A Public Resource Compiled by the

702 H Street, NW Suite 300 Washington, D.C. 20001
501c3 nonprofit
Greenpeace.org

Recipient: Focus on climate change, air pollution and biotech-related topics

Key People

  • Jennifer Morgan, Executive Director (International)
  • Annie Leonard, Executive Director (USA)
  • Ayesha Imam, Board Chair
  • Ed Harrington, Treasurer

Greenpeace

Originally founded as a nuclear war protest movement in 1969, the environmental nonprofit Greenpeace has been on the frontlines of the crop biotechnology debate since the late 1990s. The group has been so influential that Organic Consumers Association (OCA) founder Ronnie Cummins credits Greenpeace for turning anti-GMO advocacy  into a viable political cause.

Today the group is actively involved in efforts to ban new gene-editing technologies, including CRISPR-Cas9, in Europe. “Releasing these new [gene-edited crops] into the environment without proper safety measures is illegal and irresponsible,” Greenpeace warned in July 2018. Scientists have been battling the group’s efforts to demonize the technology, urging EU leaders to stop Greenpeace from stealing “the narrative” around agricultural gene editing.

The international environmental nonprofit advises and frequently collaborates with prominent anti-GMO advocacy groups to advance its policy agenda. Greenpeace USA researcher Charlie Cray, for example, sits on the  board of directors at U.S. Right to Know (USRTK), an organic industry-funded activist group that attacks biotech researchers who engage in public science outreach. In 2016, Greenpeace partnered with Friends of Earth and Slow Food Germany to lobby against a proposal that would have allowed Europe to import GMO soybeans, claiming exposure to the crops may cause cancer. Greenpeace has also collaborated with the German nonprofit TestBiotech, which was founded in 2008 by former Greenpeace campaigner Christof Then. Then is TestBiotech’s executive and scientific director. The two advocacy groups published research suggesting that GMO corn encourages the spread of new plant pests, which was refuted by experts in 2012.

Greenpeace is perhaps best known for its campaigne against golden rice, vitamin-fortified rice varieties that could help prevent blindness in developing East Asian countries. In 2016, the group alleged that “[c]orporations are overhyping golden rice to pave the way for global approval of other more profitable genetically engineered crops.” Greenpeace also accused Chinese researchers in 2011 of using children as “guinea pigs” in a study of golden rice, again claiming the biotech industry has a financial incentive “to get us hooked on their seed.”

Financial Data

 

Annual Revenue: $39,696,574 (2017)

Total Assets $7,945,521 (2017)

Major Donors (total contributions 2012-present)

David and Lucille Packard Foundation $3,556,000

Foundation for the Carolinas $3,000,000

Ford Foundation $415,000

Arkay Foundation $295,000

Millicent and Eugene Bell Foundation $250,000

Holborn Foundation $140,500

Tides Foundation $137,013

McIntosh Foundation $130,000

Joyce Foundation $120,000

MWC Foundation $100,000

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Note that there are three “levels” of both donors and recipients.

Donors
Donations to advocacy groups are sometimes designated to support a specific cause, such as organic agriculture or mitigating climate change. There is no way for us to know from publicly-available documents on what the money will be spent, as we can only see the total amount donated. When we assign the levels below to donors and recipients, we assume that all donations are available to the recipient for all advocacy, including anti-GMO advocacy.

  • Level 1: Donates primarily to dedicated anti-GMO organizations
  • Level 2: A large portion of donations go to anti-GMO organizations; some donations go to organizations without a position on GMOs
  • Level 3: A small portion of donations go to anti-GMO organizations
    * Most donations go to organizations without a formal position on GMOs but which have aligned themselves with anti-GMO activists

Recipients
For Level 1 recipients, all donations are used for anti-GMO advocacy. For Level 2 and 3 recipients, we don’t know how much of each donation is used for anti-GMO advocacy.

  • Level 1: Dedicated to anti-GMO advocacy
  • Level 2: Involved in anti-GMO advocacy along with other causes
  • Level 3: No specific anti-GMO advocacy, but general support
    * Organizations without a formal position on GMOs but which have aligned themselves with anti-GMO activists