Formed in 2007, The Silicon Valley Community Foundation (SVCF) applies “visionary leadership [and] strategic grantmaking” to partner with donors and “strengthen the common good locally and throughout the world.” The foundation doesn’t take a public position on biotechnology, but its donors support “environmental organizations that are strengthening underserved and underrepresented voices,” many of which are nonprofits involved in anti-GMO advocacy.
Since 2012, SVCF has donated nearly $3 million to the Tides Center, an offshoot of the Tides Foundation and a major donor to anti-GMO advocacy. Tides claims that “corporate land grabs, patented seeds, and pro-GMO policies” represent “threats” to the developing world, and has contributed over $500,000 to environmental groups that share this view. These include the Sierra Club, Greenpeace, Natural Resources Defense Council and Friends of the Earth, all of which oppose crop biotechnology. The Sierra Club, for instance, which has also received nearly $170,000 directly from SVCF, refers to gene-editing technologies like CRISPR-Cas9 as “weapons of mass destruction.”
Multiplier, formerly called the Trust for Conservation Innovation, is SVCF’s second biggest grant recipient behind Tides and operates the GMO Science Campaign. The campaign aims “to provide a public platform where genetically engineered (GE) crop and food impacts are openly discussed ….” GMO Science argues that herbicide-tolerant GMO crops are behind “a hidden epidemic” of cancer and non-alcoholic fatty liver disease. This epidemic, the campaign says, was covered up by a “senior employee at the US Environmental Protection Agency” who worked with Monsanto “to suppress an investigation of glyphosate’s health risks …”
SVCF has also donated over $700,000 directly to the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC), an environmental nonprofit that says biotechnology companies are trying to monopolize food production, against the interests of farmers. “When the same people who sell seeds for pesticide-resistant crops also make the pesticides,” NRDC said in August 2018, “there’s a huge incentive for that company to encourage chemical-heavy growing practices, cashing in twice on farmers who become ever more dependent on its products.”
Financial Data
Annual Revenue: $7,103,545 (2017)
Total Assets $13,584,110 (2017)
Major Recipients (total contributions 2012-present)
Tides Center $2,855,957
Trust for Conservation Innovation $1,482,000
Environmental Defense Fund $1,044,185
Environmental Working Group $869,500
Natural Resources Defense Council $712,675
Union of Concerned Scientists $508,900
Friends of the Earth $300,000
Earth Island Institute $297,300
Sierra Club $168,869
The Oakland Institute $381,000
Center for Environmental Health $101,000