Corporate Genome Project (CGP)
The Corporate Genome Project (CGP) is an advocacy group founded by Ralph Wilson to map corporate influence and their alleged effect on policy and public discourse. According to its website, the project’s mission is to provide journalists, activists, scholars, and the public with the tools to “decode the complex activities of the Koch network’s system of ‘weaponized philanthropy.’” 1 The Corporate Genome Project is a fiscally sponsored project of Alliance for Global Justice. 1
Contents
Background
According to its website, the Corporate Genome Project’s goals include building a platform on donor contributions to their policy outcomes, enabling researchers to contribute and expand said database, and educating the public on national and global influence operations. The group claims to support “democratic accountability, informed resistance, and long-term institutional transparency” through “rigorous data integration, document analysis, and visualizations. 1
Advocacy
According to its website, in 2022 the Corporate Genome Project conducted research into alleged connections between corporate-funded networks and “book ban” legislation. Group founder and director Ralph Wilson and co-author Isaac Kamola released a report that year claiming pornographic school content bans are due to donor-funded think tanks and advocacy groups tied to Donors Trust, Donors Capital Fund, and the Goldwater Institute. 2
The group specifically targets the network of right-leaning advocacy philanthropies associated with Charles Koch and his late brother David. 1
Financials
The Corporate Genome Project is a fiscally sponsored project of Alliance for Global Justice. 1 Alliance for Global Justice is an organizing nonprofit that serves as a fiscal sponsor to left-wing initiatives. 3 In 2024, the Alliance for Global Justice reported total revenue of $6,707,856 and total expenses of $8,818,230, resulting in a deficit of $2,110,374. The majority of its income came from contributions, which totaled $6,428,828 and accounted for 95.8 percent of revenue. 4
Leadership
Ralph Wilson is the founder and director of the Corporate Genome Project. 5 Wilson is also research director of UnKoch My Campus, a project of Essential Information, a left-of-center nonprofit started by left-wing environmental activist Ralph Nader. He is also the founder of the FSU Progress Coalition. 6
Samantha Parsons, co-founder of UnKoch My Campus and development director at Real Food Generation, a fiscally sponsored project of Alliance for Global Justice, supports the Corporate Genome Project’s fundraising efforts and outreach through her network of community and movement connections. 1
Academic advisors for the Corporate Research Project include Nancy MacLean, Professor of History at Duke University and author of Democracy in Chains, and Isaac Kamola, a political science professor at Trinity College and co-author with Wilson of Free Speech and Koch Money: Manufacturing a Campus Culture War. 1