How CodePink co-founder Medea Benjamin’s family foundation became a major funder of left-wing activist groups

CodePink co-founder Medea Benjamin’s family foundation became a major financial backer of a network of left-wing activist organizations over more than two decades, providing nearly $3.2 million to CodePink while also bankrolling protest groups, legal advocacy organizations and progressive nonprofits, a Fox News Digital investigation found.

The foundation, Arc of Justice, is a $54.6 million private foundation formerly known as The Benjamin Fund. A review of its complete IRS filing history found it made nearly 1,500 grants totaling about $24.6 million to organizations involved in anti-war activism, progressive policy, legal advocacy and campaigns involving immigration enforcement, China, Cuba and the Israel-Hamas war.

Among its largest recipients were CodePink, Global Exchange, the Center for Constitutional Rights, Grassroots International and Social Good Fund, alongside grants to dozens of other organizations involved in anti-war activism, progressive policy, legal advocacy and progressive media.

Arc of Justice provided CodePink more than twice the approximately $1.33 million the group received from the funding network linked to Shanghai-based Marxist tech tycoon Neville Roy Singham. A previous five-part Fox News Digital investigation found Singham’s network directed at least $278 million into organizations that promoted pro-China messaging.

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Arc of Justice has come under scrutiny after California revoked its charitable registration following years of financial compliance failures, though the foundation has been working to regain its standing with California regulators.

Benjamin, who co-founded CodePink with Singham’s wife Jodie Evans, has remained one of the group’s most visible public faces, frequently leading protests and interrupting congressional hearings. On Tuesday, she was escorted from a House Foreign Affairs subcommittee hearing on alleged foreign malign influence after protesting during the proceedings.

The Fox News Digital investigation also found the foundation itself has undergone sweeping changes in recent months, with Benjamin stepping down from the board, new leadership taking over and the organization saying it intends to chart a different course for its charitable giving.

Following the money

Arc of Justice began funding CodePink in 2009 and provided grants to the organization in 15 tax years through 2024, totaling $3,195,280.

According to the documents, CodePink was Arc of Justice’s largest activist beneficiary. Since 2009, the foundation and its predecessor, The Benjamin Fund, also directed about $2.05 million to Global Exchange, the anti-war and social justice advocacy group Benjamin co-founded with her former husband, Kevin Danaher, which has long campaigned against U.S. military intervention and economic sanctions.

Arc of Justice also provided about $2.24 million to Grassroots International, which funds grassroots social movements around the world; $1.61 million to Social Good Fund, which provides nonprofit infrastructure and fundraising support for charitable projects; about $1.29 million to the Center for Constitutional Rights, a legal advocacy organization; and about $114,000 to Alliance for Global Justice (AFGJ), an activist nonprofit.

AFGJ has drawn scrutiny over its past fiscal sponsorship of Samidoun, a pro-Palestinian activist group later sanctioned by the U.S. Treasury. Benjamin said Arc’s final grant to Alliance for Global Justice was $10,000 in 2022 and that the foundation “was not aware of any specific groups fiscally sponsored by AFGJ” when it made its grants.

Through attorney David Levitt, the foundation said both CodePink and Alliance for Global Justice were recognized by the IRS as tax-exempt public charities and that Arc was entitled to rely on that status when making its grants.

The grantmaking reached across a much broader activist network. Since 2009, IRS filings reviewed by Fox News Digital show Arc of Justice and its predecessor gave about $492,000 to World Beyond War, roughly $255,000 to the Institute for Policy Studies and about $124,000 to Jewish Voice for Peace. It also gave $110,000 to Grassroots Global Justice and about $90,000 to the Center for Popular Democracy.

IRS filings also show Arc of Justice and its predecessor provided about $65,500 to Democracy Now! since 2009, where Benjamin has frequently appeared as a guest over the years.

 

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From funding to activism

Founded in 2002 with the aim of preventing the Iraq War, CodePink has grown into one of the country’s most visible anti-war protest groups, repeatedly disrupting congressional hearings and protests involving senior U.S. officials, including then-Secretaries of State John Kerry and Mike Pompeo. The group has also participated in nationwide No Kings protests, opposed ICE enforcement actions, organized anti-Israel rallies, campaigned against U.S. policy toward China, Cuba and Iran. Earlier this year CodePink led a delegation to Cuba that included Twitch political streamer Hasan Piker.

Asked about Arc’s long-term funding of CodePink and other activist organizations, Matthew Johnson, a senior fellow at the Jamestown Foundation, said sustained financial support can have an impact well beyond the dollar amounts involved.

“Small amounts of money can actually go a long way toward impacting the broader media ecosystem… from the perspective of political organization, they may be having an outsized impact on the kind of information that is available to Americans,” Johnson told Fox News Digital.

Johnson, who testified before Congress Tuesday about how foreign adversaries may use nonprofits and other organizations to shape U.S. public opinion and policy, told lawmakers that CodePink launched its “China Is Not Our Enemy” campaign in 2020 following meetings in Beijing and has since pursued China-focused advocacy and organized travel. The campaign argued the United States should pursue cooperation with Beijing rather than confrontation. CodePink and Benjamin have denied taking direction from the Chinese government.

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Benjamin told Fox News Digital the grants were intended to support CodePink’s anti-war work.

“The foundation’s donations to CodePink were made to support its anti-war work,” she said in an email response.

At the House hearing on Tuesday, Benjamin also rejected suggestions that she or CodePink took direction from foreign governments. “I’ve been an anti-war activist from the days of Vietnam,” Benjamin said. “I never had a foreign government tell me what to do.”

Singham and the organizations he has funded identified in the Fox News Digital report have denied taking direction from the Chinese government, and neither Singham, Benjamin, nor the organizations have been charged with wrongdoing.

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Where did the money come from?

Arc of Justice was formerly known as The Benjamin Fund, Inc., with California corporate records showing the foundation formally changed its name in November 2019.

Benjamin’s father, Alvin Benjamin, a prominent Long Island real estate developer who founded The Benjamin Companies in the early 1960s, provided some of the foundation’s earliest documented financial backing.

The Benjamin Fund’s initial 2003 IRS return shows he contributed a partnership interest valued at $683,715 to the foundation, with Medea Susan Benjamin serving as president.

Much larger contributions followed. In 2010, the estate of Benjamin’s mother, Rose Benjamin, contributed $10,863,060, according to the foundation’s IRS filing. Five years later, the Estate of Alvin Benjamin contributed another $15 million, followed by another $8,603,450 in 2019.

Medea Benjamin — identified as Susan Benjamin on the filing — personally contributed $1 million to Arc of Justice in 2022, listing a Miami address.

How the fortune grew

Arc of Justice’s wealth was largely tied to an investment portfolio that continued to grow while the foundation distributed millions of dollars in grants.

Federal tax returns reviewed by Fox News Digital show the foundation’s assets grew from $39.63 million at the end of 2020 to $54.64 million in 2024, as it distributed millions of dollars annually in grants.

Arc of Justice generated much of its annual income from its investment portfolio, collecting dividends from stocks and mutual funds, interest on cash holdings and profits from investments that had increased in value.

In 2023, the foundation reported nearly $2 million in revenue, including $1.11 million in dividends and interest from securities, $166,421 in interest on savings and temporary cash investments and $686,919 in net gains from asset sales.

Its investment holdings also produced substantial gains as the portfolio increased in value. In 2020, Arc of Justice reported $12,344,501 in unrealized gains on securities, helping push its year-end assets to nearly $40 million.

Over more than two decades, IRS filings reviewed by Fox News Digital repeatedly reported no compensation for the foundation’s officers and no highly paid employees, while the foundation directed millions of dollars to outside organizations.

Changing course

After California revoked Arc of Justice’s charitable registration, Fox News Digital reported that a new Florida nonprofit using the Arc of Justice name was incorporated at the Miami home of Benjamin’s longtime partner, Tighe Barry, raising questions about the future of the foundation and whether its assets or operations were being moved out of California.

The address is a modest turquoise home largely obscured by trees — an unassuming setting for an organization tied to a private foundation with more than $50 million in assets. Benjamin and Barry have frequently appeared together at CodePink demonstrations over the years.

Levitt later told Fox News Digital the Florida corporation had been created as a “placeholder” while the foundation considered relocating its operations from California, but the move was never completed. He said the California corporation was never formally dissolved, no assets were transferred and the Florida entity “holds no assets and has conducted no business.”

The foundation has been attempting to get its registration reinstated after recently filing five years of overdue reports covering 2020 through 2024 and paying $1,800 in filing fees and penalties as part of a petition for reinstatement, documents submitted to California regulators show.

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In the reinstatement petition, Levitt attributed the missed filings to what he described as an administrative misunderstanding over whether the foundation had successfully relocated from California to Florida.

He wrote that, during the tenure of the foundation’s “former president,” who served through the end of 2025, foundation leaders believed Arc was no longer subject to California’s charitable registration requirements because it had moved to Florida.

The petition says the foundation later appointed a “new president,” who discovered the compliance problems in 2026 and began the process of bringing the organization back into compliance. The petition also states that the foundation’s directors and officers personally paid the penalty portion of the overdue filing fees.

The filings identify Maya Danaher, Benjamin’s daughter, as president of the California foundation. Danaher previously served as the foundation’s treasurer before becoming president.

“As previously reported, I have resigned from the foundation’s board, and its new management will set its own funding priorities going forward,” Benjamin said.

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It is unclear why Benjamin resigned from the board, why the proposed move to Florida was ultimately abandoned or why the foundation’s new leadership decided to shift its grantmaking priorities away from the causes it had supported for more than two decades.

Benjamin was not listed as an officer or director of the Florida corporation, where Barry was listed as secretary and registered agent.

Its stated goal is blunt: “WE ARE HERE TO SUPPORT SOCIAL JUSTICE NON PROFITS,” according to the articles of incorporation.

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Levitt said the foundation’s new leadership intends to shift its grantmaking away from the causes it historically supported.

“Going forward, the foundation’s new management intends to focus its grant-making on domestic childhood enrichment programs and organizations that support the well-being of children, families and individuals in need throughout the US,” Levitt said.

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