https://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/07/us/politics/07podesta.html
John Podesta, Shepherd of a Government in Exile
The center does not disclose who finances its activities, a policy it is declining to change even as Mr. Podesta prepares to wield influence over the shape of the Obama administration.
“Some donors choose to make public what they are giving us, but others don’t, and we respect that,” said Jennifer M. Palmieri, the center’s senior vice president for communications.
The lack of transparency is hardly unique. The law does not require such organizations to say who their contributors are, and most conceal their donors’ identities, in part to keep from being raided by rivals, said James G. McGann, director of the Think Tanks and Civil Societies Program at the University of Pennsylvania.
Still, scattered news reports over the last five years have identified several Democratic-leaning donors who have provided millions of dollars to Mr. Podesta’s project, and Ms. Palmieri did not dispute those names.
They include the billionaire investor George Soros; Peter B. Lewis, chairman of Progressive Insurance; the Hollywood producer Steve Bing; and Herb and Marion Sandler, who made billions in the mortgage industry before selling their company in 2006 and who have given about $20 million to the project.
In addition, a database of grants from charitable foundations that is maintained by the Foundation Center, a philanthropy group, shows that from 2003 to 2007, the Center for American Progress received about $15 million in grants from 58 foundations.
Professor McGann said such research organizations all shared the problem of maintaining independence from donors. But, he said, Mr. Podesta’s may be less susceptible to conflicts of interest than those financed primarily by a single patron.