Americans for Prosperity (AFP)

AFP is one of the largest funders of Republican political campaigns and causes, and reported over $138 million in outside spending for federal level races during the 2024 election cycle. ³ In 2026, AFP had chapters in 36 states with more than 100 offices nationwide, and claimed that it has mobilized four million right-leaning grassroots activists. ⁴

AFP is affiliated with the Americans for Prosperity Foundation, its charitable educational and research arm. According to its 2024 tax filing, its other tax-related nonprofit organizations included Capitol Leaders, the Stand Together C4 Fund, the Stand Together Chamber of Commerce, and the Center for Social Entrepreneur Education.  ⁵ Americans for Prosperity Action is AFP’s related super PAC. ⁶

The board of the Americans for Prosperity Foundation was chaired by David Koch prior to his death. ⁷ As of 2026, it was chaired by its CEO Emily Seidel, former director of special projects at Koch Companies Public Sector. ⁸

Background

The predecessor to Americans for Prosperity and the AFP Foundation was founded in 1984 as the Foundation for a Sound Economy, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization. In 1988, the Foundation was transitioned to a 501(c)(4) advocacy organization and renamed Citizens for a Sound Economy (CSE). CSE split into Americans for Prosperity and FreedomWorks in 2004. ⁹

Citizens for a Sound Economy was founded and funded in its early years by Charles and David Koch along with businesses that included tobacco companies Philip Morris and RJ Reynolds. Citizens for a Sound Economy became one of the first organizations to coin the term “Tea Party” as a movement to oppose left-of-center tax policy and perceived government overreach. It started the first U.S. Tea Party website in 2002, although the movement did not take off until 2009. ¹⁰ Libertarian former U.S. Representative Ron Paul (R-TX) was an early chair of the organization. ¹¹

In 2004, an internal rift in the organization led to its separation into FreedomWorks and Americans for Prosperity, along with their respective affiliates. The organization hired Tim Phillips, a longtime right-leaning organizer and political operative who had previously worked with evangelical activist Ralph Reed. Phillips also worked as a co-founder of Reed’s Century Strategies, which later became ensnared in the Jack Abramoff lobbying scandal. Following the separation of Americans for Prosperity and FreedomWorks, Americans for Prosperity became the main outlet of political activities for Charles and David Koch, and they ceased involvement with FreedomWorks. ¹

AFP and the AFP Foundation began to gain political traction as supporters of the Tea Party movement opposing the economic policies of the Obama administration. The work of AFP in the year following the inauguration of President Barack Obama helped mobilize the Tea Party movement and turn it into a political force. The organization worked alongside the Mercatus Center, a right-leaning think tank operated by George Mason University, to oppose the 2009 economic stimulus package supported by the Obama administration. The organization emerged as an opponent of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) and created an offshoot organization called Patients United Now to oppose the legislation. In the early days of the Obama administration, AFP opposed international climate agreements and the appointment of left-wing activist and commentator Van Jones as White House Special Advisor for Green Jobs.  ¹

Activities

Americans for Prosperity engages in direct advocacy and grassroots lobbying at the local, state, and federal levels. As of 2026, AFP had 36 state chapters and over 100 offices nationwide employing field staff similar to those of political campaigns. AFP promotes right-of-center policies, provides education and trainings to mobilize concerned citizens, and organizes communities to help hold public officials accountable. AFP stated that in 2024 it held over 7,500 events and claimed more than 300 legislative victories. ¹²

At the federal level, AFP is among the top 25 largest political spenders in the United States and is often the largest spending organization that is not a political action committee (PAC). During the 2024 election cycle, the organization reported over $138 million in independent expenditures targeting federal elections, with $92.7 million benefiting Republican candidates and $35.7 million opposing Democrats. AFP similarly spent $69.4 million on federal races in the 2022 election cycle, $47.7 million in the 2020 election cycle, and $15.7 million in the 2018 election cycle. ¹³

Federal reporting of independent expenditures, however, only encapsulates a portion of the total political spending conducted by AFP and other Koch-backed organizations. In 2016, the Koch network disclosed an $889 million budget for political spending among its various groups during that election cycle at an annual meeting of donors. During the 2020 election cycle, AFP announced that it would not engage in the presidential election. Still, the organization announced that 2020 would be its largest year of political spending yet and that it would look at the possibility of supporting Democratic candidates who had collaborated with the organization on issues such as liberalizing criminal sentencing. While examples of AFP supporting Democrats are rare, the organization endorsed a Democratic state senator in Mississippi in 2019 and praised then-U.S. Senator Heidi Heitkamp (D-ND) during the 2018 election cycle. ¹⁴

The New York Times reported that in the 2024 election cycle, Koch political and policy organizations spent close to $550 million. Americans for Prosperity Action, AFP’s sibling super PAC, reportedly spent $40 million in support of Nikki Haley’s presidential primary campaign in opposition to then-former President Donald Trump. ¹⁵

AFP’s state chapters focus on issues specific to their communities, each with their own legislative agenda. State chapters endorse candidates for public office at the local and state levels support their policy solutions. ¹⁶

Related Organizations

AFP’s advocacy work is supported by the AFP Foundation, which provides policy research, educational materials on public policy, and trainings for the millions of regional activists in the AFP state network. ¹⁷

AFP’s super PAC, Americans for Prosperity Action, supports candidates across the country that advocate for policies promoting opportunity for all Americans. AFP Action claimed that in the 2024 election cycle, its direct voter outreach included 7.8 million door knocks, 8.4 million telephone calls, and 102 million pieces of mail. ¹⁸ In the 2026 election cycle, AFP Action endorsed many U.S. Senate candidates including Kurt Alme (R-MT), Ashley Hinson (R-IA), Mike Rogers (R-MI), John Sununu (R-NH), and Michael Whatley (R-NC), along with incumbent Sens. Jon Husted (R-OH) and Dan Sullivan (R-AK). It also endorsed U.S. House candidates including Eric Flores (R-TX) and Mark Teixeira (R-TX), along with incumbent Reps. Tom Barrett (R-MI), Jeff Crank (R-CO), Gabe Evans (R-CO), Young Kim (R-CA), and Mariannette Miller-Meeks (R-IA). ¹⁹

According to tax filings, in 2023 Stand Together made a $25 million contribution to Americans for Prosperity Action.  ²⁰

Policy Positions

AFP supports a slate of right-leaning positions, while also holding some left-of-center positions on issues such as criminal justice. The organization advocates for the expansion of freedom and opportunity, with a focus on decreased government spending and debt; changes to the health care, immigration, and criminal justice systems; civil liberties protections; and economic progress.  ²¹

AFP supports border security and a streamlined immigration system, which includes expanding visa programs for high-skilled workers such as doctors. ²² While AFP supports better funding for law enforcement, it also advocates for some left-of-center criminal justice policies, including its 2025 support for the Second Chance Reauthorization Act, which extended grant programs for services, supports, and resources for reentry after incarceration and its 2024 support for legislation to limit civil asset forfeitures by police. ²³

In 2026, AFP endorsed the Protecting Charitable Giving Act, legislation introduced by U.S. Senators Todd Young (R-IN) and James Lankford (R-OK) aimed at strengthening legal protections for donor privacy. The bill proposed increasing penalties for the unlawful disclosure of donor information collected by the Internal Revenue Service from tax-exempt organizations and expanding legal avenues for prosecution related to such disclosures. The Protecting Charitable Giving Act was also endorsed by Philanthropy Roundtable and the Indiana Philanthropy Alliance. ²⁴

AFP supported efforts to prevent the extension of subsidies provided by the Affordable Care Act (ACA) that would have allowed them to expire by the end of 2025. In December 2025, AFP released a poll on its website alleging that voters polled had supported the usage of Health Savings Account-style funding as a replacement for ACA-provided subsidies. Additional lobbying disclosures also showed that AFP spent over $1.1 million in the first nine months of 2025 towards meeting members of the U.S Congress to persuade them into “supporting the expiration of Affordable Care Act premium tax credits” while Meta ad archives showed that AFP spent tens of thousands on Facebook ads pushing for the subsidies to expire. ²⁵

AFP has been associated with elements of the “abundance” movement, which gained prominence after the release of the book Abundance by left-of-center commentators Ezra Klein and Derek Thompson in 2025. The movement is a cross-partisan initiative that promotes regulatory reform, streamlined governance, and increased economic development through reduced bureaucratic barriers. Some of the movement’s proponents claim that the structure of labor unions inhibits economic development. ²⁶

Constituency Organizations

In addition to its state chapters, Americans for Prosperity operates several organizations that focus on influencing specific constituencies. AFP operates Concerned Veterans for America (CVA), an organization centered around engaging veterans on solutions for right-leaning, liberty-based policy issues meant to improve American lives and ensure prosperity for future generations. CVA encourages its supporters to contact legislators in person, on the phone, or through digital channel to push its policy solutions. As of 2026, CVA claims that it has its engaged communities have led to health care reforms at the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA), more accountability and responsible spending at the Department of Defense, and changing American foreign policy to end unnecessary military conflicts. ²⁷

In 2019, the Libre Initiative, a right-leaning grassroots organization that engages Latinos with a pro-free market economic and limited government message, was absorbed into AFP. As of 2026, Libre claimed to be embedded in Latino communities in 13 states, where it engages in advocacy, education, and research intended to support freedom, opportunity, and progress. Its issues of concern include healthcare, economic opportunity, immigration, and education. ²⁸ At that time, Daniel Garza was the president of the Libre Initiative. Garza previously worked as associate director of the Office of Public Liaison in the White House and as deputy director of external and intergovernmental affairs in the Office of the Secretary at the Department of the Interior during the George W. Bush administration. ²⁹

AFP also previously operated a spin-off organization called Generation Opportunity, which centered around replicating the local activism work of AFP to target youth voters. The organization used social media and non-conventional methods to attempt to reach young voters, including an advertising campaign in which a “Creepy Uncle Sam” urged young people to opt out of the Affordable Care Act. Generation Opportunity was run by Evan Feinberg, who had previously worked for the Heritage Foundation and U.S. Senator Rand Paul (R-KY). ³⁰  In 2018, Americans for Prosperity ended Generation Opportunity and absorbed it into AFP. ³¹

Leadership

The board of the Americans for Prosperity Foundation was chaired by David Koch prior to his death. ⁷

As of 2026, Emily Seidel was the CEO, president, and chair of the board of AFP. Seidel previously worked for Koch Companies Public Sector, the lobbying arm of Koch Industries, where she created some coalition building efforts and programs that later became Stand Together. Seidel also worked in the U.S. House of Representatives in the Speaker of the House’s office and for former Vice President Mike Pence.  ⁸

As of 2026, Nathan Nascimento was the executive vice president of AFP and director of Americans for Prosperity Action, AFP’s affiliated super PAC. Nascimento previously worked as the executive vice president of Freedom Partners Chamber of Commerce and as director of the Freedom Partners Action Fund. ³²

Financials

According to its 2024 tax return, Americans for Prosperity generated $215.4 million in revenue from contributions and grants and $6.7 million in revenue from program services that year. It also reported total assets of $60.7 million.  ³³

In 2024, AFP paid out $60.4 million in salaries and compensation. Its total expenses were $201.4 million. ³⁴ Its biggest expense was $184.6 million spent on its efforts to educate and mobilize the public in support of expanding freedom and opportunity. This included awarding grants of $825,500. ²

AFP’s largest grant of 2024 was $250,000 given to Mackinac Center Action, the 501(c)(4) arm of the Mackinac Center for Public Policy. ³⁵

Due to its status as a nonprofit organization, AFP does not publicly disclose its donors. It is, however, known that much of the organization’s support typically comes directly from organizations funded by Charles Koch and the late David Koch, such as the David H. Koch Charitable Foundation and the Charles G. Koch Charitable Foundation. Other confirmed donors to AFP and the AFP Foundation have included the Sarah Scaife Foundation, the Claude R. Lambe Charitable Foundation, and the John William Pope Foundation. ³⁶

In 2024, tax filings confirm that AFP received large donations from its tax-related organizations Stand Together ($121 million)  ²⁰ and the Stand Together C4 Fund ($80 million). ³⁷