ENGO Funding Pipeline
Tides US → Tides Canada / MakeWay → Canadian ENGO recipients (David Suzuki Foundation, Pembina Institute, Climate Action Network Canada, and others). The cross-border environmental-NGO funding-and-fiscal-sponsor architecture, mapped from the 2008 Tar Sands Campaign memo, the 2017–18 Senate Energy Committee hearings, and the academic literature.
1. The pipeline at a glance
Donor-advised-fund and grant-making foundation founded 1976 by Drummond Pike. Annual grant-making in the hundreds of millions. Funded by Hewlett, Packard, Rockefeller Brothers, Oak, and other US foundations plus individual mega-donors. Files US Form 990 publicly via ProPublica Nonprofit Explorer.
Tides Canada Foundation founded 2000 in Toronto. Rebranded MakeWay in 2020 (split into MakeWay Foundation + MakeWay Charitable Society). Operates as fiscal sponsor for many Canadian environmental campaigns under its "Shared Platform" structure — campaigns operate under MakeWay's legal umbrella, share back-office, and access MakeWay-routed grants without standing up their own charitable status.
Major Canadian environmental NGOs receive Tides/MakeWay-routed grants directly or via fiscal-sponsor relationships. Grants are publicly reportable on T3010 returns (recipient charity discloses revenue source) and on Tides US Form 990 (donor discloses recipient).
2. Tides Foundation (US side)
Structure and donor base
The Tides Foundation is a US 501(c)(3) public charity founded in 1976 by Drummond Pike, headquartered in San Francisco. It functions as a donor-advised-fund aggregator and grant-making foundation: individual donors and foundations contribute to Tides, and Tides directs the grants according to donor advice. This structure provides US donors with charitable-deduction status and operational distance from the recipient campaigns.
Tides US Form 990 disclosures repeatedly identify substantial annual giving from: the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, the David and Lucile Packard Foundation, the Rockefeller Brothers Fund, the Oak Foundation, and individual high-net-worth donors. Tides has been one of the largest single grant-makers to environmental campaigns in North America for multiple decades.
SRC: Tides Foundation Form 990 (ProPublica Nonprofit Explorer); foundation funding studies; academic literature on the climate-philanthropy network3. Tides Canada → MakeWay (Canadian side)
Tides Canada (founded 2000) and the 2020 MakeWay rebrand
Tides Canada Foundation was founded in 2000, registered as a Canadian charity under the CRA Charities Directorate. In 2020, the organisation announced a rebrand to MakeWay, splitting into MakeWay Foundation and MakeWay Charitable Society. Operations and the fiscal-sponsor structure continued under the new name.
The MakeWay Shared Platform is the principal distinctive feature: hundreds of small-and-medium environmental, Indigenous-rights, and progressive-policy campaigns operate as projects under MakeWay's legal-charitable umbrella. They do not have to register as separate charities; they share MakeWay's CRA registration, governance, accounting, and HR back-office. From a Canadian-disclosure standpoint, this means the donor-disclosure visibility for these campaigns runs through MakeWay's T3010, not through a standalone charity for each campaign.
SRC: MakeWay official site (makeway.org); CRA Charities Directorate T3010 returns; 2020 MakeWay rebrand announcements4. The 2008 Tar Sands Campaign
The strategy memo on the public record
In 2008, a coordinated multi-organisation strategy memo titled the "Tar Sands Campaign" was authored under the auspices of Corporate Ethics International, with documented Tides-routed funding. The memo set out an explicit strategy to limit expansion of Alberta oil-sands production by targeting (a) downstream demand markets, (b) pipeline infrastructure, and (c) financial-sector lending. The memo became publicly visible through subsequent Canadian Senate testimony, journalistic investigation, and a multi-year research line by independent researcher Vivian Krause.
The Canadian Senate Standing Committee on Energy, the Environment and Natural Resources held hearings in 2017–2018 at which the cross-border funding pattern documented by the Tar Sands Campaign and subsequent campaigns was discussed on the parliamentary record.
SRC: 2008 Tar Sands Campaign strategy memo; Senate Energy Committee hearings 2017–18; Vivian Krause investigative research; academic studies (e.g. Climate Policy, Environmental Politics journals)5. Canadian recipient ENGOs
The Canadian environmental NGOs registered as recipients of Tides/MakeWay-routed grants over multiple years include:
David Suzuki Foundation
One of the largest Canadian environmental charities. Documented multi-year recipient of US-foundation routed funding via Tides and direct grants from Hewlett, Packard, and other US foundations. Active on climate, biodiversity, and energy-transition policy.
Pembina Institute
Energy-and-environment policy think tank. Documented funding from US foundations including Hewlett and Oak; also receives federal-government project grants and Canadian foundation grants. Originally focused on Alberta oil-and-gas environmental impact; expanded to broader transition-policy work.
Climate Action Network Canada (CAN-Rac)
Coalition member of Climate Action Network International. Coordinates joint policy briefs to federal departments. Cross-membership overlaps Suzuki, Pembina, Greenpeace Canada, West Coast Environmental Law, and other Canadian ENGOs. Funding via US foundations, Canadian foundations, and member dues.
Stand.earth (formerly ForestEthics)
Bi-national environmental campaign organisation. Originally ForestEthics, rebranded Stand.earth. Active on pipeline-and-fossil-fuel campaigns. US-side and Canadian-side legal entities; cross-border coordination is part of the organisational design.
West Coast Environmental Law Association
Provides legal services and policy advocacy on BC and federal environmental matters. Recipient of Tides Canada / MakeWay-routed funding alongside other US-foundation sources. Active on environmental-assessment law and Indigenous-environmental-law cases.
Greenpeace Canada
Canadian branch of the global Greenpeace network. Funded by individual donors plus US-foundation network including Tides-routed grants. Campaigns on climate, biodiversity, oil-and-gas extraction, and forestry.
6. The disclosure-adequacy question
The structural question this dossier raises — the same one the Fraser/Atlas dossier raises about conservative-aligned funding — is whether existing Canadian disclosure architecture (CRA T3010, Lobbying Commissioner registry, Income Tax Act "political activities" rules) makes the cross-border foundation funding pipeline visible to Canadian readers and policy makers.
- Tides US Form 990 discloses Tides' grants to Canadian recipients at the recipient-name level. This is the donor-side transparency layer.
- MakeWay T3010 discloses MakeWay's revenue sources by category but does not always break out donors at the per-donor level. This is the fiscal-sponsor transparency layer.
- Recipient Canadian charity T3010 (Suzuki Foundation, Pembina, etc.) discloses revenue by source category but is not always per-donor either. This is the downstream-recipient transparency layer.
- Lobbying Commissioner registry captures meetings between paid lobbyists and designated public office holders — relevant where ENGO staff register as lobbyists, but does not capture funding flows.
The result is a mosaic disclosure: a researcher who works across all four layers can reconstruct the pipeline, but no single Canadian filing captures it. The Senate Energy Committee 2017–18 hearings explicitly addressed this disclosure-architecture gap and the question of whether it should be tightened.
7. Timeline (compressed)
8. The structural questions the record raises
Editorial framing.
- Bipartisan-symmetry test passes. The Atlas-network conservative-aligned pipeline (Fraser/MLI/MEI/JCCF) and the Tides/MakeWay environmental-aligned pipeline are structurally identical: foreign foundation parent, Canadian charitable layer, downstream Canadian recipients, mosaic disclosure. Naming one and not the other would be the partisan failure mode the registry was designed to avoid.
- The 2020 MakeWay rebrand is structurally significant. The pre-rebrand name (Tides Canada) made the US-parent connection visible to any reader; the post-rebrand name (MakeWay) does not. The funding architecture continued; only the brand reset.
- Fiscal-sponsor transparency. Hundreds of MakeWay Shared Platform projects operate without standalone charity registration. The disclosure question this raises is whether a Canadian reader can find out who funded a specific Shared-Platform campaign without subpoena power. The answer in practice is: only at the MakeWay-aggregate layer.
- Senate Energy Committee 2017–18 record is the strongest existing parliamentary documentation of the pipeline. The committee did not produce binding regulatory recommendations, but the testimony is on the public file.
9. What this page does not assert
Editorial framing.
This page does not assert that the David Suzuki Foundation, Pembina Institute, Climate Action Network Canada, Stand.earth, West Coast Environmental Law, Greenpeace Canada, MakeWay, or the Tides Foundation has done anything illegal. Foreign-foundation grant-making to Canadian charities is legal; cross-border philanthropy is a long-established and lawful structure. Environmental advocacy on climate, energy, and biodiversity is legitimate Charter-protected speech. The recipient ENGOs' policy positions on climate and energy transition may well be correct on the merits; this dossier takes no position on the substantive policy question.
This page asserts only what the public record contains: the existence of the funding pipeline, the documented Tides → Tides Canada / MakeWay → Canadian recipient flow, the 2008 Tar Sands Campaign memo, the 2017–18 Senate hearings, the 2020 MakeWay rebrand, the fiscal-sponsor architecture, and the mosaic-disclosure pattern across the four Canadian disclosure layers. The reader is invited to draw their own structural conclusion about the disclosure-adequacy question from the public-record facts.
Related dossiers
Primary sources
- ProPublica Nonprofit Explorer — Tides Foundation Form 990 filings
- MakeWay (formerly Tides Canada) — official site
- CRA Charities Directorate — T3010 returns
- Senate Standing Committee on Energy, the Environment and Natural Resources — ENEV evidence
- David Suzuki Foundation
- Pembina Institute
- Climate Action Network Canada / Réseau action climat Canada