By Connie Reguli
School Freedom Fund and Tennessee Freedom Fund — Donor and Spending Tables
Compiled October 18, 2026. Sources: Who Funds Tennessee (whofundstn.org), FEC.gov, Tennessee Lookout, News From The States, WPLN. This is a summary of reported data, not a complete donor audit.
Overview: How the Two PACs Relate
| Item | School Freedom Fund | Tennessee Freedom Fund |
| Type | Federal super PAC, FEC committee C00794396; WhoFundsTN profile 11203 | Tennessee state PAC; WhoFundsTN profile 12115; formed February 10, 2026 |
| Affiliation | Tied to Club for Growth; shares Washington, D.C. address and officers with affiliated PACs | Same treasurer, officers, and D.C. address as School Freedom Fund and Club for Growth Action |
| Role | Funds pro-voucher independent expenditures nationwide and in Tennessee; transferred $4.81 million to the Tennessee Freedom Fund (June–July 2026) | Runs TV ads in Tennessee’s 2026 governor’s race backing Sen. Marsha Blackburn and opposing Rep. John Rose |
| Direct contributions to candidates | $0 reported on WhoFundsTN | $0 reported on WhoFundsTN |
Sources: Who Funds Tennessee — School Freedom Fund, Who Funds Tennessee — Tennessee Freedom Fund, FEC — School Freedom Fund, News From The States
Selected Reported Donor Information
The federal FEC committee page does not list named contributors, so the table below combines press reporting with the Tennessee state registration record.
| Donor | Period | Amount | Notes |
| Jeff Yass | Since 2023 (cumulative) | ~$27 million | Press estimate: roughly 90% of the ~$30 million the PAC has raised since 2023; described as sole or near-sole funder (Tennessee Lookout) |
| Jeff Yass | June 2025 | $10 million | Included in the cumulative figure above, not additional; given two days after Rep. Mark Green announced his retirement (WPLN) |
| Richard Uihlein | 2024 cycle | Not specified | Described in reporting as a backer of the PAC; not verified here as a direct donor of a particular amount (Tennessee Lookout) |
| Other committee contributions | 2025–Sep 2026 | $70,000 | Per FEC summary (FEC) |
Tennessee state registration donor record (profile 11203, 2024): a single funder is listed — School Freedom Fund, Washington, D.C., $3,319,163.79. This is the PAC’s own federal account funding its Tennessee activity, not an outside donor (Who Funds Tennessee).
Federal committee totals (January 1, 2025 – September 30, 2026):
| Category | Amount |
| Total receipts | $18,044,882 |
| Total contributions | $17,771,001 |
| Itemized individual contributions | $17,701,000 |
| Total disbursements | $17,890,257 |
Detailed contribution and disbursement sections on the FEC page cover through August 31, 2026, while the summary totals run through September 30, 2026. (FEC)
Spending — Federal Committee (January 2025 – September 2026)
Per the FEC summary (FEC):
| Disbursement category | Amount |
| Other disbursements | $13,632,825 |
| Contributions to other committees | $3,200,000 |
| Independent expenditures | $881,146 |
| Operating expenditures | $176,286 |
Separately documented transfers and expenditures (do not add these to the categories above without knowing which FEC line they fall under — they may already be included in the table):
- $4.81 million transferred to the Tennessee Freedom Fund in June–July 2026 (News From The States)
- Roughly $400,000–$800,000 in independent expenditures opposing Rep. Jody Barrett in the 2025 TN-07 special election primary (reports vary by source and date) (TNPOLITICO, Tennessee Lookout)
Spending — Tennessee State Registration (Profile 11203, 2024 Only)
| Purpose | Amount |
| TV Advertising | $2,453,501 |
| Direct Mail | $255,495 |
| TV Ad Production | $254,978 |
| Campaign Marketing | $194,480 |
| Door Hangers | $64,269 |
| Communications/Texting | $62,660 |
| Digital Ad Production | $21,959 |
| Palm Cards | $11,822 |
| Total (raised and spent) | $3,319,164 |
Source: Who Funds Tennessee. Top vendor: Medium Buying LLC — the 10 largest payments, all for TV advertising, fell on July 13–19, 2024, immediately before the August primary, ranging from $159,167 to $400,449 each.
2024–2025 election results: The PAC targeted five Republican legislative primaries — opposing Sen. Frank Niceley (Senate District 8) and Rep. Bryan Richey (running for Senate District 2), and backing Jason Emert (House District 20), Lee Reeves (House District 65), and one other House candidate — and won four of five (Tennessean, U.S. News). Across the 2024 cycle and the 2025 special election it spent about $4.5 million and won five of six primaries (Tennessee Lookout).
Donors (2026 activity displayed when retrieved October 18, 2026; ~70 total funders)
| Donor | Location | Amount | Share of receipts |
| School Freedom Fund | Washington, D.C. | $4,810,000 | 51.4% |
| Team Tennessee | Brentwood, TN | $1,375,000 | 14.7% |
| Advance Financial Administration | Nashville, TN | $400,000 | 4.3% |
| Anthropic | San Francisco, CA | $250,000 | 2.7% |
| Spencer Patton (Patton Logistics) | Brentwood, TN | $250,000 | 2.7% |
| Barney Byrd (Gencap America) | Franklin, TN | $100,000 | 1.1% |
| Christopher Redlich (Healing Healthcare) | Palo Alto, CA | $100,000 | 1.1% |
| Daniel Crockett | Franklin, TN | $100,000 | 1.1% |
| Holly Jacobson Peterson | Nashville, TN | $100,000 | 1.1% |
| Joann Hazelwood (Conversion Interactive Agency) | Nashville, TN | $100,000 | 1.1% |
| Calculated balance — ~60 additional unlisted funders | — | $1,769,053 | 18.9% |
**Total raised: $9,354,053.** The $1,769,053 balance is calculated as total receipts minus the ten displayed donors; the remaining ~60 donors were not individually displayed on the profile. Source: Who Funds Tennessee.
Spending (2026 activity displayed when retrieved October 18, 2026)
| Purpose | Amount | Share |
| Media Placement | $8,257,615 | 94.0% |
| Fundraising Consulting | $251,580 | 2.9% |
| Direct Mail | $229,775 | 2.6% |
| Compliance Consulting | $18,000 | 0.2% |
| Media Production | $17,500 | 0.2% |
| Bank Fees | $12,230 | 0.1% |
| Credit Card Fees | $2,000 | <0.1% |
| Registration Fee | $160 | <0.1% |
| Total spent | $8,788,861 |
Source: Who Funds Tennessee. $0 went directly to candidates. The PAC’s reported purpose is pro-Blackburn / anti-Rose advertising; the largest vendor shown is Del Cielo Media, whose ten displayed media placement payments (June 10 – July 30, 2026) total $8,107,430, nearly all of the $8.26 million media placement total — though the profile does not establish that every media dollar went to Del Cielo, and non-advertising purposes like fundraising consulting and bank fees are not advertising.
| Step | Flow |
| 1 | Jeff Yass has contributed roughly $27 million of the ~$30 million School Freedom Fund has raised since 2023, per dated press reporting (Tennessee Lookout) |
| 2 | School Freedom Fund reported transferring $4.81 million to the Tennessee Freedom Fund in June–July 2026 (News From The States). Because School Freedom Fund is predominantly Yass-funded, most of this transfer is Yass money by provenance — but the filings do not prove that every transferred dollar came from Yass personally |
| 3 | Tennessee Freedom Fund spent $8.26 million on media placement in the governor’s race, with $8.11 million of the displayed payments going to Del Cielo Media |
| Parallel | Blackburn’s U.S. Senate campaign gave $4.8 million to Club for Growth Action in May 2026; the Tennessee Freedom Fund’s pro-Blackburn ads began weeks later — a structure critics call a “workaround” of the state ban on spending federal campaign money in state races (News From The States) |
Caution: inter-PAC transfers should not be added to downstream spending totals as though they were separate dollars — the transfer and the spending it funded are the same money counted at different points.
As voters, you need to know who is funding the public policy in this state. Only your vote can make a difference.
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