Public Assets Institute

The organization receives funding from multiple foundations and groups including the Ben and Jerry’s Foundation and the Annie E. Casey Foundation.

It is a member of the State Priorities Partnership, a network of 51 liberal state-based research and policy organizations, and is listed as an ally to the left-of-center non-profit advocacy organization the National Economic and Social Rights Initiative.

Funding

The Public Assets Institute also received $220,059 from contributions, donations, and grants in 2009,² $228,673 in 2010,³ $175,567 in 2011, $223,445 in 2012, $235,996 in 2013, £317,872 in 2014, $221,844 in 2015, $234,820 in 2016, $197,075 in 2017,⁴ and $304,441 in 2018. ⁵

It received $20,000 from the Vermont Community Foundation as part of its Innovations and Collaborations Grant Program. In this instance, the Vermont Community Foundation granted the money for PAI’s “Health Care Reform Information and Education Project.” ⁶ The organization also received $17,000 from the Vermont Community Foundation to support the One Vermont Coalition. ⁷

Although the date of the $20,000 grant to the Public Assets Institute was not listed, the organization received the $17,000 grant in 2016 as well as another $36,000 from the Vermont Community Foundation that year for “general support.” ⁸

The Public Assets Institute has also received contributions from the Ben and Jerry’s Foundation which is associated with the makers of Ben & Jerry’s ice cream and contributes to a number of left-wing and far-left causes. The foundation contributed $6,000 to the Public Assets Institute in 2013 for “general support,”⁹ and another $6,000 for “general support” in 2014 on top of a $10,000 grant for the organization’s “Second Decade Campaign” which aimed to raise $300,000 over three years to continue its research operations and policy development. ¹⁰The Public Assets Institute also received $2,000 in 2015 in “Employee Matching Gift,”¹¹ $5,000 from the foundation for “general support” in 2016,¹² and another $10,000 in 2017. ¹³

The Public Assets Institute has also received multiple grants from the Annie E. Casey Foundation, which works closely with George Soros’s Open Society Institute-Baltimore (also known as the Alliance for Open Society International), and was the largest contributor in a bailout that kept the Open Society Institute-Baltimore from closing.

The Public Assets Institute received $75,000 from the foundation in 2009 for the “State Fiscal Analysis Initiative,”¹⁴ now known as the State Priorities Partnership; a liberal network of 51 state-based research and policy organizations that the Public Assets Institute is a part of. Other organizations include the Nebraska-based OpenSky Policy institute which promotes left-of-center budget and tax policies, the Alabama-based left-of-center think tank and policy advocacy group Arise Citizens’ Policy Project, the New York-based labor union-supported think tank Fiscal Policy Institute which advocates pro-labor union and other left-of-center policies, and the Michigan-based left-of-center policy think-tank Michigan League for Public Policy. ¹⁵

The Public Assets Institute received another $75,000 in 2013 for continuing to support the initiative,¹⁶ as well as $75,000 in 2014,¹⁷ $75,000 in 2015,¹⁸ and another $75,000 in 2016. ¹⁹

The Annie E. Casey Foundation also partly funded multiple research and analysis articles written by the Public Assets Institute including research on migration to and from Vermont titled “10 States Account for Most Vermont Migration,”²⁰ research on Vermont’s budget called “How to Close the Budget Gap,”²¹ research on the federal stimulus plan (the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act) called “Keeping an Eye on Vermont’s Stimulus Funds,”²² and research on income tax called “”Vermont’s effective Income Tax Rate Dropped in 2010.” ²³

Affiliated Organizations

The Public Assets Institute is listed as a state partner of Voices for Vermont’s Children, a left-of-center non-profit advocacy organization based in Vermont that focuses on issues involving children such as education and healthcare. The Annie E. Casey Foundation is also listed as a national partner. ²⁴

Gaye Symington, the president of the High Meadows Fund, a left-of-center non-profit advocacy organization that focuses on environmental issues, also sits on the board of directors of the Public Assets Institute. ²⁵ High Meadows Fund is listed as an affiliated group of the Vermont Community Foundation on the foundation’s 2017 tax returns and shares the same address. Other organizations that share the same address as VCF include the Permanent Fund for Vermont’s Children, the J Warren and Lois McClure Foundation, and the Addison Community Athletics Foundation. ²⁶

The Public Assets Institute is also listed as an ally to the National Economic and Social Rights Initiative (NESRI),²⁷ a non-profit organization that advocates for left-of-center policies regarding economics, social issues, health care, housing, education, and labor unions. Other organizations affiliated with NESRI include Amnesty International, abortion advocacy group the Center for Reproductive Rights, left-of-center communications strategy group The Opportunity Agenda (a project of the Tides Center), and left-wing agitation group the Advancement Project. ²⁷