Rebecca Cooke’s Business Closed & Her Nonprofit Spent More on Employees Than Grants in Recent Tax Form

Leftist congressional candidate Rebecca Cooke touts her nonprofit and small business leadership on the campaign trail. However, a closer look at Red Letter Grant organization that she founded shows that the nonprofit only gave out 17 grants while Cooke was earning compensation there during recent years, and, in the most recent tax form available, the nonprofit spent more money on its employees than it did on grants.

When she’s not touting her waitressing skills, Cooke’s website calls her a “small business owner and nonprofit leader.” However, Cooke’s small business, a store called Red’s Mercantile, closed in 2022. Her other business, a small consulting company, formed the basis for her more extensive work history as a leftist political operative and fundraiser.

None of this fully matches the campaign spin. The Guardian painted her as a “waitress raised on a farm,” but her campaign bio has been blasted as phony by even a previous Democrat competitor. “I just finished waitressing,” she stresses in a recent campaign video. Yet her 2025 federal financial disclosure form for Congress lists her compensation only as “advising” for Flytedesk, but then says she is no longer advising it, as well as Cooke Strategy, her political consulting firm. She earned only $7,085 that year filing as a waitress.

The fight between Cooke and Congressman Derrick Van Orden in Wisconsin’s 3rd Congressional District is one of the most competitive House seats. The election is in November. Van Orden defeated Cooke by 2.7 points in 2014; the former Navy SEAL flipped the district, which had been in Democrat hands for years.

Red Letter Grant Didn’t Give Out Many Grants In Years Rebecca Cooke Received Compensation

Red Letter Grant, Cooke’s non-profit, does give grants to female entrepreneurs. Cooke touts Red Letter Grant on her campaign website, saying, “Looking to help other local entrepreneurs she founded the Red Letter Grant in 2016, a nonprofit that supports and empowers female entrepreneurs.” However, Wisconsin Right Now has documented:

• • Red Letter Grant’s 2024 tax form, which is the most recent available, shows that the nonprofit only dispensed $39,000 in grants but spent $62,639 for employee benefits and salaries during that fiscal year. Cooke is listed as a “director” on that tax form; she was not president. She received no compensation as director from the non-profit that year and reported 0 hours, the form shows. The nonprofit also ran a deficit that fiscal year.

• • We’ve asked Cooke for comment and to share the organization’s 990 tax forms for other years, including the amount of grant money dispensed each year. It appears the nonprofit may have brought in so little money that only e-postcards were filed, though, providing limited public information.
  • Although she’s still listed as the founder on the website, the Red Letter Grant’s website no longer lists Cooke as a director or in any leadership role.
  • A review of Red Letter Grant’s own list of grant recipients shows meager output for three years in which Cooke did receive compensation. From 2021 through 2023, Cooke received $68,830 from Red Letter Grant. We know this from federal disclosure forms that report her income. In that same time frame, she earned only $24,551 as a waitress.”
  • One of those grants went to the restaurant where she sometimes waitresses. The New York Post reported that Cooke was “accused of self-interested double-dealing after financial disclosures revealed she worked at one of the small businesses that her nonprofit gave a grant to” – the restaurant where she sometimes waitresses.” Cooke’s 2023 Financial Disclosure Report shows that she earned $18,000 in income from Red Letter Grant in 2022, and $2,256 working as a part-time waitress at The Good Wives, as well,” The Post added.

Filing Year 2025
Red Letter Grant: NA
The Good Wives (waitressing): $7,085
Cooke Strategies: Not listed.
She also received more than $5,000 compensation from Flytedesk (Boulder, CO, US) Consulting and for Cooke Strategy (which is not listed under earned income).

Filing Year 2024 (Period covered: 01/01/2023– 04/15/2024)
Red Letter Grant (executive director): $9,849
The Good Wives (waitressing): $10,124
Cooke Strategies: NA
She also received more than $5,000 compensation from Flytedesk (Boulder, CO, US) Consulting.
Red Letter Grant distributed 17 grants in 2023.

Filing Year 2023
Red Letter Grant (executive director): $9,000
The Good Wives (waitressing): $9,553
Cooke Strategies: $15,000
She also received more than $5,000 compensation from Flytedesk (Boulder, CO, US) Consulting.
Red Letter Grant distributed 8 grants in 2023.

Filing Year 2022
Red Letter Grant (executive director: $7,331.07
The Good Wives (waitressing): Not listed.
Cooke Strategies: Not listed.
Red Letter Grant distributed 8 grants in 2022.

She also gets income from a rental property, and now owns LLCs relating to rental property.

A March 2026 article gives a sense of the nonprofit’s scope. It states that, “since its founding nearly a decade ago, the Red Letter Grant has supported over 50 women-owned start-ups across northwestern Wisconsin.” In 2026, the non-profit will give out 16 grant opportunities, which was painted as an expansion. The grants range from $2,000 to $4,000. The website lists 70 grants given out overall since the non-profit began.

In the 2016 cycle, Cooke worked for the following:

Murphy for US Senate (FL)
Nelson for Congress (WI)
Bangstad for Congress (WI)
Wachs for Assembly (WI)
Rodriguez for Assembly (CA)In April 2019, the page was zapped.

In 2016, she was involved in organizing a California fundraiser for Rodriguez.

• • • • Contrast that to her rhetoric when running for Congress last time: She called herself a “working class fighter” on X, and she told the liberal Wisconsin Examiner that she was an “outsider,” saying, “You know, I don’t come from a career background in politics.”
      • Cooke tries to position herself as a moderate. However, Cooke has repeatedly pushed gun control measures. She supports socialist New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani and was endorsed by Bernie Sanders. She called on the U.S. to halt aid to Israel. She rushed off when asked, “Why did you call ICE disgusting?” She accepted money from a PAC that was funded by Epstein Island visitor Reid Hoffman. In the wake of new revelations about Hoffman’s ties to Epstein, Cooke has not pledged to refuse any money linked to him in the future.
      • “Radical Socialist Rebecca Cooke’s entire campaign image is based on a lie. In reality, she’s a far-left political activist and snake oil saleswoman making shady deals to line her own pockets. Her history raises serious questions about her credibility and whether she can be trusted with Wisconsin voters,” RNC Spokesman Hunter Lovell told WRN.

     

  • The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel found the following:
    • • “Beginning in late 2012, Cooke, 36, served as finance director for four congressional races in Minnesota, Michigan, Colorado, and California, raising $3.7 million in one of those contests.”
      • “In 2015, she registered Cooke Strategy LLC, a Democratic political and fundraising consulting firm. FEC records show the firm advised eight state and federal campaigns between 2015 and 2021.”
      • “Overall, she and her firm were paid more than $190,000 for their work by a dozen committees and campaigns.”
      • “Along with all that, Cooke served on the steering committee for Opportunity Wisconsin, a liberal nonprofit active in congressional races.” Lovell described that group as “a D.C.-based dark money group backed by George Soros and disguised as a Badger State grassroots organization.”
      • “Between 2012 and 2014, FEC records show that Cooke did fundraising work for Democratic candidates Jim Graves of Minnesota, Joe Miklosi of Colorado and Syad Taj of Michigan, all of whom lost or withdrew from their races, and Rep. Raul Ruiz of California. Cooke said on her defunct campaign website that she helped raise $3.7 million for Ruiz.”
      • “After forming Cooke Strategy, she worked for five federal candidates, two state candidates and a leadership political action committee. Among those for whom she did were former state Rep. Dana Wachs, a Democrat who was defeated in his gubernatorial bid in 2018; Appeals Court Judge Joanne Kloppenburg, who ran unsuccessfully for the Supreme Court in 2016; and Outagamie County Executive Tom Nelson, who lost his congressional bid in 2016.”