grantmaking and building institutions—messaging that frames grantmaking as long‑term capacity support rather than single‑event operational funding [5] [2]. Readers should therefore weigh the investigative claim of intermediaries’ “documented involvement” against the difference between documented participation in protests and documentary proof that Ford grants explicitly financed protest logistics.
Conclusion: Based on the provided reporting, the intermediary organizations explicitly named as both Ford grantees between 2017–2025 and having documented involvement in No Kings‑related activities are the Black‑Led Movement Fund, Indivisible, and Families Over Billionaires [1]; the Ford Foundation’s own grant database confirms the foundation’s broad funding of intermediary networks but does not, in the supplied sources, provide granular, documentary confirmation that those specific grants were designated to fund No Kings operations [2] [3] [4].