EXCLUSIVE: America First Policy Institute Quietly Doubled Its Revenue to $51M in 2024
Headlines:
EXCLUSIVE: America First Policy Institute Quietly Doubled Its Revenue to $51M in 2024
AFPI, Trump’s “Cabinet in Waiting,” Doubled Its Revenue While Preparing the Ground for a Second Trump Term
Think Tank Dubbed Trump’s “Cabinet in Waiting” Raked in Tens of Millions Last Year
Lede:
America First Policy Institute nearly doubled its revenue up to $51M in 2024, according to newly filed tax records obtained by Source Code. The documents reveal a staggering investment in the group founded and staffed by alumni of Donald Trump’s first administration – in a critical election year.
The details:
Covering the fiscal year ending December 31, 2024, the tax form reflects a nearly doubling of funds, from $27,319,085 in revenue in 2023 up to $51,061,493 in 2024.
AFPI’s revenue has risen each year since its creation after Trump’s first term. It reported just over $14M in revenue its first year filing with the IRS, $23.6M in the second, and just over $27M in the third, the most recent year. The increase reported in 2024 is by far the most significant.
AFPI’s reported contractors disclosed in the filing reflect other Trump world connections. AFPI paid $425,953 in 2024 for social media management to Big Vision Advisors, a firm whose other clients include Paula White-Cain, an AFPI alumna now serving as a senior advisor to the White House Faith Office.
Why it matters:
Trump world and AFPI are joined at the hip. AFPI claims nearly 80 of its employees have joined the new Trump administration so far.
AFPI was founded by Trump loyalists from his first administration in 2020, including Brooke Rollins, Larry Kudlow and Linda McMahon. Prior to the start of Trump’s second term, AFPI was often called the “cabinet in waiting,” due to its lengthy roster of Trump alumni. This included nine former cabinet-level officials and 50 former administration officials or other White House senior staffers, according to its 2024 impact report.
Trump has drawn heavily from AFPI for his second-term cabinet. Rollins, who served as AFPI’s president and CEO, and McMahon, who served as its board chair, now serve as Secretaries of Agriculture and Education. In total, there are at least eight AFPI alumni in cabinet-level positions, according a review by ABC News. These include Attorney General Pam Bondi, CIA Director John Ratcliff, and FBI Director Kash Patel.
2024 was a critical election year in which AFPI and its sister group America First Works were busy preparing for and enabling Trump’s return to the White House. AFPI’s newly released tax filing reveals the level of financial firepower that went into it, and suggests how just how important of a player high-powered donors considered the group.
The year was all about “winning,” according to a joint impact report by AFPI and AFW. They “supported a historic win for President Trump” by driving “record early turnout and returns in critical battleground states.” And they recruited nearly 400 past administration officials to craft a transition project for the “next America First Administration.”
AFPI declined to disclose the identity of its donors, but tax forms filed by other nonprofits provide clues. The dark money behemoth DonorsTrust gave $4.4M, according to documents obtained by NOTUS, totaling over 27 times more than it gave AFPI the year before. The nonprofit associated with the secretive Christian nationalist group Ziklag, in which Wallnau plays an important role, gave $1.18M. It was the organization’s first ever donation to AFPI, and one of its largest that year, tax records show. That money may have supported AFPI’s “Project 19,” later expanded to “Project 47,” which focused voter mobilization in specific counties in specific swing states. As part of the project, Wallnau and AFPI partnered on a series of tent-revival-cum-political rallies that aimed to turn out the vote.
Key quotes:
If you are a reporter and would like AFPI’s 2024 990 form, email us at press@source-code.org or find us on Signal: SourceCode.23