Overview
Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit research and publication organization. Conceptualized in 2015 at a meeting in Brazil, Tricontinental officially launched in 2017. Tricontinental is based in Northampton, Massachusetts. The organization identifies its mission as “building knowledge from the experience of social and cultural transformations wrought by popular struggles.”
Tricontinental’s executive director is Vijay Prashad, a nonresident senior fellow at Renmin University of China’s Chongyang Institute for Financial Studies. Neville Roy Singham is the chairman of Tricontinental’s International Advisory Board.
Tricontinental has been the subject of scrutiny by congressional committees that allege the organization has received support from “foreign-linked funds.” Tricontinental was subpoenaed by Congress in July 2026 for failing to produce documents regarding its communications and finances.
Tax classification — 501(c)(3)
Location — Northampton, MA
Founded — 2017
Annual revenue — $857,945 (FY 2024)
EIN — 82-2882135
Notable connections — Vijay Prashad, Executive Director; Celina Stein-Della Croce, Secretary; Maria del Pilar Troya, Chair; Neville Roy Singham, Chairman of the International Advisory Board
Activities
Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research is a research institution that produces newsletters and publications. Tricontinental’s mission is to “build a bridge between academic production and political and social movements.” Its approach is based on “Karl Marx’s 11th Thesis on Feuerbach,” which calls on philosophers not only to interpret but also to “change” the world, and Italian Marxist Antonio Gramsci’s term, the “permanent persuader,” meaning “the person who is devoted to working to alleviate the grievances of the people.”
Along with its research, Tricontinental produces “a weekly newsletter, a monthly dossier, and various studies.” Tricontinental states its research is “rooted in the dialectics of the human experience” and “the principle of hope.” Its weekly newsletter highlights research from “left intellectuals” and institutes.
On Tricontinental’s website, its studies and dossiers are separated by region: “Asia,” “Pan Africa” and “Nuestra América” (Our America). Its work is published in English, Spanish, Portuguese and Hindi. Since 2023, the institute has co-published an international edition of Wenhua Zongheng, which it describes as “a leading journal of contemporary political and cultural thought in China.”
Structure and Affiliations
Related Organizations
Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research is filed under the name Tricontinental Ltd. In its filings between FY 2018 and FY 2024, Tricontinental listed no Schedule R related organizations.
Affiliations
Tricontinental’s website refers to the International Peoples’ Assembly, a network of more than 200 political and social organizations around the world, as a “partner organization.” Tricontinental’s “About Us” page explains that the International Peoples’ Assembly, a media network called Peoples Dispatch, a network of political schools called the Internationalist Collective of Political Education and the research institute Tricontinental emerged from a 2015 meeting in Brazil called “Dilemmas of Humanity.”
Peoples Dispatch, formally established in 2018, has since evolved into BreakThrough News, a nonprofit media and educational organization. In its first two public tax filings, Peoples Dispatch listed Vijay Prashad as president of its board of directors. Tricontinental has collaborated with BreakThrough News on social media. For example, Tricontinental’s Instagram account has promoted an episode of The China Report, a BreakThrough News podcast. The episode featured Tricontinental’s Asia co-coordinator, Tings Chak, and BreakThrough News’s Amanda Yee discussing whether the prime minister of Japan will “drag the country into a war with China?”
Xiong Jie, whom Tricontinental lists as a researcher, has also written for Dongsheng News and is a founder of Shanghai Maku Cultural Communications. He has coauthored articles with Tricontinental Executive Director Vijay Prashad.
In 2020, Singham emailed friends to introduce a newsletter now called Dongsheng News, The New York Times later reported. He described the newsletter as providing “unique progressive coverage of China that has been sadly missing.” As reported in the Times, Dongsheng News covers stories about China, including stories from Chinese state media, in English, French, Spanish and Portuguese. Dongsheng’s editors, also based in China, originally worked with Tricontinental, the Times added. In 2021, Tricontinental and the Maku Group, a Chinese media company that shares an office in Shanghai with Singham, agreed to “work with” a university in Shanghai to “tell China’s story.” The Times pointed out that the goal to “tell China’s story well” is a phrase commonly used for foreign propaganda.
Dongsheng’s U.S. address has previously been connected to the same New York address of The People’s Forum, which also shares its address with BreakThrough News.
Controversies
On August 5, 2023, the New York Times published an investigation that found Neville Roy Singham was at “the center” of a “lavishly funded influence campaign that defends China and pushes its propaganda.” Tricontinental was mentioned in the piece as one of the nonprofits that had received funds from Singham. In a statement to the Times, Prashad said, “We do not and have never received funds or instructions from any government or political party.”
Congressional Investigations
On September 15, 2025, House Oversight Committee chair James Comer (R-Ky.) and Rep. Anna Paulina Luna (R-Fla.) asked the Treasury Department to investigate Singham and 19 entities allegedly associated with him. Tricontinental was fourth on the list, Dongsheng News was 10th and BreakThrough Media was 19th. BreakThroughBT Media Inc is the official name of BreakThrough News in its 990 filings.
Separately, on February 9, 2026, House Ways and Means Committee chair Jason Smith (R-Mo.) sent Vijay Prashad, Tricontinental’s executive director, a letter demanding that the organization turn over records. Rep. Smith called for Tricontinental’s communications with Singham and with foreign governments and organizations since 2017 as well as a list of grant recipients outside the United States. Smith also raised concerns about Tricontinental’s ties to Maku Group, a Chinese media company. His letter said Maku’s stated goal — to “tell China’s story well” — was a slogan frequently used in Chinese Communist Party (CCP) propaganda.
Tricontinental’s lawyer, Andrew Herman, declined the initial request in a February 23 letter. The committee narrowed its demands on May 4, and Herman objected again on May 18. According to the committee, neither response included any of the requested records. On July 21, the committee subpoenaed Tricontinental and gave it until August 7 to respond.
The accompanying letter cited a March 23, 2026 Fox News investigation that reported $278 million moved from Singham through three organizations to six nonprofits, including Tricontinental. Citing the same report, the committee said more than $16 million had gone from what it described as Singham’s donor-advised fund—a charitable account that allows donors to recommend grants—to Tricontinental between 2017 and 2022. The fund’s IRS filings show that it gave Tricontinental $16.76 million during that period. But the filings do not identify the donor behind those grants, so Civil Defense could verify the payments but not that Singham was the donor.
Fox News later reported, citing an unnamed source familiar with the committee’s investigation, that Tricontinental responded by the deadline. Fox News did not obtain a copy of the response. BreakThrough News received its own subpoena and was also represented by Herman. It responded on August 7, arguing that it did not have to comply with the subpoena as written.
Vijay Prashad
In a series of tweets from 2021, Vijay Prashad described how he met Roy Singham and praised him as “a Marxist with a massive software company!” Prashad then wrote, “[Singham] sold that company a few years ago and decided to give away all the money toward political education for a new generation of radicals.” Prashad was a guest at Singham’s wedding to Jodie Evans. Prashad and Singham both attended a Global South Academic Forum in 2025 co-sponsored by Tricontinental and East China Normal University.
Outside of Tricontinental, Prashad, along with Maku founder and Tricontinental researcher Xiong Jie, wrote an article disputing the U.S. government’s characterization of the government of China’s abuses against Muslims living in Xinjiang. Prashad and Xiong wrote, “The US government’s information warfare against China has produced the ‘fact’ that there is a genocide in Xinjiang.”
In a tweet from November 21, 2021, Prashad posted a photo of himself giving a thumbs up alongside his Tricontinental colleague Manolo De Los Santos and then-Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, with the caption, “sovereignty against imperialism.” The photo of Prashad and Maduro was posted on the same day as regional and local elections in Venezuela. Venezuela invited the European Union to send election observers for the first time in 15 years, but while the EU mission found improved electoral conditions, it also found structural deficiencies. These included arbitrary candidate disqualifications, unequal media access and extensive use of state resources. The U.S. State Department later referred to Venezuela’s election as “grossly skewed” by the regime.
Finances
Tricontinental reported $857,945 in total revenue and $3,745,069 in total expenses for calendar year 2024. It has filed a Form 990 for each year from 2018 through 2024.
The Goldman Sachs Philanthropy Fund, a donor-advised fund that Fox News alleged was used by Singham in the past, granted Tricontinental $40,000 in 2017, $860,000 in 2018, $12,450,000 in 2019 and $3,410,000 in 2022.
Revenue and expenses
Assets and liabilities
Compensation
Tricontinental’s 2024 Form 990 reports one compensated officer, Celina Stein-Della Croce, who, as secretary, received $82,166 in compensation from the organization. Total salaries, other compensation and employee benefits for the whole organization came to $104,640 in FY 2024.
The other two people named in the 2024 return report no compensation. Maria del Pilar Troya, the chair, and Vijay Prashad, listed as treasurer, each report five hours a week and $0 from the organization. Prashad has reported $0 in reportable compensation from Tricontinental in each of its seven filed years.
Board of Directors
Tricontinental’s 2024 990 filing reported the following individuals on its board of directors:
Celina Stein-Della Croce, Secretary
Maria del Pilar Troya, Chair
Vijay Prashad, Treasurer
Tricontinental’s website lists the following individuals as members of the International Advisory Board:
Neville Roy Singham, Chairman
Carmen Navas
Madhav Kumar Nepal
Neuri Rossetto
Abdallah Al-Harif
Cosmas Musumali
Manuel Bertoldi
Stephanie Weatherbee Brito
Founded in 2026, the Civil Defense Institute is a nonpartisan investigative research organization. We research people, organizations and networks whose conduct undermines civil society and Americans’ freedom to participate in public life. Our work examines extremist and conspiracy-driven campaigns, foreign influence, organized harassment and the institutions that enable them.