Discovery Institute - Funding

Funding

The institute is a non-profit educational foundation funded by philanthropic foundation grants, corporate and individual contributions and the dues of Institute members. Contributions made to it are tax deductible, as provided by law.

The institute does not provide details about its backers, out of "harassment" fears according to Chapman.

In 2001, the Baptist Press reported, "Discovery Institute ... with its $4 million annual budget ($1.2 million of which is for the Center for the Renewal of Science and Culture) is heavily funded by Christian conservatives. Maclellan Foundation of Chattanooga, Tenn., for example, awarded $350,000 to the institute with the hope researchers would be able to prove evolution to be a false theory. Fieldstead & Co., owned by Howard and Robert Ahmanson of Irvine, Calif., pledged $2.8 million through 2003 to support the Center for the Renewal of Science and Culture."

In 2003, a review of tax documents on GuideStar showed grants and gifts totalling $1.4 million in 1997. Included in the supporters were 22 foundations. At least two-thirds of these foundations stated explicitly religious missions.

Most Discovery Institute donors have also contributed significantly to the Bush campaign.

In 2005, the Washington Post reported, 'Meyer said the institute accepts money from such wealthy conservatives as Howard Ahmanson Jr., who once said his goal is "the total integration of biblical law into our lives," and the Maclellan Foundation, which commits itself to "the infallibility of the Scripture." '

According to Charity Navigator, in FYE 2005, the Discovery Institute had $2,989,608 in total revenue and $3,878,186 in expenses.

The Discovery Institute denies allegations that its intelligent design agenda is religious, and downplays the religious source of much of its funding. In an interview of Stephen C. Meyer, when ABC News' asked about the Discovery Institute's many evangelical Christian donors, the institute's public relations representative stopped the interview saying "I don't think we want to go down that path."

Though in the minority, funding also comes from non-conservative sources: The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation gave $1 million in 2000 and pledged $9.35 million over 10 years in 2003, including $50,000 of Bruce Chapman's $141,000 annual salary. The money of the Gates Foundation grant is "exclusive to the Cascadia project" on regional transportation, according to a Gates Foundation grant maker.

Published reports state that the institute has awarded $3.6 million in fellowships of $5,000 to $60,000 per year to 50 researchers since the CSC's founding in 1996. "I was one of the early beneficiaries of Discovery largess," says William A. Dembski, who, during the three years after completing graduate school in 1996 could not secure a university position, received what he calls "a standard academic salary" of $40,000 a year through the institute.