Rockefeller Family Fund (RFF)

Background

The Rockefeller Family Fund was incorporated in 1967 by Martha B. Rockefeller, the widow of John D. Rockefeller Jr., and their children, Laurance Rockefeller, then-New York Governor and future Vice President Nelson Rockefeller (R), and David Rockefeller, to serve as a philanthropic entity for the collective 24 grandchildren of John D. Rockefeller Jr (collectively known as “the cousins”). The fund received a significant endowment expansion in 1971, when Martha Rockefeller’s estate left $10 million to RFF out of her $72 million bequest to charity. An internal memorandum circulated among “the cousins” illustrated the fund’s early political trajectory. In it, Laurance Rockefeller’s daughter Marion urged the family to support organizations like the American Friends Service Committee, Friends of the Earth, and Pacifica Radio stations, regardless of their tax status. In 1992, RFF converted from a private foundation to a public charity, a status it retains today. ^{4 5}

By the fund’s own account, its climate program has been focused almost entirely on combating conventional energy production since 2006, with its democracy and women’s economic programs rounding out its three main grantmaking areas. The fund, which drew upon a roughly $200 million endowment as of 2024, made approximately $25 million in grants in 2023 across 199 awards. ^{6 1 7}

Activities

Environmentalist Campaigns

Rockefeller Family Fund’s most prominent and controversial activity has been its orchestration of a sustained, multi-pronged campaign against the oil and gas industry, particularly ExxonMobil. Beginning around 2014, the fund provided grants to Columbia University’s Graduate School of Journalism and to the outlet InsideClimate News to conduct investigative reporting into ExxonMobil’s internal climate research from the 1970s and 1980s. The resulting articles underpinned the “#ExxonKnew” campaign, a coordinated effort to establish the narrative that ExxonMobil concealed internal climate science findings from the public. ^{8 9}

In January 2016, RFF hosted a strategy meeting at its New York offices that included representatives from Greenpeace, the Working Families Party, and Public Citizen. According to an agenda obtained by the Washington Free Beacon, participants discussed goals including to “delegitimize [ExxonMobil] as a political actor,” “force officials to disassociate themselves from Exxon,” “drive divestment from Exxon,” and to pursue legal discovery of internal documents by deploying state prosecutors. ¹⁰

In 2024, the Rockefeller Family Fund was linked to the development of a report used by California Attorney General Rob Bonta (D) in a lawsuit against ExxonMobil, which accused the company of misleading the public about its role in global plastic pollution. During a Climate Week NYC panel, RFF director Lee Wasserman stated that the fund and its grantee, the Center for Climate Integrity (CCI), worked closely with the advocacy group Beyond Plastics to produce a report outlining ExxonMobil’s alleged deception regarding the recyclability of plastics. The report, published in early 2024, was cited multiple times in Bonta’s September 2024 complaint. ¹¹

In 2017, RFF provided over $1 million to the Institute for Governance & Sustainable Development to launch its Center for Climate Integrity (CCI), an organization RFF created to expand climate liability litigation against energy companies. In 2024, RFF director Wasserman publicly acknowledged at a Climate Week NYC panel that RFF and CCI had worked closely with activist group Beyond Plastics to produce a report that California Attorney General Bonta subsequently cited in a major lawsuit accusing ExxonMobil of deceiving the public about plastic pollution and recycling. ⁷

In January 2020, RFF launched the Equation Campaign, a ten-year, $30 million initiative housed at RFF and dedicated to strengthening movements working to keep traditional energy sources in the ground and eliminate the oil industry’s financial support base. The campaign operates a Frontline Environmental Justice Fund which provides grants to anti-traditional energy organizing groups and receives support from the Open Society Foundations, the 11th Hour Project at the Schmidt Family Foundation, and the David Rockefeller Fund. ¹²

RFF additionally operates the Funder Collaborative on Oil and Gas, launched in 2018, with the stated purpose of curtailing domestic oil and gas production and preventing the development of new oil, gas, and petrochemical infrastructure. ⁶

A March 2026 white paper by the Pelican Institute for Public Policy identified RFF as one of the top 30 out-of-state donors to organizations in Louisiana affiliated with Louisiana Against False Solutions (LAFS), a coalition that, by its own description, advocates for phasing out traditional energy production. The center-right Pelican Institute found that, since 2020, at least $115.5 million in outside funding, 98.4 percent from donors outside Louisiana, flowed to twelve Louisiana-based LAFS member groups, with the RFF contributing over $1.1 million to such organizations. ^{13 14}

Electoral Funding

Beyond climate, RFF funds left-wing electoral organizing through its “Democracy” program. Grantees have included State Voices, the TakeAction Minnesota Education Fund, the Alliance for Youth Organizing, and the America Votes Education and Action Funds. RFF also funds the Democracy and Power Innovation (DPI) Fund. ^{15 3}

Grantmaking

The Rockefeller Family Fund distributed over $36 million in grants across over 200 awards in 2024. Major grantees include the Center for Climate Integrity, the Alliance for Affordable Energy, the Texas Campaign for the Environment, Commission Shift, Air Alliance Houston, the Western Environmental Law Center, Democracy North Carolina, State Voices, the NAACP, MomsRising, Main Street Alliance, and EarthRights International. ^{6 3}

Leadership

As of 2026, Lee Wasserman was director of Rockefeller Family Fund, a role he has held since 1999. Prior to joining RFF, Wasserman advised the Pew Charitable Trusts and worked from 1988 to 2005 as executive director of Environmental Advocates of New York. ¹⁶ Wasserman earned $732,000 in compensation from the foundation in 2024. ³

As of 2026, Miranda Kaiser, a great-granddaughter of David Rockefeller and a fifth-generation Rockefeller, was president of RFF. She has made media appearances defending the Fund’s anti-ExxonMobil litigation strategy. RFF’s board includes multiple other members of the Rockefeller family. ^{3 17}