Philanthropy group ripped for bankrolling 'radical' defund the police, anti-ICE groups: 'Less safe'
A philanthropic organization known as Coefficient Giving, which is mainly funded by liberal billionaire Dustin Moskovitz and his wife Cari Tuna, is being knocked for quietly funding a slate of "radical projects" and donating millions to defund the police groups, anti-ICE initiatives and other progressive causes over the course of several years.
Before changing its name from Open Philanthropy to Coefficient Giving and divesting from its "criminal justice reform" initiatives to a split-off group called "Just Impact," Open Philanthropy awarded hundreds of grants to primarily far-left groups in that category over six years.
Among the groups that Open Philanthropy donated to were JustLeadershipUSA, a group that compares the criminal justice system to slavery, Color of Change, a staunch defund the police advocate, People’s Action, which has claimed law enforcement was waging a "war against Black people," and Fair and Just Prosecution, an advocate for eliminating cash bail.
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The group also made donations to the Free Migration Project, which has called for the abolition of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, and the National Bail Fund Network, a coalition of groups that helped bail participants of the 2020 Black Lives Matter protests. After Minnesota activist Renee Good was killed by an ICE agent earlier this year, Free Migration Project posted on their Instagram that "ICE and Border Patrol cannot be reformed. They must be abolished."
Remarking on the donations, Curtis Schube, director of research and policy at the Center to Advance Security in America, slammed Open Philanthropy, saying the group "quietly funds all kinds of radical projects, including those that eliminate bail demands for criminals and that seek to defund the police."
"These aims are the opposite of social welfare," said Schube. "They make society less safe and harm the very communities they claim to be concerned about."
The group that Open Philanthropy awarded the highest amount of money to was the Alliance for Safety and Justice, a progressive organization that advocates for replacing incarceration with community-led safety strategies and trauma recovery services. The group received a total of $11,750,000.00 from Open Philanthropy through just three donations between 2016 and 2018.
Open Philanthropy gave $4,440,000.00 to JustLeadershipUSA, whose president, DeAnna Hoskins, previously emphasized the need to defund the police, framing it as a "divestment from law and order to an investment in protection in thriving communities."
A spokesperson for Coefficient Giving clarified that the group’s donations "supported a variety of projects designed to improve public safety, reduce government spending, and keep families together." The spokesperson said the group ceased these types of donations in 2021.
The group’s website states that the criminal legal system is "part of a much larger system of oppression that disproportionately plagues Black, Brown, and poor communities." Further, JustLeadershipUSA’s website states that the carceral system "is in fact a dumping ground for the country’s other failed systems" and "contains strong remnants of slavery."
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The website states the group is committed to "disrupting" the carceral system that it says, "like slavery, is based on the subjugation of those under its control."
Open Philanthropy gave $3,259,100 to Color of Change and its affiliated entities. In 2021, a Color of Change campaign director advocated for "no more police and no more mass incarceration," and pressed New York City to cut $1 billion from the police. The group has advocated to "defund the police," also supporting diverting police funds in Minneapolis. In 2021, the Color of Change also released a statement urging Facebook to "permanently ban" President Donald Trump from the platform and to "take action against his enablers."
People’s Action, meanwhile, received $1,927,640 from Open Philanthropy. In 2020, People’s Action declared its endorsement of the Movement for Black Lives, a self-proclaimed "anti-capitalist" group. In its statement announcing the endorsement, People’s Action called for "an end to the war against Black people" and demanded schools, colleges, universities and "all public institutions cut ties with the police."
The group wrote that "police do not keep us safe, and incremental reforms cannot change a pervasive culture of police violence against Black people."
In Jan. 2026, the People's Action sent out a press release urging "immediate action to defund ICE & border patrol and get ICE & border patrol out of Minnesota, Maine, and communities across the country."
Open Philanthropy donated $3 million to Fair And Just Prosecution, a criminal justice reform group that in 2018 co-developed a training model geared towards the offices of newly elected prosecutors that is said was "committed to a justice system that moves away from past incarceration-driven practices and towards principles of equity, fairness, and compassion."
The group has praised state legislation ending cash bail. In 2021, the group lauded an Illinois bill ending cash bail as a "necessary and long overdue" change.
A spokesperson for Fair and Just Prosecution told Fox News Digital that the group "supports a peer-driven community of local elected prosecutors working toward a justice system that prioritizes public safety grounded in fairness, equity, fiscal responsibility, and humanity."
Open Philanthropy also seeded the National Bail Fund Network with a $404,800 grant. The network went on to raise millions after the 2020 Black Lives Matter protests. The Chronicle of Philanthropy reported in 2023 that some of the defendants helped by bail funds from the group went on to commit violent crimes.
Open Philanthropy donated $24,000 to the Free Migration Project, a group whose executive director, David Bennion, has previously stated that "ICE should not only be abolished, but its core function of imprisoning and deporting non-citizens must also be eliminated."
Bennion has argued that deportation is "not just cruel and economically counterproductive," but also claimed it is "inconsistent with basic justice and has no place in a legal system predicated on coherent moral principles."
Though the $130 million donated by Open Philanthropy for criminal justice reform was primarily awarded to progressive groups, the amount includes several donations to conservative groups as well, including the American Conservative Union, which received a total of $612,000.00.
In 2021, Open Philanthropy divested its criminal justice reform program into a split-off group called Just Impact. Open Philanthropy gave Just Impact a seed funding of $50 million spread over three and a half years.
A spokesperson for Coefficient Giving told Fox News Digital that "until late 2021, Open Philanthropy supported a variety of projects designed to improve public safety, reduce government spending, and keep families together, including funding the American Conservative Union, host of CPAC, to run its Center for Criminal Justice Reform, headed by Pat Nolan."
The spokesperson said that "among the reforms enacted while Open Philanthropy was funding this work was 2018’s First Step Act, first introduced by then-Congressman and current Secretary of Veterans Affairs Doug Collins, passed with bipartisan support, and signed into law by President Trump."