Make North Carolina First is a left-of-center non-profit funding and state advocacy organization based in Raleigh, North Carolina. [1]i
Funding
It has financial ties to numerous left-of-center organizations. In 2015, the Environmental Defense Fund gave Make North Carolina First a cash grant of $50,000. [2] In 2016, MNCF received $27,000 in grant money from the Tides Foundation. [3] The Open Society Policy Center, the lobbying arm of the George Soros network of philanthropies, donated $220,000 to MNCF in order “to support policy advocacy in North Carolina” in 2018. [4]viii
MNCF made a $202,000 donation to the progressive advocacy group known as Color of Change in that year. [5] MNCF made another donation of $2,040,000 to the organization called A Better NC. [6] It also donated to North Carolina Citizens for Progress in 2016 and 2018. It donated a total of $1,250,000 in 2016[7] and $1.3 million in 2018. [8] MNCF also received a cash grant for $223,000 from the Sixteen Thirty Fund during that year. [9]ix
State Supreme Court Campaigning
In 2016, MNCF was financially involved in an advertisement campaign involving a Republican North Carolina Supreme Court justice named Bob Edmunds. It funded an attack advertisement against Bob Edmunds during his reelection campaign in which it called him a “snake.” MNCF spent approximately $1 million for this ad. [10]x