The Caipirinha Foundation (CF) – named after Brazil’s national cocktail – was founded in 2006 by Iara Lee (a documentarian of Korean-Brazilian heritage) and her husband George Gund III (who produced all of Lee’s films). An outgrowth of Caipirinha Productions, which was Lee and Gund’s multimedia company, this foundation aimed “to conduct and support public educational activities related to human rights, international law, United States foreign policy, independent media, arts, and culture.” Toward that end, it supported Lee’s filmmaking and the activists featured in her documentaries. Further, it awarded grants to a host of activist organizations, including among others, the A.J. Muste Memorial Institute, the Al Mezan Center for Human Rights, Al-Awda, American Near East Refugee Aid, Amnesty International, the Center for Constitutional Rights, Code Pink, Deep Dish TV, Electronic Intifada, Food First (a.k.a. the Institute for Food & Development Policy), Food Not Bombs, Global Exchange, Grassroots International, Human Rights Watch, the Institute for Policy Studies, the Institute for Public Accuracy, the International Solidarity Movement, the Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions, the New America Foundation, the Rachel Corrie Foundation for Peace and Justice, School of the Americas Watch, and the U.S. Campaign to End Israeli Occupation.

Proceeding from the notion that Israel is an oppressor nation guilty of committing gross human-rights violations against the Palestinian people of Gaza, CF earmarked many of its grants for such purposes as “funding for emergency medical supplies and relief aid in Gaza” and “funding for [the] Free Gaza movement.”

Cumulatively in 2007 and 2008, Iara Lee and her husband contributed $762,953 to CF, which shared an office and some of its staffers with the Iara Lee and George Gund III Foundation (ILGGF).

In 2010, The Caipirinha Foundation changed its name to the Cultures of Resistance Network Foundation.

(Information on grantees and monetary amounts courtesy of The Foundation Center, GuideStar, ActivistCash, the Capital Research Center and Undue Influence)