Fact check: Who funded no kings 2.0

1. Who’s on the alleged donor list and why it spread fast

A viral spreadsheet circulated by Representative Anna Paulina Luna and referenced in multiple articles lists dozens of nonprofits, foundations, and major donors—including the Open Society Foundations, the Tides Foundation, the American Civil Liberties Union, Indivisible, and Planned Parenthood—and attaches a cumulative figure near $294 million attributed to organizing the protests. The spreadsheet’s circulation has been amplified by partisan actors seeking to frame the protests as externally funded rather than grassroots, and several news outlets have reported the list while noting differences between grant purposes and protest-specific spending, raising questions about how the total was calculated and whether entries represent direct event financing or broader organizational grants ^{[2] [3]}.

2. What the Open Society links actually show, according to reporting

Multiple reports note that the Open Society Foundations provided multi-million-dollar grants to groups like Indivisible—figures reported include $7.6 million in grants cited as relevant to organizations involved in protest networks—yet those grants are described on foundation disclosures as supporting broader civic engagement, voter mobilization, or social welfare activities, not line-item funding for specific “No Kings” events. Journalistic accounts emphasize that philanthropic grants can be multi-year and programmatic, which means a grant to an organization does not inherently equate to payment for a single protest, an important distinction in assessing the claim that Soros “paid for” the rallies ^[1].

3. The organizers named in event listings and what that proves—and what it doesn’t

Event listings for city chapters of “No Kings 2!” show local hosts including the ACLU of Massachusetts, Third Act MA, Indivisible Mass Coalition, and Mass 50501, which verifies organizational involvement in planning or promotion at the local level, but does not document the source or size of funding for those events. Local sponsorship and logistical support can come from volunteer networks, in-kind contributions, or central coalition coordination; thus, public event listings confirm participation but are not financial ledgers, leaving open whether national-level grants were directly deployed to specific city protests or used for long-term capacity building ^[4].

4. Official reactions, investigations, and political framing

Political leaders including former President Trump have characterized the protests as “paid for by Soros,” and some reporting notes the Trump administration’s interest in investigating foundations like Open Society for alleged protest funding. These reactions reflect a political strategy to delegitimize protests by linking them to wealthy donors, while investigative claims have not universally demonstrated a legal or audit trail tying specific donor grants to specific event expenditures. Coverage shows partisan actors on both sides use funding narratives to advance competing political agendas, and journalists stress the need for documentary financial evidence before equating grants with targeted protest payments ^{[5] [3]}.

5. Discrepancies in totals and the methodological problem of aggregation

The headline figure of $294 million aggregates funding across many groups and possibly multiple years, but reporting highlights opaque methodology: some entries reportedly double-count grants, include general operating support, or combine unrelated program budgets. Financial transparency varies across nonprofits and foundations, and aggregate totals can mislead if grant intent, timing, and fungibility are not carefully parsed. Analysts note that programmatic grants enable advocacy capacity broadly, whereas event-level funding requires specific accounting—distinctions central to verifying whether donors directly paid for the “No Kings” protests ^[2].

6. What independent verification would require and what remains unproven

To conclusively establish that a donor directly financed “No Kings 2.0” events requires itemized internal accounting—contracts, event budgets, invoices, or bank transfers—showing funds flowed from a donor to a specific event organizer. Current reports supply grant disclosures and organizational affiliations but not event-level transactional evidence; therefore, while there is credible documentation that prominent foundations funded organizations involved in protest networks, there is not yet publicly available documentary proof that those grants were spent as line-item financing for the protests themselves. Journalists call for FOIA requests, IRS filings, and direct accounting from the groups named to resolve the gap ^[1].

7. Bottom line: confirmed links, disputed conclusions, and open questions

Reporting confirms philanthropic support for organizations connected to the “No Kings” network, including Open Society grants to Indivisible and participation by national groups like the ACLU and Planned Parenthood in coalition lists, but it does not definitively prove that single donors directly funded specific protests at the event level. Assertions that Soros or others “paid for” the rallies rest on aggregated grant lists and political framing rather than granular financial trails, leaving critical open questions about timing, purpose, and direct expenditure. Independent verification through detailed accounting remains the key unresolved evidence to move from plausible linkage to proven transaction ^{[1] [2] [3]}.