Coors, Walmart and ExxonMobil Contributed Money to Project 2025’s Heritage Foundation
Claim:
Coors, Walmart and ExxonMobil have all contributed money to The Heritage Foundation, the conservative think tank leading the Project 2025 initiative.
Rating:
Rating: True
Context:
In past years, all three organizations have truly contributed money to The Heritage Foundation, usually via their private foundations. As of 2024, the Adolph Coors Foundation is the only one of the three organizations still publicly disclosing support for the conservative group. Further, in order to fully document and verify the full scope of this subject, we also reviewed evidence of all three organizations making past contributions to other groups presently named as advisory board partners of Project 2025.
In the months leading up to the 2024 U.S. presidential election, online users shared a rumor positing three specific businesses were among those who previously provided funds to the conservative Heritage Foundation — the leaders of the Project 2025 policy initiative. Posts said Coors, Walmart and ExxonMobil contributed money to the think tank.
For example, on July 8, 2024, the progressive Facebook page The Other 98% posted (archived), “The Coors family (beer), the Walton Family (Walmart), and Exon Mobile [sic] have contributed to the Heritage Foundation, Project 2025. You know what to do.” The post received more than 23,000 shares.
An online rumor claimed the Adolph Coors Foundation, Walmart’s Walton Family Foundation and ExxonMobil all contributed to The Heritage Foundation, the leaders of the Project 2025 initative.
Another Facebook user previously posted the same text on July 6. That popular post — possibly the original one starting the rumor — received more than 22,000 shares. Other users also later reposted the same rumor on Facebook, Instagram, Mastodon, Threads, TikTok and X.
An online rumor claimed the Adolph Coors Foundation, Walmart’s Walton Family Foundation and ExxonMobil all contributed to The Heritage Foundation, the leaders of the Project 2025 initative.
The posts’ mention of Project 2025 — also known as the 2025 Presidential Transition Project — refers to a conservative coalition’s policy plan for a future Republican U.S. presidential administration. The Heritage Foundation formally announced Project 2025 in April 2022. As Snopes previously reported, people across the political spectrum expressed fears the initiative’s proposed actions are precursors to authoritarianism. Further, the plan proposes recommendations to reverse protections for LGBTQ+ people, limit abortion access and stop federal efforts to mitigate climate change.
The rumor promoted in the online posts claimed Molson Coors Beverage Co.’s family — a reference to the Adolph Coors Foundation — Walmart’s Walton Family Foundation and ExxonMobil “have contributed to the Heritage Foundation.” The text in the posts then mentioned Project 2025.
In those terms, yes, this rumor is true. All three organizations have, in the past, contributed money to The Heritage Foundation — the leaders of Project 2025 — usually via their private foundations. FoundationSource.com defines a private foundation as an independent, legal entity set up for solely charitable purposes, with funds typically sourced from a single individual, a family or a corporation, which also receives a tax deduction for donations.
In our research for this matter, we concluded the Adolph Coors Foundation is the only organization of the three appearing to presently and publicly still disclose support of The Heritage Foundation. Further, in order to fully document and verify the full scope of this subject, we also reviewed evidence of all three organizations making past contributions to other groups presently named as advisory board partners of Project 2025.
The Project 2025 website defined its advisory board partners as follows: “A broad coalition of over 100 conservative organizations [that] has come together to form the project pillars.” In our prior reporting, we reported the advisory board partners are a collection of groups under The Heritage Foundation’s oversight that have co-signed the effort, given feedback on its proposals or promoted the initiative to government officials. The Project 2025 website also added the following disclaimer: “The opinions of Project 2025 and The Heritage Foundation do not necessarily represent the opinions of every one of its advisory board partners.”
We contacted all three organizations named in the posts to ask about past contributions to The Heritage Foundation and requested comment about Project 2025. A spokesperson for ExxonMobil returned our phone call and asked about our story, but did not return our email including our questions sent after the call. We received no further responses from any of the organizations within 48 hours.
Adolph Coors Foundation
The website for the Adolph Coors Foundation published its purpose, in part, is to “[place] a high priority on programs that help youth to prosper, encourage economic opportunities for adults and advance public policies that reflect our nation’s founding principles.”
The foundation’s website displayed a “featured projects” page (archived). That page featured three “highlights,” one of which named The Heritage Foundation:
The Adolph Coors Foundation is proud of be a long-time funder of The Heritage Foundation. Heritage’s mission is to formulate and promote public policies based on the principles of free enterprise, limited government, individual freedom, traditional American values, and a strong national defense.
In 1973, Joseph Coors, one of our Foundation’s founders, was instrumental in the creation of The Heritage Foundation. In 2023, Heritage celebrated its 50th anniversary fighting for America’s future, mobilizing the conservative movement and training new leaders who will lead America in the future.
Please visit the following link to learn more about The Heritage Foundation and its policy work: https://www.heritage.org.
We referenced Adolph Coors Foundation’s tax documents reported by both ProPublica and SourceWatch.org. According to those tax documents, the Adolph Coors Foundation contributed $1,325,000 to The Heritage Foundation between the tax-filing years 2008 and 2022.
In our research of the foundation’s tax filings, we noticed names of other organizations also now associated with Project 2025’s many advisory board partners. For example, the filings named The Claremont Institute; The Heartland Institute; Hillsdale College; Leadership Institute; Mackinac Center for Public Policy; and Media Research Center. Additionally, the conservative organization The Federalist Society — which is not listed on Project 2025’s advisory board partners list — also appeared in the foundation’s filings.
Walton Family Foundation
The Walton Family Foundation describes itself on its website as “[continuing] a philanthropic vision begun by Walmart founders Sam and Helen Walton.” The website’s grants page (archived) featured a search box allowing users to easily locate past contributions. The website displayed contributions to The Heritage Foundation from 1992 through 2018 totaling $650,000.
We noted the foundation’s website also displayed past contributions to other organizations presently named as Project 2025’s advisory board partners, including American Compass in 2022 and 2023 (totaling $300,000); The Claremont Institute between 1994 and 1998 ($277,000); Discovery Institute in 2015 ($200,000); Foundation for American Innovation in 2023 ($119,456); Heartland Institute between 2002 and 2017 ($420,000); Independent Women’s Forum between 2016 and 2022 ($525,000); James Madison Institute between 2012 and 2015 ($290,000); Mackinac Center between 1999 and 2012 ($470,000); National Center for Public Policy Research in 1997 ($97,000); Oklahoma Council of Public Affairs between 2014 and 2020 ($2,155,630); Pacific Research Institute between 1995 and 2014 ($875,000); and Texas Public Policy Foundation between 1995 and 2022 ($1,030,000).
ExxonMobil
The ExxonMobil corporate website hosts a page titled, “Philanthropy and social contributions.” The page begins its description of the company’s efforts as follows: “ExxonMobil works closely with the communities where we operate to identify and invest in initiatives that help support their needs. We collaborate with governments and local stakeholders to invest in programs that promote local economic growth and help improve social conditions.”
We researched page archives for ExxonSecrets.org provided by the Internet Archive’s Wayback Machine. ExxonSecrets.org previously hosted links to official tax filings and forms mentioning ExxonMobil Corporation’s private foundation, ExxonMobil Foundation. Those filings were titled, “Worldwide Contributions and Community Investments.” Most of the links directed users to PDF files originally hosted on an old Greenpeace website, greenpeaceusa.org.
According to the documents — which spanned the years 1998 through 2012 — ExxonMobil contributed at least $730,000 to The Heritage Foundation. ExxonMobil Corporation and ExxonMobil Foundation both contributed funds. We uncovered no further contributions from ExxonMobil to The Heritage Foundation for years following 2012. (The DeSmog.com website, an organization launched in 2006 “to clear the PR pollution that is clouding the science and solutions to climate change,” published further information about this matter and a slightly higher contribution amount total from ExxonMobil to The Heritage Foundation.)
Similar to the Adolph Coors Foundation and Walton Family Foundation, ExxonMobil’s years-old documents named several organizations that later became some of Project 2025’s advisory board partners. For example, the documents mentioned the American Legislative Exchange Council; The Heartland Institute; Independent Women’s Forum; Institute for Energy Research; Media Research Center; National Center for Public Policy Research; and Texas Public Policy Foundation. The documents also listed contributions to The Federalist Society, which again was not listed as a Project 2025 advisory board partner.
In 2016, The Heritage Foundation published, “ExxonMobil is not currently a contributor to The Heritage Foundation; however, their last contribution amounted to .05 percent of The Heritage Foundation budget.”
Sources:
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