What public financial records exist for the America First Foundation and AFPAC since 2020?
Executive summary
Public financial records are partly available and partly fragmented: the political arm “American Freedom PAC / AFPAC” files regular campaign finance reports with the Federal Election Commission (FEC) that are publicly searchable [1], while organizations using the “America First” name appear across multiple registry and nonprofit databases—some with IRS Form 990 records accessible through ProPublica/Guidestar/Candid, and others that Charity Navigator flags as not a registered 501(c), leaving gaps in the nonprofit filing trail [2] [3] [4].
1. What exists on AFPAC (the PAC/conference entity): FEC disclosure and searchable filings
AFPAC—as a federal political committee—must report receipts, disbursements, contributions and independent expenditures to the FEC, and the committee’s pages and filing tabs are publicly available on fec.gov, meaning post‑2020 receipts and spending summaries, transaction line‑items, and periodic reports can be downloaded and examined [1]; secondary reporting and contextual descriptions of AFPAC as a conference founded by Nick Fuentes provide background but do not replace the FEC’s itemized finance records [5].
2. America First Foundation: website claims versus tax‑filing footprint
The group calling itself the America First Foundation publishes an “about” page and public messaging about its founding by Nicholas Fuentes in 2020 and its ideological aims on its own site, but a website alone is not a substitute for tax filings [6] [7]. For financial transparency, ProPublica’s Nonprofit Explorer lists an America First Foundation entry and hosts Form 990 documents in machine‑readable XML where organizations have filed electronically, providing a route to review any 990s that exist for the EIN shown there [2]. GuideStar/Candid also has profiles for similarly named entities (including an America First Foundation Inc. record) that can surface 990s and organizational metadata when present [3].
3. Confusing multiplicity: multiple “America First” entities and registration status problems
Research flags multiple organizations with similar names—some indexed by CauseIQ or GuideStar and others by Charity Navigator—and those listings do not all point to the same legal entity or tax status, complicating a clean financial audit trail [8] [3]. Charity Navigator explicitly notes an “AMERICA FIRST FOUNDATION” record that cannot be evaluated because it is not a 501(c) registered nonprofit, which implies there may be no Form 990 disclosure requirement for that particular entity or that it operates under a different classification [4].
4. What can be reliably retrieved and where to look next
The surest public records are: (a) FEC filings for AFPAC—downloadable, regularly updated, and authoritative for post‑2020 political finance activity [1]; and (b) IRS Form 990s where an “America First” organization has in fact filed (accessible via ProPublica’s Nonprofit Explorer and Guidestar/Candid when the organization is a tax‑exempt entity and has filed electronically) [2] [3]. Charity Navigator and other watchdogs can signal absence of a 501(c) registration and thus a lack of required public 990s for some names [4].
5. Limits, caveats, and adjacent money flows
Available reporting shows significant money flows in the broader “America First” universe (for example, America First Policy Institute and America First Works have documented contributions and assets in independent reporting), but those are distinct organizations with separate filings and legal identities—meaning donor networks and dark‑money intermediaries reported elsewhere may not appear in the specific AFPAC or particular America First Foundation records unless legally routed through them; tracing donors across differently registered entities requires cross‑referencing 990s, FEC filings, and investigative reporting [9] [10]. Sources reviewed do not provide a single consolidated ledger for “America First” branded groups since 2020; therefore any comprehensive financial reconstruction requires downloading the FEC reports for AFPAC [1] and searching the ProPublica/IRS 990 archives or Guidestar entries for each specific EIN encountered [2] [3], while noting Charity Navigator’s flag where an entity is not registered as a 501(c) [4].