Funding plummets for US nonprofit that funnels donations to anti-Israel groups

NEW YORK — A US nonprofit that had served as a financial hub for leading anti-Israel activist groups has seen its funding plummet after a series of lawsuits and pressure from the federal government, according to tax filings posted last month.

The Westchester People’s Action Coalition Foundation, known as Wespac, is a low-profile, progressive nonprofit in Westchester County, north of New York City.

Wespac’s stated mission is to support “work toward peace, justice, and a sustainable environment.”

The group, founded in 1974, had served as a financial linchpin for some of the most prominent anti-Israel groups in the US, including National Students for Justice in Palestine, Within Our Lifetime and the Palestinian Youth Movement.

Wespac had handled donations to the groups through an arrangement called a fiscal sponsorship, in which a nonprofit collects donations on behalf of other groups that do not have nonprofit status themselves.

Its revenue had surged in recent years — from $139,901 in 2019-2020 to nearly $4 million in 2023-2024, including a spike after the start of the Gaza war, according to tax filings.

A majority of Wespac’s spending appeared to be for other groups. Its previous tax filing showed that its own expenses were $142,539, while reporting grants of over $1.7 million, including for “custodial responsibility for funds granted to various organizations.”

The group has only one paid employee who has a salary of $62,500.

Extremist anti-Israel activism after Hamas’s October 2023 invasion of Israel and the ensuing war in Gaza put a spotlight on Wespac’s involvement in the protest movement.

Motley crew of extremism

Groups affiliated with Wespac hailed the Hamas attack, hosted events that supported terror groups, and targeted cancer patients, museums, memorials, transportation hubs and holiday events.

Following disruptive protests by its affiliates, Wespac was sued in at least five courts across the US.

Republican members of Congress also put heavy pressure on Wespac, demanding investigations by the IRS and the New York attorney general’s office, alleging support for terrorism.

Federal law prohibits tax-exempt organizations from supporting terrorism.

The US Department of Justice filed a statement of interest in a case against Wespac last year.

There have not been any findings of illegal activity by the group.

In January 2025, Wespac pleaded for financial assistance, telling its supporters, “The threat to Wespac’s survival is real.”

“WESPAC’s work has taken on enormous significance since October 7, 2023, as the injustice of apartheid has turned to genocide in Gaza,” the email said. “The well-funded forces of darkness are now waging legal warfare against us.”

The group’s most recent tax document, filed with the IRS in July and posted online last month, showed that Wespac’s finances are suffering amid the pressure.

The tax filing, covering Wespac’s finances from September 2024 through August 2025, showed a drop in revenue from $3.98 million to $1.26 million, a 68% decrease, mostly in contributions and grants.

Wespac reported a deficit of $202,598, compared to a surplus of $279,210 the previous year.

Legal expenses increased from $1,400 in 2022-2023, before the Gaza war, to nearly $200,000 last year.

Wespac’s staff and board membership have dropped from eight members in 2022-2023 to three.

The turmoil also appears to have affected Wespac’s fiscal sponsorships. National Students for Justice in Palestine routed donations through Wespac at least until 2024, according to archived web pages.

A 2025 court filing said that Wespac had begun to “disassociate itself” from National Students for Justice in Palestine following a protest that blocked traffic to O’Hare International Airport in Chicago the previous year, resulting in a lawsuit.

Last year, National Students for Justice in Palestine’s donation page went inactive, and this year, the group began accepting donations through the platform Zeffy. It wasn’t clear if the group had a new fiscal sponsor.

Within Our Lifetime is no longer accepting donations online.

The Palestinian Youth Movement said it was accepting donations through a Montana nonprofit, Honor the Earth. Wespac’s tax filing last year showed that it had contributed $1 million to the Palestinian Youth Movement via Honor the Earth, its largest contribution.

The most recent Wespac filing listed two contributions to anti-Israel groups — $14,158 to Amplify Palestine and $124,663 to United Palestine Appeal. Another $120,684 in fiscal sponsorship funds went to a Chicago law firm that has represented anti-Israel groups.

Amplify Palestine says it was started by Adalah-NY, one of Wespac’s former fiscal sponsorees.

Wespac had at one point sponsored at least 15 anti-Israel activist groups, far more than for any other cause, according to the Anti-Defamation League.

Wespac did not respond to a request for comment.

Donors to Wespac include progressive groups like the Sparkplug Foundation, the Tides Foundation and the Solidaire Network.

What is fiscal sponsorship?

For the pro-Palestinian groups, fiscal sponsorship means they can receive tax-deductible donations and grants without having to file the tax documents expected of nonprofits, such as laying out their operating budget, assets, staff and spending.

The arrangement does not require the fiscal sponsor to detail the organizations it collects funding for, meaning the activist groups’ finances are murky, hard to track and closed to the public. Best practices recommend that nonprofits detail their fiscal sponsorships, but Wespac did not make all of its arrangements public.

Donors can also route contributions through donor advised funds, a type of charitable financial account. Donors give assets to the funds, receive immediate tax deductions, then later recommend grants, from the funds, to charities. The contributions go from the individual donor, to the donor advised fund, to a fiscal sponsor like Wespac, then to the fiscally sponsored project.

This can add another layer of opacity to public tax records because the donor advised fund’s filings generally do not identify the individual donor. Public records therefore may only include the middle transaction — from the donor advised fund to the fiscal sponsor — without identifying the individual donor or the fiscally sponsored project.

Doug White, a philanthropic adviser and author who has written five books on nonprofits, said the most recent filing indicated Wespac was “in trouble,” pointing to its decrease in programming and grants, its legal fees and deficit, and the drop in donations.

The decline in board members could mean they were “deserting the ship as it sinks,” he said.

White had previously faulted Wespac for its lack of transparency regarding fiscal sponsorships.

He described himself as both sympathetic to Israel and to the Palestinian cause and supportive of peace efforts in the Middle East.

“I would like to see Wespac succeed based on what they say their mission is,” he said. “But if they’re straying from it, they’re starting to fund organizations that are really, in a sense, terrorist organizations, that is something I feel very strongly against.”

National Students for Justice in Palestine, for example, released a “toolkit” immediately after the October 2023 attack on Israel, while it was sponsored by Wespac, calling the Hamas invasion a “historic win,” hailing “the resistance,” and instructing members to protest in support of the attack and to frame the onslaught as a “struggle for national liberation.”

“They’re in trouble. That’s kind of my bottom line assessment,” White said.