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Which industries donate the most to dark money nonprofits in 2022-2024?
Executive Summary
The evidence available in the supplied materials indicates that financial services—particularly donor‑advised funds (DAFs) managed by large investment firms—are a leading channel of anonymous giving to so‑called “dark‑money” nonprofits in 2022–2024, with firms such as Vanguard, Fidelity, Charles Schwab and National Philanthropic Trust highlighted for the volume of assets under management and grants made [1]. OpenSecrets and related reporting show no single, consolidated industry table for 2022–2024 in the provided sources; instead, researchers and news outlets point to a mix of pharmaceuticals/healthcare, energy/chemicals, finance, and large corporate donors in technology and manufacturing as major funders in recent cycles, even as OpenSecrets emphasizes record dark‑money spending in 2024 without an industry breakdown in the cited pages [2] [3] [4].
1. How the finance industry’s donor‑advised funds became a primary conduit of anonymous giving
The Jacobin analysis supplied asserts that DAFs managed by large financial firms are the principal sources of anonymous donations to major public charities and conservative nonprofits during 2022–2024, noting that combined DAF assets reached roughly $230 billion in 2022 and that grants from those DAFs to groups like the Heritage Foundation increased between 2022 and 2023 [1]. This framing identifies the structural mechanism—DAFs held at Vanguard, Fidelity, Schwab, and the National Philanthropic Trust—that allows donors to route funds without immediate public attribution, creating a substantial pool of funds described as effectively “dark” because the original donors are not disclosed at the time of grantmaking. The source emphasizes scale and institutional concentration within finance rather than single corporate donors.
2. What OpenSecrets and related reporting do — and do not — provide on industry breakdowns
OpenSecrets’ dark‑money portal and FAQ pages included among the materials offer comprehensive context on what constitutes 501(c)[5] and other dark‑money nonprofits, and they document a surge in outside spending in 2024, but the supplied OpenSecrets pages do not publish a single, definitive industry‑by‑industry donor ranking for 2022–2024 [4] [2] [3]. Supplementary notes in the analyses indicate that OpenSecrets reporting and companion research identify sectors such as pharmaceuticals, energy/chemicals, healthcare insurers, finance, and technology among prominent contributors across recent cycles, but the provided OpenSecrets pages themselves lack the explicit industry breakdown necessary to quantify and rank industries for the specified period.
3. Other sectors flagged repeatedly across sources: pharmaceuticals, energy, and corporate donors
Across the supplied analyses, multiple secondary reports and summaries point to PhRMA and large healthcare interests, energy and chemical companies, and major corporate donors in technology and manufacturing as recurring contributors to dark‑money vehicles in recent years [2] [4]. The materials note examples such as PhRMA’s contributions and donor activity by insurers and chemical firms, portraying a multi‑sector pattern where corporate policy interests and trade associations use nonprofits and shell entities to fund issue advocacy and political outside spending. These mentions are consistent across the summaries but, per the provided material, are not presented as a unified, audited industry ranking for 2022–2024.
4. Limits of the evidence: gaps, timeframes, and methodological constraints
The supplied sources include older data references and acknowledgements that comprehensive industry tallies for 2022–2024 are not published on the cited OpenSecrets pages [6] [4]. One analysis explicitly flags that OpenSecrets’ historical top‑donor compilation covers 2008–2014 and was last updated in 2015, rendering it unsuitable for verifying 2022–2024 claims without newer tables [6]. The materials therefore combine recent qualitative reporting on sector patterns with the caveat that no single provided source gives a definitive, consolidated industry ranking for donors to dark‑money nonprofits across 2022–2024.
5. Bottom line — plausible industry leaders and what’s needed for precision
Based on the supplied analyses, the most defensible conclusion is that finance (DAFs), pharmaceuticals/healthcare, energy/chemicals, and large corporate donors in technology/manufacturing were among the top channels for funding dark‑money nonprofits across 2022–2024, with DAFs in the finance sector singled out for scale and anonymity [1] [2] [4]. To produce a precise, ranked listing by dollars and industry for 2022–2024 would require consolidated datasets or tables that the supplied OpenSecrets pages and sources do not include; researchers should therefore consult detailed OpenSecrets data exports, IRS filings, and investigative reports that explicitly aggregate donors by NAICS/industry codes for those cycles to move from plausible pattern to quantified ranking [3] [4].