Description: A smaller (under $100 million assets) but key foundation in strategic anti-corporate action and prescriptive grantmaking, sometimes against the wishes of non-profit recipient groups. RFF is not a private foundation, but is a public charity (since a re-filing with the IRS in 1992), which means it can not only give out grants from its own funds, but it can also solicit and receive donations from other sources and funnel that money to recipient groups.

To see how RFF acts as Puppet Master of leftist fronts groups, click here.

Originator and officer of the Environmental Grantmakers Association, organized by Donald K. Ross, a Ralph Nader lawyer recruited by RFF in 1984.
RFF gives grants and receives grants from other foundations.
RFF gives grants to some of the worst mischief-makers in the anti-corporate crowd. Designs comprehensive campaigns and uses its influence to get other foundations to donate to RFF's pet causes.
RFF was incorporated in 1967 by Martha, John, Laurance, Nelson, and David Rockefeller (children of John S. Rockefeller, grandchildren of John D. Rockefeller). Members of the founding generation remained on the board until 1978, though active leadership of the Fund passed to the cousins' generation by 1971. Also in 1978, the first member of the fifth generation was elected to the board, and by 2000 over half the board was comprised of fifth generation members.
Dana S. Creel (long-time director of the Rockefeller Brothers Fund) was first director of the Rockefeller Family Fund until 1972 when Robert W. Scrivner (long-time staff associate of the Rockefeller Brothers Fund) took over. After Scrivner's death in 1984, the board elected Donald K. Ross as director.  Ross served for fifteen years, until 1999.

RFF paid for over $500,000 worth of misleading anti-pesticide ads placed in the New York Times by the Center for Children's Health and the Environment, a program within New York's Mt. Sinai School of Medicine; the content of the ads was not approved by the Mt. Sinai School of Medicine.

Rockefeller Family Fund is profiled in Ron Arnold and Alan Gottlieb's book, Trashing the Economy: How Runaway Environmentalism is Wrecking America.

ROCKEFELLER FAMILY FUND DIRECTOR:
Lee Wasserman Salary $127,700 benefits $29,235.
Failed candidate for Congress, 1996.
Former executive director, Environmental Advocates (formerly Environment Planning Lobby, or EPL) and remains on the board of directors.
Adviser, Pew Charitable Trusts.
Secretary/Treasurer, TechRocks, a technical support supplier for anti-corporate nonprofits.
Member, Save the Pine Bush.

Lee Wasserman has been RFF's director since 1999. Other staff include Cathy Weiss, a program officer, who heads the Fund's Economic Justice for Women program area. Larry Shapiro is director of the Fund's Environmental Enforcement Project and Lou Piels serves as the Project's field director. Maureen McCarthy serves as grants administrator and Wasserman's assistant. Kay Bromberg is a program assistant to Weiss and Shapiro.

Sample grants given by Rockefeller Family Fund:

Recipient Name: Center for Science in the Public Interest
Abstract: Antibiotic Resistance Program, to protect the public from the use of unnecessary antibiotics on the farm and in human medicine.
Amount: $25,000        Year Authorized: 2000         Cumulative: $50,000

Recipient Name: Environmental Working Group
Abstract: In support of a project to promote strategies to curb global warming. A donation from the W. Alton Jones Donor Advised Fund, administered by RFF.
Amount: $320,000        Year Authorized: 2000        

Recipient Name: Environmental Media Services
Abstract: In support of a project to promote strategies to curb global warming.
Amount: $125,000        Year Authorized: 1998        

Grants received by Rockefeller Family Fund:

Foundation Name: The Joyce Foundation
Abstract: For startup of Task Force on Environmental Integrity, new nonprofit to focus on level and quality of environmental enforcement actions, and produce report on respective roles of federal and state governments in enforcing federal laws in Great Lakes states
Amount: $250,000             Year Authorized: 2001
Duration: 1.50-year grant

Foundation Name: The Rockefeller Foundation
Abstract: For matching grant toward Funders Network on Trade and Globalization, initiative designed to support foundations and other funders in their efforts to promote global relations, policies and institutions that foster sustainable development around the world
Amount: $60,000             Year Authorized: 2001

Foundation Name: The McKnight Foundation
Abstract: For annual Environmental Grantmakers Association Fall Retreat
Amount: $10,000             Year Authorized: 2001

Foundation Name: Charles Stewart Mott Foundation
Abstract: For efforts of Environmental Grantmakers Association, including annual Fall Retreat, and start-up support for new working group, Funders Network on Trade Globalization
Amount: $68,500             Year Authorized: 2001

Foundation Name: The David and Lucile Packard Foundation
Abstract: For Environmental Grantmakers' Association Fall retreat and federal and international policy briefings
Amount: $100,000             Year Authorized: 2001

Foundation Name: The John Merck Fund
Abstract: For Environmental Protection Fund's work to energize national environmental community in countering and defeating attacks on federal environmental protections
Amount: $150,000             Year Authorized: 2000

Foundation Name: The Ford Foundation
Abstract: For Grants Managers Network to provide forum for exchange of information about best practices in grants management, networking, and professional development
Amount: $10,000             Year Authorized: 2001

Foundation Name: Turner Foundation, Inc.
Abstract: For Environmental Enforcement Project, which aims to improve state enforcement of federal clean air laws
Amount: $350,000             Year Authorized: 2000

Foundation Name: The Scherman Foundation, Inc.
Abstract: For emediacy project of Green Car Campaign Environmental Grantmakers Association
Amount: $15,000             Year Authorized: 2000

Foundation Name: The Rockefeller Foundation
Abstract: For use by its Environmental Grantmakers Association toward Funders' Network on Trade and Globalization, initiative designed to raise awareness and facilitate dialogue within foundation community about relevance of international trade and globalization issues
Amount: $22,150             Year Authorized: 2000

Donor list, prior to 2000:

• Turner Foundation, Inc

• The Community Foundation for the National Capital Region

• 3 grants: Rockefeller Brothers Fund, Inc

• W. K. Kellogg Foundation

• Vira I. Heinz Endowment

• Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation

• The William and Flora Hewlett Foundation

• The David and Lucile Packard Foundation

• The New York Community Trust

• The Pew Charitable Trusts

• Moore Family Foundation

• The William Penn Foundation

• Fannie Mae Foundation

• Bauman Family Foundation, Inc

• Surdna Foundation, Inc

• 2 grants: Charles Stewart Mott Foundation

• 3 grants: The David and Lucile Packard Foundation

• 2 grants: The William and Flora Hewlett Foundation

• Fannie Mae Foundation

• Rockefeller Brothers Fund, Inc

• The George Gund Foundation

• John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation

• 5 grants: Eugene and Agnes E. Meyer Foundation

• Surdna Foundation, Inc

• Charles Stewart Mott Foundation

• 2 grants: The David and Lucile Packard Foundation

• Rockefeller Brothers Fund

• Surdna Foundation, Inc

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