Enemies of Energy: Freedom Together Foundation

Editor’s note: The following is an excerpt from Enemies of Energy, a research report created for the Capital Research Center. The page for the full report is here: Enemies of Energy.

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Donor type: direct grant maker

The most recent IRS filing from the Freedom Together Foundation, which covers 2024 grant activity, reports a salary and benefits compensation package exceeding $900,000 for the person holding the title of “SVP/Environment.” There were three other senior vice presidents listed, with their individual remits covering “investments,” “poverty,” and “democracy/gender,” but each of them with total compensation packages of less than $600,000. Even the chief financial officer was paid less than the environment SVP. ^[i]

Formerly known as the “JPB Foundation,” Freedom Together has been a major donor to anti-energy NGOs and the big pass-through donors to same. [ii]

The “JPB” stood for “Jeffry Picower Barbara”—a nod to the benefactors, the late billionaire Jeffry Picower and his wife, Barbara. Jeffry passed away in 2009, and afterwards Barbara exercised relatively tight supervision of a fortune that now exceeds $3.3 billion in net assets. ^{[iii] [iv]}

An October 2025 Capital Research Center report from Robert Stilson described her role:^[v]

Despite its heft, as recently as 2019 Inside Philanthropy was writing that the then-JPB Foundation was “largely unknown in nonprofit circles.” Barbara Picower, as president and board chair, was said to exercise complete control over its operations, to such a degree that grantees simply used the name “Barbara” as a metonym for the foundation itself. That level of hands-on involvement, combined with the foundation’s sheer size, would have rightly secured for Barbara Picower a place among the most powerful figures in American philanthropy. Darren Walker, the outgoing president of the Ford Foundation, was effusive in his praise of Picower’s impact on the American left-progressive funding ecosystem. ^[vi]

JPB changed its name to Freedom Together in 2024. That’s also when Babara stepped down as president and appointed a replacement. Stilson explained:^[vii]

Picower’s hand-picked successor was Deepak Bhargava, a professional activist with the perfect resume for left-wing philanthropy. His first job after college was with ACORN, and he later went on to become the longtime head of the activist group Community Change. At various points he has served as board chair of the climate activist group 350.org; board secretary of the Congressional Progressive Caucus Center; and has been a board member of the Leadership Conference Education Fund, the Democracy Fund, and the Bauman Family Foundation. He was a U.S. advisory board member at the Open Society Foundations (to which he co-authored a leaked memo on “voter engagement” funding for the 2012 election cycle), an editorial board member at The Nation, and a senior fellow at the Roosevelt Institute.

After leaving Community Change in 2018, Bhargava became a lecturer at the City University of New York’s School of Labor and Urban Studies. His book Practical Radicals: Seven Strategies to Change the World, co-authored with Stephanie Luce, was published in 2023. Born out of Bhargava’s frustration with “the state of strategy on the Left,” Practical Radicals was intended as a guide for activists who “hold big visions for transforming society and are willing to do what it takes to win in the real world.” Longtime socialist activist-academic Frances Fox Piven praised the book, while former Congressional Progressive Caucus chair Pramila Jayapal (D-WA) called it “a vital resource for progressives who want to win” and noted that “our movements must seek and win governing power to achieve our visions for a more just society.” ^[viii]

Freedom Together’s 2024 IRS filing shows $20.4 million in cumulative funding for the anti-energy NGOs profiled in this report and the anti-energy pass through donors profiled on this list. ^[ix]

Four of the fifteen major anti-energy NGOs (plus a local affiliate of one of them) were provided grants totaling more than $9.2 million in 2024:^[x]

• GRID Alternatives: $3 million
• org: $2.5 million
• Earthjustice: $2.5 million
• Sierra Club Foundation: $1 million
• 350 Seattle: $250,000

Also in 2024, the Freedom Together Foundation gave more than $11.1 million to the Windward Fund, one of the major anti-energy pass-through donors profiled on this list.^[xi]

Characterizing the grantmaking of Freedom Together, Stilson wrote that it “illustrates how a fortune that was committed to charity can be deployed by professional activists to fund distinctly political causes—even radical ones aimed at completely upending society.” ^[xii]

PDF hyperlink to full report

Endnotes

[i] Freedom Together Foundation. (EIN: 90-0747216). 2024 IRS Form 990. Accessed April 13, 2026. https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/organizations/900747216/202513219349101966/full

[ii] Freedom Together Foundation. (EIN: 90-0747216). 2024 IRS Form 990. Accessed April 13, 2026. https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/organizations/900747216/202513219349101966/full

[iii] Freedom Together Foundation. (EIN: 90-0747216). 2024 IRS Form 990. Accessed April 13, 2026. https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/organizations/900747216/202513219349101966/full

[iv] Stilson, Robert. “The Freedom Together Foundation.” Capital Research Center. October 16, 2025. Accessed April 13, 2026. https://capitalresearch.org/article/the-freedom-together-foundation/

[v] Stilson, Robert. “The Freedom Together Foundation.” Capital Research Center. October 16, 2025. Accessed April 13, 2026. https://capitalresearch.org/article/the-freedom-together-foundation/

[vi] Stilson, Robert. “The Freedom Together Foundation.” Capital Research Center. October 16, 2025. Accessed April 13, 2026. https://capitalresearch.org/article/the-freedom-together-foundation/

[vii] Stilson, Robert. “The Freedom Together Foundation.” Capital Research Center. October 16, 2025. Accessed April 13, 2026. https://capitalresearch.org/article/the-freedom-together-foundation/

[viii] Stilson, Robert. “The Freedom Together Foundation.” Capital Research Center. October 16, 2025. Accessed April 13, 2026. https://capitalresearch.org/article/the-freedom-together-foundation/

[ix] Freedom Together Foundation. (EIN: 90-0747216). 2024 IRS Form 990. Accessed April 13, 2026. https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/organizations/900747216/202513219349101966/full

[x] Freedom Together Foundation. (EIN: 90-0747216). 2024 IRS Form 990. Accessed April 13, 2026. https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/organizations/900747216/202513219349101966/full

[xi] Freedom Together Foundation. (EIN: 90-0747216). 2024 IRS Form 990. Accessed April 13, 2026. https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/organizations/900747216/202513219349101966/full

[xii] Stilson, Robert. “The Freedom Together Foundation.” Capital Research Center. October 16, 2025. Accessed April 13, 2026. https://capitalresearch.org/article/the-freedom-together-foundation/

Source: https://capitalresearch.org/article/enemies-of-energy-freedom-together-foundation/