UNDUE INFLUENCE

Description: IPS is America's premier radical left-wing think tank, funded by the heirs of the Faberge cosmetics fortune and staffed by capable researchers and analysts from dozens of disciplines. Entirely dedicated to opposing American policies -- if it's American policy, IPS is agin it.

IPS is active in the anti-Exxon Mobil campaigns, helping coordinate activism surrounding annual shareholder meetings. IPS Executive Director John Cavanagh is a key board member of the global anti-capitalist network, International Forum on Globalization.

In its own words: "Mission: DEVELOPING ALTERNATIVE STRATEGIES TO U.S. POLICIES. A 'think tank' for progressive research and action to create a more responsible society. At a time when other think tanks celebrate the virtues of unrestrained greed, unlimited wealth, and unregulated markets, IPS is striving to create a more responsible society - one built around the values of justice, nonviolence, sustainability, and decency. IPS, as I.F. Stone once said, is "an Institute for the rest of us."

Translated, the IPS goal is to create a society in which IPS restrains your personal freedom, IPS limits your wealth, and IPS tell you what you may buy and sell. 

EIN: 52-0788947
Opened 1963, exempt since 1965

Background:
The Institute for Policy Studies was originally funded by

Samuel Rubin (1901-1978). His parents brought him from Russia to America as a child.  He became a dedicated socialist, and is reputed to have been a Communist Party member, but had business talent and decided to "play the capitalist game." In 1930 he founded the Spanish Trading Corporation, closing it when Franco took power in Spain. In 1937 he founded Faberge Perfumes and built it from a small specialty shop into a major cosmetic firm.  He established the Samuel Rubin Foundation in 1959 from his personal wealth. In 1963, Rubin sold Faberge for $25 million and gave a portion to his foundation. It has funded legions of left-wing causes since, IPS among the first.

The Institute for Policy Studies

Cora Weiss, nee Cora Rubin, daughter of Samuel Rubin.
She was a director of the Samuel Rubin Foundation from its inception. She was also instrumental in the funding decision to create the Institute for Policy Studies. Her husband, Peter Weiss, was the first IPS chairman of the board of directors.
She and her husband Peter selected Marcus Raskin and Richard Barnet as co-directors of the Institute for Policy Studies. She gained notoriety as a leader of the Vietnam War era anti-American coalitions who traveled to Paris and Hanoi for repeated meetings with communist leaders.
 

Peter Weiss, born in 1925 in Vienna, Austria, is the senior partner of the law firm Weiss, Dawid, Fross, Zelnick & Lehrman in New York. His firm specializes in trademark, copyright and international law. Weiss is a prominent member of the National Lawyers Guild (NLG), a radical lawyers association organized in 1936. He was chairman of the IPS board of directors from its start in 1963 until the 1990s.

In 1963, the Institute for Policy Studies in Washington DC opened its doors under the co-directorship of 29-year-old Marcus Raskin and Richard Barnet (34).

Grants to IPS - 20 most recent grants of 145 total grants

Foundation Name: The Ford Foundation
Abstract: To develop guide to ecotourism and sustainable tourism in order to inform and influence deliberations of 2002 United Nations World Ecotourism Summit
Amount: $20,000             Year Authorized: 2001

Foundation Name: The Ford Foundation
Abstract: For final support for Peace and Security Program
Amount: $75,000             Year Authorized: 2001

Foundation Name: Turner Foundation, Inc.
Abstract: For efforts to pressure international financial institutions to reform energy lending practices and increase capacity of global activists to advocate for energy reform practices
Amount: $65,000             Year Authorized: 2000

Foundation Name: Fannie Mae Foundation
Abstract: For 30th conference of Johns Hopkins International Urban Fellows program entitled, Baltimore in Transition: How Do We Move from Decline to Revival, to bring together urban policy professionals and local and federal policymakers
Amount: $10,000             Year Authorized: 2000  

Foundation Name: Town Creek Foundation, Inc.
Abstract: To strengthen media work on promoting peace
Amount: $25,000             Year Authorized: 2000

Foundation Name: Naomi and Nehemiah Cohen Foundation
Amount: $40,000             Year Authorized: 2000  

Foundation Name: The Rockefeller Foundation
Abstract: For International Health Research Award to support collaborative partnership to strengthen health systems reform in Asia-Pacific region within National Health Accounts framework
Amount: $200,000             Year Authorized: 2000 

Foundation Name: Turner Foundation, Inc.
Abstract: For Sustainable Energy and Economy Network (SEEN), which aims to create global citizen response to climate change, transform energy policy and support women's cooperatives in Asia
Amount: $50,000             Year Authorized: 1999  

Foundation Name: Rockefeller Brothers Fund, Inc.
Abstract: For International Fellows in Philanthropy program
Amount: $100,000             Year Authorized: 2000
Duration: 3-year grant  

Foundation Name: The Ford Foundation
Abstract: Support For Research, Networking, Advocacy, And International Conference On The Constitution-Making Processes In Southern Africa
Amount: $150,000             Year Authorized: 2000

Foundation Name: The Ford Foundation
Abstract: Research On Possibilities For Global Certification And Labeling Of Ecotourism And Exploring Certified Ecotourism As New Tool For Poverty Alleviation Through Building Natural Assets
Amount: $83,370             Year Authorized: 2000

Foundation Name: Charles Stewart Mott Foundation
Abstract: For International Fellows in Philanthropy Program providing practitioners and scholars in the nonprofit sector of other countries with intensive exposure to the American voluntary sector, advanced study, research, and training
Amount: $100,000             Year Authorized: 2000
Duration: 3-year grant

Foundation Name: Charles Stewart Mott Foundation
Abstract: Toward conference in India to help inform and educate the media, policymakers, organizations, and the public about international financing for fossil fuel projects and impacts of those projects on climate change
Amount: $38,400             Year Authorized: 2000

Foundation Name: John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation
Abstract: For drug policy project expanding treatment resources as alternative to incarceration
Amount: $50,000             Year Authorized: 2000
Duration: 2-year grant

Foundation Name: Eugene and Agnes E. Meyer Foundation
Abstract: For general operating support
Amount: $10,000             Year Authorized: 2000

Foundation Name: The Nathan Cummings Foundation, Inc.
Amount: $35,000             Year Authorized: 1999

Foundation Name: Blum-Kovler Foundation
Amount: $10,000             Year Authorized: 1998

Foundation Name: Surdna Foundation, Inc.
Abstract: To develop statistical measurement of nonprofit and for-profit economic activity on industry-by-industry basis in large states
Amount: $200,000             Year Authorized: 1999
Duration: 2-year grant

Foundation Name: Charles Stewart Mott Foundation
Abstract: For work on research, citizen education and organizing around environmental impact of public financial flows, focusing in particular on climate change impacts of policies and projects of the World Bank and export credit agencies and research, education and consensus building among developed and developing countries civil society organizations on environmental impacts of financial flows and their implication for global financial architecture
Amount: $170,000             Year Authorized: 1999
Duration: 2-year grant

Foundation Name: The Ford Foundation
Abstract: For tie-off support for International Fellows in Philanthropy Program
Amount: $75,000             Year Authorized: 1999

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