▶ Watch Video: Trump’s “Freedom 250” project funding faces scrutiny under proposed bill
During President Trump’s second term, Republicans have escalated their attacks on hard-to-trace fundraising methods used by left-leaning groups. Now, those efforts could force more disclosure for a project linked to Mr. Trump himself: Freedom 250, the entity behind America’s 250th birthday celebration.
When the Trump administration set out to plan events for America’s 250th anniversary, it did not build a new charity. Instead, the National Park Foundation — a congressionally chartered nonprofit that raises money for the National Park Service — created a special subsidiary in October 2025 and established it in Delaware.
President Trump declared that Freedom 250, organized as a limited liability company, would throw America “the most spectacular birthday party you’ve ever seen.” The National Park Foundation received roughly $90 million in federal dollars to support the celebration, government records show. Freedom 250 separately solicited seven-figure donations from corporate sponsors, documents show, without filing any public financial disclosures of its own.
This kind of lawful structure is familiar in the nonprofit world, where charities routinely house projects that lack their own tax-exempt status, an arrangement known as fiscal sponsorship — a term that does not appear in the tax code. The National Park Foundation describes Freedom 250 as a “wholly owned subsidiary” that provided the Park Service with “access to the expertise needed for planning and executing the events” for the 250th.
Freedom 250 files no tax return of its own, and money raised in its name legally belongs to the National Park Foundation. There is no standalone accounting on these disclosures of how much flowed through the project, how it was spent, or who ran it.
Charities face broad public-disclosure requirements “at least in part because they are publicly supported through tax benefits,” said Brian Mittendorf, an Ohio State University professor who specializes in nonprofit accounting. But while a charity must disclose that it owns an entity like Freedom 250, it is not required to break out how that project raised or spent its money, he said.
“There’s always been this challenge for transparency,” Mittendorf told CBS News.
For years, Republicans have scrutinized this exact type of fundraising system, arguing that left-leaning nonprofits abused lax federal regulations while funding allegedly partisan causes. Liberal groups have denied any impropriety.
Now, those GOP efforts have ramped up. Republicans on the House Ways and Means Committee advanced a bill last week that would require charities to disclose details about fiscal sponsorship arrangements on their tax returns. And it would also impose a tax of 20% on funds deemed to have been “improperly” routed through them — rising to 100% if not corrected.
Under the bill, the National Park Foundation would likely have to report certain details about its arrangement with Freedom 250 on its annual tax return, including how much money moved through it and who manages it, said Lloyd Mayer, a professor and expert on nonprofits at the University of Notre Dame’s law school. The bill would fall short of requiring the foundation to list Freedom 250’s individual donors.
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent threw his support behind the bill in a statement last week, saying that it “complements Treasury’s work to improve transparency, strengthen tax administration, and provide clearer reporting on certain activities of tax-exempt organizations.” He added that the department is “taking action to prevent nonprofit status from being used to enable or conceal fraud, abuse, and illegal extremist activity.”
The Ways and Means Committee did not respond to requests for comment. The White House Press Office did not respond to questions about whether Mr. Trump supports the bill or has communicated with the Treasury Department about it.
“Republicans may write a definition into the tax code for fiscal sponsorship that could accidentally lump in a lot more relationships and projects within the nonprofit sector than they intended,” said Sara Barba, a managing partner at Integer, LLC, who represents groups in the nonprofit sector. “There are several different types of fiscal sponsorships.”
Sarah Saadian, the senior vice president of public policy campaigns for the National Council of Nonprofits, which describes itself as the largest nonprofit network in the United States, said “members of Congress should realize that when they pass legislation like this it could have a really broad effect, even on projects they support.”
Tensions between the nonprofit sector and Republicans have heated up in recent months. The top Republican on the House Ways and Means Committee, Missouri Rep. Jason Smith, issued subpoenas to nonprofits connected to progressive philanthropist Neville Roy Singham — requesting details about fiscal sponsorships. Singham, who is married to Jodie Evans, the co-founder of feminist anti-war group Code Pink, is under criminal investigation by a grand jury in the Southern District of New York over whether he lied on tax forms for nonprofits he controls or may have unlawfully funneled money through them, CBS News reported in July.
Smith has launched a series of probes into left-leaning nonprofits, including those funded by the progressive Swiss billionaire Hansjörg Wyss, whose support for groups organized as fiscal sponsorships has drawn GOP scrutiny. The House panel advanced a separate bill last week that would bar nonprofits from donating to PACs for two years after receiving money from a foreign national.
A spokesperson for Wyss said in a statement that the bills are “an attempt to stop nonprofits from working on issues like increasing access to health care, conserving public land, and promoting economic opportunity.” The statement added that Wyss’ groups “have complied with laws and rules governing our activities, and all grant funding is prohibited from being used to support or oppose political candidates or parties or other electoral activity.”
“Run out of the White House”
Freedom 250 — the entity that could be roped into more disclosure under the GOP bill — has been described one way in corporate filings and another by the cabinet secretary whose department oversees the National Park Service.
Corporate filings reviewed by CBS News list Freedom 250’s beneficial owner as Ruth Prescott, the executive vice president and chief governance officer of the National Park Foundation. The filings do not list any White House officials.
But Interior Secretary Doug Burgum could not identify who ran Freedom 250. He testified to Congress in May that he was “not aware of the final decision maker on Freedom 250,” and later told CNN that the group was “run out of the White House.”
Testifying in February, National Park Foundation president and CEO Jeff Reinbold said the foundation had “created Freedom 250 at the request of the National Park Service.”
A spokesperson for the National Park Foundation said in a statement shared with CBS News that the group entered into an agreement with the National Park Service to manage congressionally appropriated funds and “to ensure Freedom 250 LLC properly distributes and accounts for appropriated project funds.”
Asked about Freedom 250’s fundraising, the spokesperson said there have been no foreign or individual donors to Freedom 250 — adding that corporate sponsors, “except for a handful of sponsors that have requested anonymity, a typical nonprofit practice,” are listed on Freedom 250’s website. Some listed on the website include Chevron, Boeing, ExxonMobil and Mastercard.
The Interior Department did not respond to requests for comment.
Ahead of the 250th celebration, Freedom 250 went on a fundraising blitz. The group hosted a concert series as well as a “Great American State Fair” on the National Mall and a UFC mixed martial arts event on the South Lawn of the White House in June, CBS News reported.
The Trump administration appointed allies of the president to the board of the foundation, including Meredith O’Rourke, Mr. Trump’s top fundraiser, and Chris LaCivita, Mr. Trump’s 2024 campaign co-manager. A fundraising solicitation, first reported by the New York Times, offered donors who gave at least $1 million invitations to a “private Freedom 250 reception hosted by Mr. Trump” with a “historic photo opportunity.” Those giving at least $2.5 million were offered speaking roles at a July 4 celebration, the document said.
Democrats in Congress have investigated Freedom 250, casting the entity as a “shadow organization capable of infiltrating the celebrations and injecting America’s 250th with Trump’s extreme, partisan agenda,” according to a 55-page interim staff report released in July by the House Natural Resources Committee.
The report cited Freedom 250’s events this year — such as a daylong prayer gathering in May featuring conservative Christian clergy, as well as its “Freedom Trucks,” a fleet of mobile museums that featured content about American history with the conservative group PragerU and conservative Hillsdale College in Michigan.
A White House official, who would speak only on background, said Freedom 250 connected “partners, institutions, and communities across the country to elevate local and civic participation on the national stage,” adding that the group worked to ensure the 250th anniversary was “both deeply rooted in communities and fully realized at a national scale.”
“Weapons to force more disclosure”
As Democrats investigate Freedom 250, some conservatives who work in the nonprofit sector said it is ironic that a Republican-led effort could force more disclosure for the White House-linked group.
“This would ensnare groups on both the right and left, and become a bulwark against what is becoming a popular giving vehicle for those seeking privacy,” said Lawson Bader, the president and CEO of DonorsTrust, one of the largest nonprofits that advise conservative and libertarian donors. “It ultimately goes up against free expression, and I don’t think they are thinking that through.”
Marc Wheat, general counsel for Advancing American Freedom, a group founded by former Vice President Mike Pence, agreed. “These guys on the Hill forget that all these weapons to force more disclosure were used against conservatives — and we were opposed to it,” said Wheat, referring to the 2013 controversy over the IRS’ scrutiny of conservative groups seeking tax-exempt status.
An effort to unmask nonprofit relationships is also taking shape in the Trump administration. At the Treasury Department, officials announced in late April 2026 that the IRS plans to revise the Form 990 — the annual return filed by tax-exempt groups — to require “clearer reporting” on government grants, government contracts and fiscal sponsorship arrangements.
The announcement, billed as an effort “to expose hidden funding,” said recent congressional oversight had raised concerns that some fiscal sponsorship arrangements may be used to obscure funding. The Treasury Department and the IRS say they expect to issue proposed regulations and take public comment before finalizing anything.
The regulations would require charities to report government grants and contracts in far more detail — where public funds came from and how they were spent, the department said. A spokesperson for the Treasury Department referred CBS News to Bessent’s statement about the GOP bill.
“Given Freedom 250 receives federal funding, the regulations Treasury is considering should reach Freedom 250’s activities,” Mayer said.
The spokesperson for the National Park Foundation told CBS News that the nonprofit regularly shares its audited financial statements with Congress, as required by law.
But Mayer said these documents give foundations more leeway as far as what they disclose, compared to federal tax forms, which would demand more under the rules Treasury is weighing.
“Audited financial statements do not require the level of detail that a Form 990 does,” Mayer added. “The information is basic money-in, money-out, certainly not individual recipients of expenditures.”