Status: 🔴 Shell USA Company Foundation, the philanthropic arm of the American subsidiary of Shell plc, donated $58,002 to Alliance Defending Freedom and over $544,000 total to at least 21 conservative organizations — including multiple SPLC-designated anti-LGBTQ+ hate groups and Project 2025 advisory board members.
Shell USA, Inc. (formerly Shell Oil Company, Inc.) is the United States-based wholly owned subsidiary of Shell plc, a British-Dutch multinational oil and gas company headquartered in London.[1] Shell USA is headquartered in Houston, Texas, and is one of America’s largest oil and natural gas producers, fuel marketers, and petrochemical manufacturers.
Through the Shell USA Company Foundation, the company’s employee-matching gift program, millions of dollars have flowed to nonprofit organizations — including substantial sums to anti-LGBTQ+ hate groups, climate denial organizations, and far-right legal advocacy groups that form the backbone of the anti-trans movement in the United States.
The Shell USA Company Foundation donated $58,002 to Alliance Defending Freedom between 2013 and 2022.[2] ADF is designated as an anti-LGBTQ+ hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center and is the primary legal engine driving anti-trans litigation in the United States. ADF is also an advisory board member of Project 2025.[3]
Shell’s foundation donated $59,264 to the American Family Association (AFA), another SPLC-designated anti-LGBTQ+ hate group.[2:1] AFA has referred to “the unproven hypothesis of man-made, catastrophic climate change” and claimed that “the climate change agenda is an attack on God’s creation.”[4] AFA is also a Project 2025 advisory board member.
Shell donated $3,399 to Family Research Council, another SPLC-designated anti-LGBTQ+ hate group.[2:2]
The largest single recipient of Shell’s anti-LGBTQ+ giving was Hillsdale College, a private conservative Christian school in Michigan that received $105,748.[2:3] Hillsdale is a Project 2025 advisory board member and has hosted prominent climate skeptics, while maintaining anti-LGBTQ+ doctrinal positions.
Shell’s foundation donated to at least four organizations serving on the advisory board of Project 2025: ADF, AFA, The Heritage Foundation ($23,321), and Hillsdale College.[2:4] Project 2025 is the conservative blueprint for restructuring the federal government, and its proposals include severely limiting the EPA and rolling back protections for trans people.[3:1]
In total, the Shell USA Company Foundation sent $544,010 between 2013 and 2022 to at least 21 organizations that share an agenda of building conservative power, including advocating against LGBTQ+ rights, restricting access to abortion, and downplaying climate change.[2:5]
The Shell USA Company Foundation operates as an employee-matching gift program. Shell employees choose nonprofit organizations to donate to, and the foundation matches individual donations up to $7,500 per employee per year.[5]
Shell’s spokesperson has stated that “giving is a personal decision not directed by the company” and that the foundation “does not endorse any organizations.” However, the president of the foundation as of 2022 was Gretchen Watkins, then-president of Shell USA — meaning the person overseeing the foundation was also the head of Shell’s American operations.[2:6]
Critics argue that the company’s defense of employee-directed giving is misleading: the foundation structure allows Shell to fund the anti-trans and anti-climate movement while maintaining plausible deniability. As Adrian Bardon, a professor of philosophy at Wake Forest University who has studied the religious right and climate denialism, told the Guardian: “Shell has every reason to want to maintain close relationships with organizations that wield outsize political influence and just happen to reliably support the interests of the fossil fuel industry.”[2:7]
Shell plc is a British-Dutch multinational headquartered in London, United Kingdom — meaning international oil money is flowing into US anti-trans litigation and political infrastructure. This pattern mirrors the broader finding of the 2023 independent analysis by Taylor, Newell, and Rockwell, which found that 80% of 45 anti-trans groups analyzed have received donations from fossil fuel companies or billionaires.[6]
The Guardian — Revealed: Shell oil non-profit donated to anti-climate groups behind Project 2025 (August 2024) ↩︎ ↩︎ ↩︎ ↩︎ ↩︎ ↩︎ ↩︎ ↩︎
American Family Association — Why Climate Change Agenda is an Attack on God’s Creation ↩︎
Atmos/HEATED — Fossil Fuel Billionaires Are Bankrolling the Anti-Trans Movement (June 2025) ↩︎