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The following was on the Snopes.com site. I have had your posting come in my email also.

According to Heinz Endowments President Maxwell King:

In recent weeks, The Heinz Endowments has been accused of using its funding of the Tides Center of Western Pennsylvania to advance a laundry list of partisan causes and fringe political groups. This accusation is simply wrong.

It originated in an opinion column written by a researcher for the conservative, Washington, D.C.-based Capital Research Center. The crux of CRC’s argument is that money directed by the Endowments to Tides is "fungible." By supporting projects through Tides, CRC alleged that Heinz has secretly funneled money to every other organization that has ever received funding through Tides Center and the separate Tides Foundation.

Since first being published in the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, CRC’s accusation has been picked up and expanded in opinion pieces in a number of newspapers, including the Wall Street Journal, the New York Post and the Washington Times. But not even these publications have leveled this allegation in actual news stories.

The reason why is obvious: The charge does not stand up to objective scrutiny. Four facts undercut it completely. First, by legally binding contract, every penny of Heinz’s support to Tides has been explicitly directed to specific projects in Pennsylvania. It cannot legally be redirected and is the exact opposite of fungible.

Second, the Tides Center is a provider of management and administrative services, and we have used it only for those services, not to advance Tides’ grantmaking agenda. Foundations from all across the country-many, like Heinz, with strong centrist agendas-use these services to incubate an array of nonprofit programs. So does the federal government. It is no more accurate to suggest that Heinz supports every one of these programs than it is to suggest that someone who contributes to a specific group through the United Way supports the agenda of every other United Way beneficiary.

Third, the projects we have supported through Tides speak for themselves. They include programs to test the career readiness of area high school students, protect Pittsburgh’s environment and retain young people in our region-hardly an extremist agenda.

Fourth and finally, information about every one of our Tides-related grants is and always has been readily available in our public filings, annual reports and here on our web site. Far from being secretive, we have been consistently open in detailing the nature of our grants to Tides and every other organization we fund.

I replied to this in another thread ...

The Snopes folks researched the hell out of this.... they got a quote from Heinz Endowments President Maxwell King. He would have absolutely no reason to lead us astray.

Tides gives money to wack groups, but not Heinz's money. Without Heinz'z money available to Tides, is it possible these wack groups would get less money? I think so.

The NY Post's reply to King:

"We noted that the Heinz donations to Tides 'were earmarked specifically for environmental charities'--but added that 'money is fungible.' That is, dedicated grants from Heinz Endowment money have the effect of relieving the Tides Foundation of the need to raise money for other expenses and commitments. That's the standard meaning of
the widely used assertion that 'money is fungible'...Supporting the Tides Foundation doesn't automatically mean endorsing every group it supports. But the fact that the Heinz Endowments has no qualms about what Tides does with its money speaks for itself. Loudly."

Very loudly indeed, when a Tides front group, Peaceful Tomorrows, creates a media assault on the political opponent of Teresa Heinz Kerry's husband.

So the laugher is: she's funding these groups with your money.

For example: Say Tides funds two charities. One a real charity, the other a leftist, anti-american group. You recognize the name of the real charity and give your hard earned charity dollars to Tides for this good cause. But like most folks you don't specify that Tides can only use your money for this charity. After all, charity is charity.

Heinz could give money directly to the real charity but she really wants to fund the other group. She gives a load of money to Tides and specifies it can only be used for the real charity (and Tides overhead costs, fund raising, etc. of course), thus providing cover for herself. Tides can now use all of YOUR money to give to the slimeballs.

First, by legally binding contract, every penny of Heinz’s support to Tides has been explicitly directed to specific projects in Pennsylvania. It cannot legally be redirected and is the exact opposite of fungible.

Nice try. Organization plans to fund A & B ($10 each). I restrict my $10 gift to funding A. That frees up others' contributions (totalling $10) to fund B. Organization then spends others' $10 contributions on B. Without my contibution for A, there's less in the pot for all (Only $10 total). Organization would have to limit A & B to $5 each, or might have to choose between funding A or B. Perfectly fungible money solves the problem.