McKinsey also consulted for a group widely viewed as a tobacco industry front group—the Foundation for a Smoke-Free World. Founded in September 2017, the nonprofit organization asserted that its goal was to reduce deaths and disease from smoking while assuring potential donors that its board was independent with no ties to the tobacco industry. That statement was noteworthy for what it did not say—that Philip Morris International started the group with donations of $8.4 million. Of that, more than $400,000 went to McKinsey. PMI was the group’s sole donor, and McKinsey was the sole consultant.