Who funds Kansas Values Institute? Who is steering KVI’s political expenditures?
Who funds Kansas Values Institute? Who is steering KVI’s political expenditures?
Largest known KVI $ donors are teacher unions, abortion-related organizations, “dark money,” and the Democratic Governors Association
Updated Dec 8, 2022 (see Future Updates at bottom)
Quick answers:
Only 30% of Kansas Values Institute revenues can be accounted for by known contributors since 2011.
The largest known KVI donors are teacher unions, abortion-related organizations, “dark money,” and the Democratic Governors Association.
70% of the KVI revenues are from “deep dark money” – totally unknown sources.
Dan Watkins, an experienced Democratic political party operative in Kansas for almost 45 years, steers the KVI spending as its president.
KVI appears to be a shell corporation with no paid employees.
KVI is run by an unknown management company, which spends millions to shape Kansas politics mostly in gubernatorial year elections.
The details …
Introduction
How would Kansas voters respond to the “Kansas Values” ads differently if they know the sources of its political money and the political background of the leader of Kansas Values Institute?
Kansas Values Institute has been active in Kansas statewide elections for over a decade. As an IRS 501(c)(4) non-profit organization KVI is involved in lobbying and advocacy, but current laws do not require such non-profits to disclose donors.
Some donors to KVI must publicly disclose their donations as part of IRS, FEC, or state non-profit or campaign finance laws. In other words, some KVI donors can be found by searching the expenditures reported in certain disclosure reports, including …
IRS 990 disclosures: non-profits must report expenditures to the IRS.
IRS 527 disclosures: reports to the IRS from tax-exempt organizations not regulated under state or federal campaign laws. These groups “advocate” and never use the words “vote for” or “vote against” any specific candidate.
FEC disclosures: political committees and candidates make disclosures to the FEC, which are released daily in “electronic files.”
Kansas PAC or candidate campaign finance reports.
Known Kansas Values Institute Donors
About 92% of the known donations to KVI are from 13 donors giving $100,000 or more, as shown in the table below.
The other 20 KVI donors gave almost 8% of the total amount.
Teachers unions (NEA and AFT) combined to give $1.3 million, followed by abortion-related organizations (EMILY’s List and Planned Parenthood), who gave $775,000.
“Dark money” started flowing to KVI as Arabella Advisors’ Sixteen Thirty Fund, also a 501(c)(4), gave $325K in 2018 and another $300K in 2020 to KVI. The Arabella Advisors’ New Venture Fund, a 501(c)(3), gave $100K in 2020.
Here’s an updated report …
A recent WatchdogLab article, “Congresswoman Sharice Davids enjoys ‘dark money’ support,” gives details of Arabella Advisors’ “dark money” flowing into Kansas in 2020.
The appearance of the Democratic Governors Association on the list is not surprising since the focus of many of KVI TV ads are to help Gov. Kelly.
KVI sponsored a Kansans for Fair Courts project, which is included in the summary. There is no way to split this project out from other KVI activities. The contributions from the Proteus Fund were designated for that project.
See a complete list of 76 known contributions made to Kansas Values Institute in an Excel file.
Donor-Summaries.xlsx
“Summary” Worksheet: Summary of 33 aggregate donors to KVI
“Source Summary” Worksheet: Breakdown by the five primary sources
“Details” Worksheet: List of 76 contributions to KVI
A related WatchdogLab article: Gov. Laura Kelly and former Gov. Kathleen Sebelius fundraise for Kansas Values Institute in DC.
Unknown Donors?
Known donors only account for 30% of KVI’s revenue, so what about the other 70%?
Those donors will likely never be known unless revealed by KVI or the donors themselves, which is not likely to happen.
Individuals or for-profit companies could donate to KVI and no one will know unless the donors themselves want that revealed.
KVI’s Disclosures of Revenue and Expenses
How are the total revenues and expenses of a non-profit like KVI known? Such non-profit organizations must file an IRS 990 every year revealing aggregate information, like shown in the summary table below:
There is often an 18-month to 2-year lag in public disclosure of IRS 990s through the IRS. For example, the IRS 990 for 2020 from Kansas Values Institute is not yet available from the IRS, or from sites like ProPublica.
Somehow ProPublica has the summary numbers from the IRS for KVI for 2020, which are included above.
The most recent KVI IRS 990 from 2019 indicates Board member Dan Watkins works 3 hours a week, while board members Sharon Rose and Ann Gates only work 1 hour a week on KVI activities. Interestingly, Executive Director Evan Gates reportedly works 0 hours a week. How is that possible?
Since 2014, the IRS 990s indicate “Management was delegated to a management company.” I have not found where the name of that management company has been made public. Millions of dollars are being spent on Kansas politics and public disclosures give few clues about how that happens.
The 2019 IRS 990 lists no independent contractors, but notes on the final page of the 990 form indicate $200,986 was spent for “Consult – Public Ed/Advocacy” and another $99,679 was spent for “consulting for search”. Why are the names of these consultants not listed as independent contractors? Or listed as employees?
How is KVI different from a “shell corporation”? KVI has no paid employees. The board members work only a few hours a week, and in election years millions of dollars are spent on Kansas politics to shape Kansas government.
Don’t we deserve to know more about Kansas Values Institute’s revenues and expenditures?
Kansas Values Institute Board of Directors
“Moderate” Republicans started KVI in 2011 to help “moderates” defeat “conservatives” in the 2012 elections, especially the primary.
But the organization took a huge swing to the left when Dan Watkin became KVI president in 2013 as shown in the table of KVI Board Members since 2011.
This table is based on yearly filing with the Kansas Secretary of State, but similar information is also available in IRS 990s. No documentation is available that identifies the current board, but it’s likely the same as in 2021.
KVI’s web site today shows no information about their board, staff, or financial information about the organization. At least through 2016, the web site gave information about the Board of Directors.
Ryan Wright, a “Republican”, who was instrumental in launching KVI in 2011 and long-time Executive Director, left in 2019 to join Gov. Laura Kelly’s staff.
Dan Watkins, Kansas Values Institute President
This WayBack Machine page show some information about Dan Watkin from 2016.
What additional information about Dan Watkins might now provide voters a context to understand the onslaught of Kansas Values ad that flatter Laura Kelly and denigrate Derek Schmidt?
“At age 30, Dan Watkins already is an experienced political operative.” Garden City Telegram, May 19, 1978, p. 7.
“Dan Watkins: The wonder boy of Kansas Democratic politics in the late 1970s, Watkins is still a party insider. He was tapped by [Gov. Sebelius] to be inaugural treasurer.” KC Star, Jan. 14, 2003.
Watkins was one of the 29 members of the “State Leadership Committee to lead grass-roots organizing efforts for Barack Obama's Kansas campaign.” Topeka Capital Journal, Jan. 11, 2008.
In 2012 Watkin was a registered lobbyist for gaming and casino concerns in Kansas.
Dan Watkin was part of the transition team for Gov.-elect Laura Kelly in 2018, perhaps partially due to the $6 million expenditures by Kansas Values Institute that year?
A search for Dan Watkins in Lawrence on the FEC “Individual contributions” page shows over 250 contributions to a wide-variety of Democrat Party organizations and candidates.
How non-partisan is an experienced Democratic political party operative for almost 45 years?
Research Comments
Here’s a breakdown of known KVI donations by information source:
IRS 990 XML Files (tax forms from non-profits): Form 990 Series Downloads in XML or PDF formats
ProPublica Nonprofit Explorer of IRS 990s
Federal Election Commission daily XML electronic files: Download bulk data
and in particular electronically filed reports (.fec files)FEC Search of individual contributions
IRS 527 data file (multi-state PACs on state issues): Political Organization Filing & Disclosure Data. Entire database is updated early every Sunday morning. Download POFD Data.
https://forms.irs.gov/app/pod/dataDownload/dataDownloadKS PACs and KS Candidates
View Submitted Forms & Reports (PDFs)
https://ethics.kansas.gov/campaign-finance/view-submitted-forms-and-reports/
Candidates & Incumbents
Committees: Political Action Committees
Find mentions of “Kansas Values Institute” using a Google search:
site:ethics.ks.gov "Kansas Values Institute"
[not all PDFs may contain searchable text, however.]Kansas corporation information can be found on the Kansas Secretary of State’s Business Entity Search Station
https://www.kansas.gov/bess/flow/main?execution=e1s1
Select “Business Entity Database”, search “by business entity name” (“Kansas Values Institute”), View Record, View History and DocumentsView old web pages: Wayback Machine: https://archive.org/
Related
In Kansas, funding of TV ads most mysterious, Shawnee Dispatch, Oct. 9, 2014.
Millions in Dark Money Has Taken Over the Airwaves in Kansas, Daily Beast, April 14, 2017.
Future Updates
Additional information to eventually be incorporated in an updated article.
Updated 2022-12-08
FEC
20221027-1652255.fec: Communications Workers of America - Working Voices, $25K, 2022-10-18.
20221027-1653943.fec: United Food and Commercial Workers International Union Active Ballot Club, $25K, 2022-10-11.
20221028-1654599.fec: Everytown for Gun Safety Victory Fund (Everytown Victory Fund), $500K, 2022-10-12.
IRS 527s (IRS527-8872-Expenditures-Year-2022.txt)
EMILY’s List Non-Federal, $100K, 2022-10-06.
Democratic Lieutenant Governors Assoc., Inc., $50K + $10K, 2022-10-03 + 2022-10-11.