“We know we hold a lot of power. We are in a very strong power relationship with applicants, awardees, and so on.”
Those are the words of Rethink Ireland CEO Deirdre Mortell, in a podcast interview in December 2024, in which she explained the immense influence wielded by the organisation she leads.
Describing itself as the “venture capital fund of the social innovation sector”, Rethink Ireland is one of Ireland’s most powerful NGOs with significant state and corporate backing. This group is also one of the main funding arteries for some of Ireland’s most controversial activist groups, and has grown considerably in recent years.
Notably, Adam Harris – the brother of Tánaiste Simon Harris – has sat on the board of directors of Rethink Ireland since 2022. Adam Harris is also the founder and CEO of AsIAm, an autism advocacy NGO, and serves as a commission member of the state-funded Irish Human Rights and Equality Commission (IHREC).
Moreover, the chair of Rethink Ireland’s board is Áine Kerr, co-founder of Kinzen – a company previously embroiled in controversy due to its role in assisting the HSE to flag alleged misinformation during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Previously known as “Social Innovation Fund Ireland”, Rethink Ireland group was established by the Irish Government in 2013 with the goal of stimulating the “philanthropic” charities and NGOs after the recession.
“Rethink Ireland was created by the Government, because coming out of the last recession a group of us could see that the State’s funding of the social sector was falling, obviously because of the IMF taking over, but also there was a huge amount of wealth destruction in the crisis, and so philanthropy was also falling,” Mortell said.
“And Atlantic [Philanthropies] and One Foundation were both scheduled to close. So it really looked like a total car crash…So the Government created a task force to think about ‘How can we stimulate philanthropy during a recession?’ And creating a national Social Innovation Fund was one of the recommendations.”
Therefore, despite its self-description as a “non-Governmental and nonprofit organisation,” Rethink Ireland was created ex-nihilo by the Irish Government, and has received over €56 million from State sources alone between 2016 and 2023. €42 million of this came through a government-backed match funding scheme.
This group has now accrued a fund surpassing €109 million – a feat which then-Taoiseach Simon Harris praised last year as a “great achievement” in a video for the organisation’s website.
“Every euro we raise in private philanthropy is matched by a euro from the Department of Rural and Community Development via the Dormant Accounts Fund,” the group has previously said.
Notably, the Dormant Accounts Fund is a fund taken from unclaimed funds from accounts in banks across Ireland.
In addition to receiving substantial contributions of public money from Irish government departments, state agencies, the EU and the US embassy in Ireland, the organisation’s funding streams have also prominently included money from a number of major foreign multinational corporations such as Google, Microsoft, Bank of America, TikTok, and Twitter.
Crucially, Rethink Ireland funds groups like the Hope and Courage Collective – previously known as the “Far Right Observatory” – and the Sex Workers’ Alliance of Ireland.
As previously reported by Gript, the Sex Workers’ Alliance Ireland is a radical George Soros-backed NGO which advocates for the full decriminalisation and destigmatisation of prostitution, and which seeks to push back against what they call “whorephobia”. The group was previously denied funding by the Irish Department of Justice because they refused to concede that prostitution is inherently harmful.
Rethink Ireland’s CEO, Deirdre Mortell, openly acknowledges the significant influence her group wields, indicating that they use this influence to pursue social change in areas such as gender balance.
“We know we hold a lot of power – we are in a very strong power relationship with applicants, awardees, and so on,” she said.
“We’ve baked gender parity in as much as we can from the beginning. We never select a portfolio of awardees with all-male CEOs, for example. That’s just baked into the DNA.”
Mortell has also outlined how her group receives support from the Irish Government, at least in part because Irish politicians know that the EU puts pressure on national lawmakers to pursue policy objectives such as increasing asylum seeker participation in the workforce.
“I think we have worked with a really great team in the Department of Rural and Community Development over a number of years, and I think they really see the value of social innovation now,” she said.
“And also I don’t think anyone in Government can miss the message that the EU is really pushing social innovation as a key solution to a number of European problems.
“The most obvious is how do we build inclusive communities, especially as the politics of fear is rising, and we’re having huge challenges to our social cohesion, on the streets, in legal cases and everything else…And of course the most important policy lever for the EU on this is actually around inclusive jobs. So, how do we build a social solidarity economy so that it’s not just the people with the first class honours from the great universities being employed, but also people with disabilities, migrants and asylum seekers, and so on…And as the EU really pushes that line with national governments, I think the Irish Government is really beginning to see.”
The group strongly emphasises that its mission is in line with UN sustainable development goals.
With significant money, power and influence at its fingertips, Rethink Ireland remains one of Ireland’s most pivotal State-funded NGOs which has a wide-reaching impact on the direction of the NGO and non-profit sector more broadly.