Americans for Prosperity

Americans for Prosperity's 501(c)(4) arm represents the Koch Network's primary vehicle for issue advocacy and policy lobbying at both the federal and state level. While the organization's super PAC and political action committees engage directly in electoral politics, the 501(c)(4) focuses on year-round policy advocacy — lobbying legislators, mobilizing grassroots activists, running issue advertising campaigns, and building permanent political infrastructure in key states. With paid staff in 35 states and a volunteer network of over 3 million individuals, AFP's 501(c)(4) operates with more operational capacity than most state political parties. The organization's funding flows primarily through Stand Together, the Koch network umbrella organization that collects pledges from approximately 500 wealthy donors at twice-yearly seminars and distributes funds across the Koch ecosystem. This structure ensures that while Koch Industries and Stand Together are identified as funders on AFP's tax filings, the identities of the hundreds of individual seminar donors who ultimately finance the operation remain anonymous. AFP's 501(c)(4) has been the driving force behind some of the most consequential policy battles of the past two decades: it organized the grassroots opposition that gutted the Affordable Care Act's public option, ran the campaign that killed the Waxman-Markey cap-and-trade climate bill, lobbied against Medicaid expansion in dozens of Republican-controlled states, and built the coalition that passed the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act. The organization deploys a sophisticated data operation, maintaining voter files and engagement scores that rival those of the Republican National Committee. In 2024, AFP's 501(c)(4) focused on school choice legislation — supporting universal voucher programs in states like Texas, where it spent millions pressuring Republican legislators — as well as opposing federal regulations on energy, healthcare, and financial services. The organization has increasingly focused on state-level battles, recognizing that state legislatures often offer better returns on investment than federal campaigns. AFP's ability to maintain a permanent, year-round grassroots infrastructure — rather than spinning up operations only during election cycles — gives it a structural advantage over most political organizations.