The Mercer Family Foundation is a private grant-making foundation in the United States. As of 2013, it had $37 million in assets. The foundation is run by

Rebekah Mercer Rebekah Mercer is an American heiress and Republican political donor who is the director of the Mercer Family Foundation. She began overseeing day-to-day operations of political projects for the Mercer family when the Mercers became involved i ...

, the daughter of computer scientist and hedge fund manager

Robert Mercer Robert Leroy Mercer (born July 11, 1946) is an American hedge fund manager, computer scientist, and political donor. Mercer was an early artificial intelligence researcher and developer and is the former co-CEO of the hedge fund company Renaissan ...

. Under Rebekah’s leadership, the family foundation invested about $70 million into conservative causes between 2009 and 2014. The foundation has also donated to groups that reject the

scientific consensus on climate change There is a strong scientific consensus that the Earth is warming and that this warming is mainly caused by human activities. This consensus is supported by various studies of scientists' opinions and by position statements of scientific org ...

Activities

The foundation's main interests are in the fields of public policy, higher education, and science. The foundation has donated to organizations and institutions including the Heritage Foundation,

Illinois Policy Institute The Illinois Policy Institute (IPI) is a libertarian nonprofit think tank with offices in Chicago and Springfield. Founded in 2002, it is active in the areas of education policy, pension policy, and state budget issues. IPI advocates for smaller ...

, Heartland Institute, and

SUNY Stony Brook Stony Brook University (SBU), officially the State University of New York at Stony Brook, is a public research university in Stony Brook, New York. Along with the University at Buffalo, it is one of the State University of New York system' ...

. Mercer provides funding to the Home Depot Foundation, whose mission is to "improve the homes and lives of U.S. military veterans and their families." The Mercer Family Foundation has lobbied against efforts to fully fund the Internal Revenue Service. The organization has been linked to the funding of Donald Trump and other US far-right entities. Similar allegations have been made about links to members of the UK government.

References

{{Reflist Political and economic research foundations in the United States Non-profit organizations based in New York City Climate change denial Conservative organizations in the United States