New public tax filings reportedly show the The Miami Foundation provided funding to Florida Rising Together, an activist group allegedly involved in a campaign targeting contractor CDR Maguire, which is tied to Florida’s South Florida Detention Facility, also known as “Alligator Alcatraz.”
The financial connections between The Miami Foundation and advocacy groups have drawn attention due to the ongoing dispute over the detention facility project. Public records indicate that The Miami Foundation has both funded and served as a fiscal sponsor for several civic and journalism initiatives linked to the activist network opposing CDR Maguire.
Florida Rising Together is a community organizing group that says it is “dedicated to advancing economic and racial justice across the state.” According to a report from Restoration News, the group has aligned itself with The Miami Foundation, which the outlet described as “a pass-through that funds numerous left-wing political groups in Florida,” as well as Open Society Policy Center, tied to George Soros, and the Center for Popular Democracy, which is heavily funded by Swiss billionaire Hansjörg Wyss. The group received more than $200,000 from the Miami Foundation in 2024 alone, according to the most recent publicly available Form 990.
According to a report from the Capital Research Center, in addition to funding Florida Rising, The Miami Foundation also supports what the report described as “left-of-center” journalism. The foundation was described as the “fiscal sponsor” of NewsMatch, a coalition of news and commentary outlets that includes In These Times, Mother Jones, Grist, Inside Climate News and the Pulitzer Center for Crisis Reporting, a partner in The 1619 Project.
Public tax and grant records show that The Miami Foundation has received funding for its projects from several large philanthropic donors. These include more than $10 million from the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, $32.5 million from the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation for the Press Forward initiative, and more than $6.5 million from the Democracy Fund over the past five years for news and civic initiatives. The Democracy Fund was established by Pierre Omidyar, founder of eBay.
According to Restoration News, in addition to opposing construction of the ICE detention facility and accusing one of the contractors involved in the project of wrongdoing, Florida Rising has also advocated for allowing felons to vote, granting undocumented immigrants in-state tuition and abolishing requirements that hospitals collect immigration status data.
CDR Maguire—now operating under CDR Companies—traces its roots back to 1938 and says it has expanded from an engineering firm into a multi-division business spanning infrastructure consulting, emergency management, disaster health and medical services. On its website, CDR Companies says it has offices across the U.S., overseeing more than $2 billion in construction work and $10 billion in disaster recovery work.