Rockefeller Philanthropy Advisors (RPA) is one of the nation’s largest philanthropic organizations. Founded in 2002, it engages in diverse investments, grants, and guidance with its partners. ¹²

Many of RPA’s financial investments go towards ostensibly apolitical endeavors such as art initiatives, environmental sustainability, and promoting healthier relationships between men and women. However, most of the groups highlighted on its website have left-leaning social-change missions such as those related to race, the environment, and gender. ³

Mission and Initiatives

Rockefeller Philanthropy Advisors funds and advises organizations in four ways – strategy and consulting, management and implementation, fiscal sponsorship, and research. The organization also engages in direct funding of higher education institutions, museums, advocacy groups, and other non-profit entities. ⁴

One of the RPA’s fiscally-sponsored organizations is the Art for Justice Fund. ⁵ Along with the Ford Foundation and other donors, RPA assists Art for Justice with creating artistic narratives which portray the U.S. police and justice system as deliberately targeting minorities for arrests and incarceration. ⁶

Another RPA-funded organization is The Earth Charter Fund, an environmental advocacy coalition of international organizations including the United Nations. ⁷⁸

RPA and other left-of-center foundations founded the Reproductive Health and Women’s Rights Collaborative in 2018 to promote abortion and birth control. Left-leaning donor foundations involved in the Collaborative included the David and Lucile Packard Foundation (which gave $10 million), as well as Acton Family Giving, the Ford Foundation, and JPB Foundation. ⁹¹⁰¹¹

RPA helped the Intrepid Philanthropy Foundation launch the education-focused LIGHT Awards. The Awards provide teacher training and professional development. ¹²

RPA provided funding for a climate change urban initiative called 100 Resilient Cities. After funding ran out in 2019, the unaffiliated Rockefeller Foundation provided new funding to the initiative. ¹³

Philanthropy Leadership

A major part of Rockefeller Philanthropy Advisors’ work is philanthropic leadership. It engages in research, writes papers, and creates coalitions for purposes of guiding donors and foundations. Twenty-three donor guides have been created, addressing donors who focus on issues like gender and climate change, as well as donor best practices. ¹⁴

RPA also led the creation of a foundation group which looks at the future of philanthropy. ¹⁵ The Philanthropy Framework was launched in 2019 as a structural document for philanthropic foundations. The document uses several left-leaning foundations such as the California Endowment as case studies. ¹⁶

The foundation’s 2018 Scaling Solutions report likewise looked at creating more efficient and effective philanthropic operations, and used several left-of-center foundations as examples. ¹⁷

Funding

Rockefeller Philanthropy Advisors’ revenue in 2022 was $681,676,124, its expenses at $520,835,330, and total assets at $882,540,783. ¹⁸

In 2015, RPA gave millions of dollars to apolitical organizations such as education institutions, museums, conservation, and poverty assistance groups. However, it also funded many left-of-center organizations, such as:¹⁹

• Radical art collective Allied Media Projects, which received $500,000.
• The Arabella Advisors-affiliated advocacy non-profit New Venture Fund. New Venture Fund received $413,916 from RPA.
• International Planned Parenthood received $15,000 and Planned Parenthood Federation of America received $8,000.

RPA also receives significant outside funding from other foundations. The MacArthur Foundation gave $20.785 million from 2013 to 2019 for a number of climate and other projects. ²⁰ The Gates Foundation gave RPA almost $3.5 million to start an educational non-profit in 2009. ²¹

In 2019, RPA released a $100 million grant to the Collaborative for Gender + Reproductive Equity (CGRE), a coalition of pro-abortion organizations. ²²

In May 2022, RPA announced a “New Pluralists ” project where it would provide $10 million in grants to roughly 32 organizations that worked to “address divisive forces.” ²³ One group that received a grant was the After Party, a religious program started by Dukes Divinity School professor Curtis Chang, New York Times columnist David French and Christianity Today editor in chief Russell Moore. The program’s curriculum claims to be a space where pastors and other groups can reframe, “Christian political identity from today’s divisive partisan options.” ²⁴

Leadership

Rockefeller Philanthropy Advisors’ staff and board have significant backgrounds in philanthropic foundations. ²⁵

Board chair Wendy O’Neill has a significant background in foreign culture and affairs. She has been on multiple Asian-focused boards since 2001, and worked in China trade and investment. She also was a trustee of the Rockefeller Brothers Fund, a left-leaning grantmaking institution, from 2005 to 2014. ²⁶

Vice-chair Peter Rockefeller is an investment banking and financial strategist whose career spans early-stage business investment, mergers and acquisitions, and financial strategy. ²⁷

Adam Wolfensohn is a climate change activist and partner in the environmental, social and corporate governance (ESG) firm Encourage Capital. He previously founded and ran a music and sound design studio. ²⁸

President and CEO Melissa Berman, Ph.D., is the first person to hold these roles at RPA since its 2002 founding. She sits on a number of philanthropic boards. ²⁹

Chief operating officer and senior vice president Nick Hodges has been with RPA since 2014. His career spans financial services and multiple senior roles for left-leaning philanthropic foundations such as the Tides Foundation and the San Francisco Foundation. ³⁰

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