Ford Foundation's 21st-Century Funding Of ADL `Lobby' Group Revisited

Between October 7, 2023 and December 4, 2025, the Anti-Defamation League [ADL] lobbying group in the USA not only encouraged U.S. elected officials to continue shipping munitions to the militaristic Israeli government's war machine, but also attempted to pressure U.S. university presidents to restrict the democratic free speech rights of U.S. antiwar college students who demonstrate on campus against the IDF’s war on people in Gaza and in solidarity with the struggle of the Palestinian people for national liberation.


Yet, historically, the U.S. power elite’s Ford Foundation has, in the 21st-century, helped fund the activity of the ADL. In 2012, for example, the Ford Foundation gave a $500,000 "charitable grant" to the ADL political pressure group And as the then-ADL National Director Abraham Foxman noted in a May 15, 2012 press release: "We are so very proud to count the Ford Foundation among our closest partners in our vital work..."


According to its Form 990 financial filing for 2011, the "non-profit" and tax-exempt Anti-Defamation League collected over $53.7 million in 2011 and had operating expenses of only about $49.6 million during that same year; or, to be more exact, the "non-profit" ADL's 2011 total earnings exceeded its total expenses by $4,192,327 in 2011.


In addition, the then-national director of the "non-profit" ADL, Abraham Foxman, apparently then received an annual compensation of $370,000; and the then-regional director of the ADL's Los Angeles office, Amanda Susskind, apparently received an annual compensation of $207,000.


Another tax-exempt "non-profit" organization that was then-affiliated to the ADL, the ADL Foundation, described its "charitable" activity in the following way on its Form 990 financial filing:


"Helps promote the mission of ADL...Specific grants totaling $13,603,358 was made to ADL...Supports ADL through ownership and administration of a building in Los Angeles, California. The building houses ADL's Pacific Southwest regional office in Los Angeles."


The same tax-exempt "non-profit" ADL Foundation's Form 990 financial filing also indicated that the value of its "investments in Central America and Caribbean" then exceeded $49.6 million; and the total value of all of the ADL Foundation's investments was then around $74 million.


And in more recent years, the Ford Foundation has also been helping to fund the activity of the ADL. Between June 2019 and August 2023, for example, The Ford Foundation gave at least 3 grants, totaling $725,000, to the Anti-Defamation League [ADL] "Lobby" group.


In late 2023, the CEO of the “non-profit” ADL group was then a former Democratic Obama White House Special Assistant named Jonathan Greenblatt. At that time, ADL's website noted:


“Jonathan serves on numerous corporate and non-profit boards…In 2002, he co-founded Ethos Brands…Ethos was acquired by Starbucks Coffee Company in 2005. Following the acquisition, Jonathan was named VP of Global Consumer Products at Starbucks and joined the board of the Starbucks Foundation…He is a…member of the Council on Foreign Relations..”


And, according to ADL’s Form 990 financial filing for 2021, then-ADL CEO Greenblatt was being given a total annual compensation of over $675,000 in 2021 by the “non-profit” Anti-Defamation League.


According to its Form 990 financial filing for 2021, the "non-profit" and tax-exempt Anti-Defamation League collected over $101 million in 2021 and then had operating expenses of only about $81.5 million during that same year; or, to be more exact, the "non-profit" ADL's 2021 total earnings exceeded its total expenses by around $19.5 million in 2021.


In addition, according to the ADL website, ADL’s then-chairman of the board of directors, Ben Sax, was "a partner at Corient Private Wealth, a multibillion-dollar registered investment advisor that works exclusively with wealthy individuals and their families to help navigate the world around them.”