Denying accusations that he founded a nonprofit group to serve as a means to pursue his political interests, the Democratic presidential candidate John Edwards defended the organization’s antipoverty work and said he will not disclose the names of its donors, reports the Associated Press.

The Center for Responsive Politics, a nonpartisan research organization, recently suggested that Mr. Edwards used the Center for Promise and Opportunity, which he founded in 2005, to support his presidential campaign, and called for him to disclose the identities of its contributors.

“All of this was an effort to try to deal with the issue of poverty in America, which is the cause of my life,” he said at a press conference in Reno, Nev. “What I’ve been doing is not only significant and there’s nothing wrong with it, it’s something I’m very proud of. Everything we did was not only completely legal but we did a lot of good.”