Tesseract

Originally named Agenda Project, the group was renamed Agenda Project Action Fund in 2011 and Tesseract in 2016. Payne remains the principal officer as of the group’s 2019 tax filing with the IRS. ²

In 2011, the leaders of Tesseract created a separate, 501(c)(3) organization called the Agenda Project. ³ It was renamed Tesseract Research Center in 2016. ⁴

Background

Tesseract was founded as the Agenda Project in 2009 by Erica Payne, a co-founder of the left-of center donor collective Democracy Alliance. ^{1 5}

Agenda Project was renamed Agenda Project Action Fund in 2011. ^{6 7} According to OpenSecrets, Erica Payne was the president of the board, Charles Ledley was the secretary and Jamie Mai was the treasurer. ⁸ In 2010, the Action Fund had a revenue of $586,000 and expenses of $616,000; in 2011, it had a revenue of $584,000 and expenses of $697,000. ⁷ Agenda Project Action Fund paid for a webpage that hosted Agenda Project. ¹

Agenda Project Action Fund was then renamed Tesseract, Inc. in 2016 and as of 2022 was still named Tesseract. ^{4 9 10}

Activities

Agenda Project had a website until at least 2016, but as of 2022 its website was under construction and the group was using its fundraising page on left-of-center digital platform EveryAction as its official homepage. ^{11 1 12}

Tesseract states that its mission is “identifying the core values that best illustrate the essential differences between right-wing conservatives and decent Americans.” ¹ It describes its method as “repeatedly strik[ing] the collective nerve of the American psyche and in so doing initiat[ing] a wholesale rejection of conservative principles,” thereby creating “an opening for the adoption of rational policies that encourage the decent, humane society that the overwhelming majority of Americans endorse.” ¹

Shortly after being founded, Tesseract launched an attack campaign on the Tea Party movement, a fiscally conservative political movement affiliated with members of the Republican Party that formed in response to the actions of former President Barack Obama. The attack campaign was called the “F*ck Tea” project and aimed, as Payne stated, “to dismiss the tea party and promote the progressive cause.” At the time, Payne claimed that Tesseract was working to release “products” in the coming months such as a “Glenn Beck Bowl Buddy (Beck B Scrubbin)” that supporters could buy as gag gifts. ¹³ Tesseract also sold t-shirts with “F*ck Tea” written prominently across the front and “Progress Is The Real American Party” written on the back. ¹⁴ Payne told the Daily Caller that the intention of the “F*ck Tea” campaign was to get people to “stop a minute, and really look at the ideas” of the Tea Party: “When you look at their world view, somebody has to say f—k that. That’s not the right direction to go at.” ¹⁵

Some of Tesseract’s most successful campaigns are featured on its EveryAction webpage, such as its “Granny Off the Cliff” video, wherein a nameless figure representing a Republican congressman (likely intended to represent former House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-WI), whose name and congressional office phone number appeared at the end of the clip with encouragement to call him) wheels an elderly lady in a wheelchair to the edge of a cliff and pushes her off. The video was an attack on the Republican Party for its alleged mission to cut Medicare spending, and the YouTube upload of the advert includes clips of Republican politicians and conservative pundits expressing dismay over the ad’s content. ^{1 16}

Another featured video was “Romney Girl,” a 2012 spoof music video set to the tune of pop song “Barbie Girl” criticizing Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney for allegedly keeping his money in offshore bank accounts and pursuing a policy agenda that favored the wealthy elite. ¹⁷ A third video, “Republican Cuts Kill,” blames Republicans for the outbreak of the Ebola virus allegedly due to Republicans’ spending cuts to the federal government’s health agency. ^{18 1} At the release of the video, Payne stated, “Like rabid dogs in a butcher shop, Republicans have indiscriminately shredded everything in their path, including critical programs that could have dealt with the Ebola crisis before it reached our country.” ¹⁹

Tesseract has a Twitter account that as of 2022 was largely inactive. ²⁰ Its pinned tweet, tweeted from its account, read: “Trump’s budget cuts are killing people. #TrumpCutsKill” accompanying a video clip criticizing president Donald Trump’s handling of the COVID-19 pandemic and purportedly insufficient funding for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), National Institutes of Health (NIH), and other government agencies. ²¹

In April 2024, left-of-center think tank Institute for Policy Studies (IPS) released a report detailing lobbying efforts between 2018 and 2023 to both support and strike down legislation that would require donor-advised funds (DAFs) to distribute more funds to charity. ²² According to the report, during this period of time Tesseract spent $35,000 to lobby in favor of supporting the Accelerating Charitable Efforts (ACE) Act, introduced in the U.S Senate in 2021, that would place, “restrictions on charitable contribution deductions for gifts made to a nonqualified DAF.” ^{22 23}

Funding

Tesseract has received funding from the Bauman Family Foundation. ²⁴

In 2019, Tesseract had a total revenue of $1,347,354, total expenses of $998,521, and $226,390 in net assets. ²⁵

Leadership

Erica Payne is the founder and leader of Tesseract. ¹ She was the president until December 2015 when it was announced that Erik Altieri would succeed her. ²⁶ However, Payne remained the principal officer of the group through the 2010s and as of 2019 she was still listed on tax filings as principal officer. ²⁷