American Conservation Coalition Campus (ACC or ACC Campus) is the 501(c)(3) arm of the nominally right-leaning environmental advocacy group American Conservation Coalition (ACC).
ACC Campus publishes “Right on Climate,” a blog that pushes environmentalism as a conservative issue. 1
Leadership
President
Benjamin “Benji” Backer is president of ACC Campus and ACC. According to the group’s founding documents filed with the IRS (Form 1023), Backer is an uncompensated volunteer. 2
Sarah Backer, an ACC Campus volunteer accountant and Benji Backer’s mother; and
Sarah Hunt, a liberal Republican operative who formerly worked as director of state affairs for the libertarian-turned-liberal group Niskanen Center and co-founder of the left-leaning think tank Joseph Rainey Center for Public Policy.
Funding
Financial Overview
ACC Campus is a 501(c)(3) public charity.
Donors to ACC Campus
In 2018, ACC Campus reported total contributions of $149,000. 4 While ACC Campus’ list of donors is not publicly published by the IRS, a significant portion of that funding came from from the left-wing William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, which awarded the group a $100,000 grant over two years. 5
The Capital Research Center obtained a redacted copy of ACC Campus’ Schedule B list of donors from 2018 (archived here), containing the donation amounts (but not the contributors’ names). Those amounts were for $85,000 and $50,000, respectively. 6
Financial Documents
ACC Campus is a 501(c)(3) public charity established in December 2017. 7
ACC Campus’ 2018 IRS Form 990 filing, including its redacted list of donors (Schedule B), is archived here.
ACC Campus’ tax exempt recognition from the IRS was received on August 2, 2018, and is archived here.
ACC Campus’ IRS application for recognition of tax exempt status (Form 1023) is available here.
The American Conservation Coalition was founded in 2017 to build the conservative environmental movement, particularly among young Americans. The grantee undertakes work in three major areas: 1) growing grassroots support; 2) educating key decision-makers and stakeholders; and 3) influencing the media landscape. Over the last year, the grantee enjoyed considerable success, highlighted by over 1,400 media hits and over 700 million social media impressions. The grantee's membership now tops 85,000 young conservatives across the country. With partial support from the Mott Foundation, the American Conservation Coalition will continue the full range of its activities.
Grant toward the costs of convening a roundtable among top young leaders from across the political spectrum to advance bi-partisan climate-focused public policy analysis
Two-thirds of all Americans believe we are not doing enough to address climate change, yet there is a lack of bipartisan climate action in the United States. To help address this issue, the American Conservation Coalition was founded in 2017 to be a unifying voice for grassroots conservatives, particularly younger people, who want their leaders to address the climate crisis. General purposes support from the Mott Foundation will help the grantee undertake work in three major areas: 1) growing grassroots support; 2) influencing the media landscape; and 3) educating grasstops stakeholders.
