Which specific donors increased or decreased contributions to Turning Point USA after 2019 according to IRS filings?
Executive summary
A review of the publicly available IRS Form 990 filings and the reporting provided shows that the raw filings and ProPublica’s Nonprofit Explorer include Schedule I (large contributors) where changes in donations would be recorded, but the material supplied here does not include line-by-line, year‑over‑year donor amounts after 2019 needed to show which specific donors increased or decreased contributions [1] [2] [3]. Historical donor names commonly associated with Turning Point USA appear in secondary reporting, yet the documents provided do not contain the explicit comparative numbers required to answer the question definitively [4] [5].
1. What the IRS filings can show, and what they do not show in the provided material
IRS Form 990s—especially Schedule I—are the public records that list organizations making large contributions and can be used to track donor amounts year to year; ProPublica has reconstructed these filings and makes files available that should contain that Schedule I data for Turning Point USA [1] [2] [3]. The set of snippets and links assembled for this review point to the existence of 2019 and later Form 990s for Turning Point USA and its related entities (including a 2023 Form 990 posted on TPUSA’s site), but the excerpts in the briefing do not extract or display the contributor names and amounts for 2020–2023 in a directly comparable, year‑over‑year table [6] [7] [3].
2. Known donors named in secondary reporting, but not confirmed as increasing/decreasing after 2019 in these filings
Public sources and watchdog summaries have repeatedly associated Turning Point USA with conservative foundations and donors such as the Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation, DonorsTrust/Donors Capital Fund, Foster Friess, and other billionaire‑linked foundations [4] [5]. These sources establish who has been credited historically with funding TPUSA, but the provided materials do not include the Form 990 Schedule I rows that would demonstrate whether each of those named donors increased or decreased their giving after 2019 [4].
3. Why a definitive year‑over‑year answer is not possible from the supplied snippets
The snippet set points researchers to the correct records—ProPublica’s Nonprofit Explorer and TPUSA’s posted 990s—but does not include the extracted Schedule I contributor tables or a parsed comparison of 2019 versus subsequent years [1] [2] [3]. Without those extracted numbers for each named donor across the relevant returns, it is not possible to state with evidentiary specificity which individual donors increased or decreased contributions after 2019 based solely on the material provided.
4. How to get the definitive answer from the IRS filings (what to inspect next)
To determine which specific donors increased or decreased contributions after 2019, the primary sources to inspect are the Schedule I pages of Turning Point USA’s Form 990s for fiscal years 2019, 2020, 2021, 2022 and 2023—as available—either on the IRS bulk downloads or ProPublica’s reconstructed filings; Schedule I is precisely where large contributor names and amounts appear [1] [3]. The ProPublica file links referenced here point to full filings and Schedule I entries that, when extracted and compared year by year, would reveal the increases and decreases [2] [7] [3].
5. Caveats and alternative explanations to consider when reading 990 donor data
Even when Schedule I names appear, donor‑advised funds, intermediary foundations, and redacted or aggregated reporting can obscure the ultimate source of dollars—meaning apparent shifts on a recipient 990 may reflect intermediaries changing their grants rather than donors changing priorities [1]. Additionally, Turning Point USA established a sister 501(c), Turning Point Action, in 2019 and other affiliated entities can re‑route political spending and donations in ways that complicate simple year‑over‑year comparisons on a single entity’s 990 [4] [8]. Secondary reporting lists likely funders but cannot substitute for direct Schedule I comparisons when claiming specific increases or decreases [4].
6. Bottom line
The public Form 990 system and ProPublica’s Nonprofit Explorer contain the records that would show which specific donors increased or decreased donations to Turning Point USA after 2019, but the specific contributor names and year‑by‑year amounts required to answer the question are not included in the snippets supplied for this task [1] [2] [3]. Historical donor lists are available in secondary sources [4], but a reliable, source‑cited determination of increases or decreases requires extracting Schedule I data from the relevant Form 990s and comparing the contributor lines across years.