Competitive Enterprise Institute - Funding

Funding

CEI is funded by donations from individuals, foundations and corporations. Past and present funders include the Scaife Foundations, Exxon Mobil, the Ford Motor Company Fund, Pfizer, and the Earhart Foundation.

In its IRS Form 990 for the fiscal year ending September 30, 2007, CEI reported revenues totaling $3,650,461, including donations from individuals, foundations and corporations. Its net assets were $2,012,478. Salaries and benefits to its top employees were reported as:

• Fred L. Smith, President, $208,935
• Marlo Lewis, Senior Fellow, $104,974
• Sam Kazman, General Counsel, $132,152

According to the website Charity Navigator, Smith's salary—at about 5 percent of CEI's budget—constitutes a larger percentage of revenues than the salaries of the heads of think tanks such as the Heritage Foundation, American Enterprise Institute, Cato Institute, and Reason Foundation.

According to page nine of a report from the CEI contained on the University of California, San Francisco's Legacy Tobacco Documents Library (LTDL), the following companies and foundations were among those listed as supporting CEI's work with annual contributions of at least $10,000, currently the CEI's "Entrepreneurs" level:

Aequus Institute, Amoco Foundation, Inc., Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation, Coca-Cola Company, E.L. Craig Foundation, CSX Corporation, Earhart Foundation, Fieldstead and Co., FMC Foundation, Ford Motor Company Fund, Gilder Foundation, Koch Family Foundations (including the Charles G. Koch Charitable Foundation, David H. Koch Charitable Foundation, and Claude R. Lambe Charitable Foundation), Philip M. McKenna Foundation, Inc., Curtis and Edith Munson Foundation, Philip Morris Companies, Inc., Pfizer Inc., Precision Valve Corporation, Prince Foundation, Rodney Fund, Sheldon Rose, Scaife Foundations (Carthage Foundation and Sarah Scaife Foundation), and Texaco, Inc. (Texaco Foundation).

Other documents in the LTDL show that CEI has received funding directly from various tobacco companies. For example, the listing on the Philip Morris Glossary of Names: C gives the note "Received public policy grant from Philip Morris (1995); Pro-market public interest group dedicated to advancing the principles of free enterprise and limited government."

ExxonMobil Corporation was a major donor to CEI, with over $2 million in contributions between 1998 and 2005. In 2002 the company gave $405,000; in 2004 it gave CEI $180,000 that was earmarked for "global climate change and global climate change outreach." In 2006, the company announced that it had ended its funding for the group.