Suppose that a group of students petitions their college to divest from certain unethical corporations. In support of their petition, the students argue that since it is their tuition payments that fund the college, they should have a say in the way that money is spent. The college administration responds as follows. Although tuition payments account for much of the college's funding, a large portion of that funding comes from other sources, such as grants and alumni donations. In fact, the investments in dispute are funded entirely by way of these other sources. Therefore, it is not the students' money that is being used in ways they deem objectionable, and their complaint is unfounded. I think you can see what I'm driving at. If several groups fund the activities of an organization, such that no one group provides <i>all</i> of its funding, it seems like there's no clear answer as to which group is funding any activity. We could say that tuition pays for faculty salaries, while alumni donations pay for investments; or we could say that tuition and alumni donations each account for a percentage of all college expenditures across the board. Any division in spending that we might postulate seems basically arbitrary. And this is problematic if we think that supporting an organization provides grounds for making demands of that organization. (I've used the example of a college, but I think that my question could also be posed generally. For example, tax payers often make similar complaints of their government.)