I wrote here about the fact that the umbrella Black Lives Matter organization, the Black Lives Matter Global Network Foundation, is a fraud. It collected $90 million, largely from panicked corporations, and no one knows what happened to the money, except that a lot of it was spent on luxury real estate purchases and other perks for the organization’s leaders.
But the truth turns out to be even worse than that. BLM co-founder Patrisse Cullors has said publicly that the organization did not even attempt to function as a legal entity. First, a little background: every 501(c)(3) organization, of which there are hundreds of thousands, is required to file a Form 990 with the IRS every year. The form includes basic information about the organization, like how much money it brought in, what projects it spent the money on, and how much the principals were paid. This is a totally routine obligation of which everyone in the nonprofit world is well aware.
Except, apparently, the people who ran BLMGNF:
The embattled activist [Black Lives Matter co-founder Patrisse Cullors], who is facing renewed criticism following reports BLM Global Network Foundation, while under her control, purchased a $6 million Los Angeles mansion, said she gets triggered whenever she hears the term IRS Form 990, the document charities are required to file to the public every year disclosing their financial activities.
“It is such a trip now to hear the term ‘990,’” Cullors said Friday during an event at the Vashon Center for the Arts. “I’m, like, ugh. It’s, like, triggering.”
A simple form that needs to be filled out on behalf of those who purchase $6 million mansions with tax-deductible contributions–triggering!
“I actually did not know what 990s were before all of this happened,” Cullors said, an apparent reference to the Washington Examiner’s reporting in January about BLM’s lack of financial and leadership transparency that led multiple states, including California, to order the charity to cease raising funds until it discloses what it did with the $90 million it raised in 2020.
Oh, please. They raised $90 million as a “nonprofit” and couldn’t find a couple thousand to pay a lawyer to advise them on how to operate legally? These people were greedy beyond normal understanding.
Cullors said activists suffer trauma and that their lives are put at risk when charities under their control are required to disclose publicly what they did with their tax-deductible donations.
Heh. I can see how it could be traumatic if what you did with the tax-deductible contributions was enrich yourselves while defrauding the public.
“This doesn’t seem safe for us, this 990 structure — this nonprofit system structure,” Cullors said. “This is, like, deeply unsafe. This is being literally weaponized against us, against the people we work with.”
If this seems pathetically stupid to you, bear in mind that left-wing activists like Cullors have gotten away with this bulls–t all their lives. And have, in all likelihood, walked away with a lot more money than you.
Cullors suggests that BLMGNF is not alone in being a fraud:
Cullors said she’s been approached by countless activists who are worried that they too will soon field requests from reporters demanding copies of their 990 forms, which charities are required by law to disclose to the public upon request.
“People’s morale in an organization is so important. But if their organization and the people in it are being attacked and scrutinized at everything they do, that leads to deep burnout. That leads to deep, like, resistance and trauma,” Cullors said.
I suspect Cullors is right about this. Most likely BLMGNF is not the only left-wing charity that is a scam, raising millions of dollars by parroting left-wing shibboleths while not actually doing anything to advance its purported mission. Apparently “countless activists” are in this boat, worrying that “reporters” might demand copies of their 990s. Well, 990s are public documents. Anyone can look them up. It looks like there are a great many left-wing “charities” that, like BLM, should be put out of business.
Most of them, of course, didn’t raise $90 million. The leaders of BLM, like Cullors, should be criminally prosecuted. If they didn’t represent a perspective favored by the establishment–if, say, they purported to educate the public about the virtues of oil and gas, but instead bought mansions and other luxury goods with tax-free donations–they would be headed toward prison. Sadly, that won’t happen to the leftists who ran BLMGNF as a criminal enterprise.
My only other observation is that the corporate officers who shoveled tens of millions of dollars into BLM coffers, apparently in the belief that they were paying protection money, should be held accountable. They evidently didn’t do the slightest due diligence to determine that they were spending their shareholders’ money on a legitimate charity. Shareholder lawsuits should be filed.
https://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2022/04/blm-was-always-a-fraud.php
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