BLM's millions unaccounted for after leaders quietly jumped ship
No one appears to have been in charge at Black Lives Matter for months. The address it lists on tax forms is wrong, and the charity's two board members won't say who controls its $60 million bankroll, a Washington Examiner investigation has found.
BLM's shocking lack of transparency surrounding its finances and operations raises major legal and ethical red flags, multiple charity experts told the Washington Examiner.
"Like a giant ghost ship full of treasure drifting in the night with no captain, no discernible crew, and no clear direction," CharityWatch Executive Director Laurie Styron said of BLM.
BLACK LIVES MATTER FOUNDATION RAISED MORE THAN $90M IN 2020
BLM co-founder Patrisse Cullors appointed two activists to serve as the group's senior directors following her resignation in May amid scrutiny over her personal finances. But both quietly announced in September that they never took the jobs due to disagreements with BLM. They told the Washington Examiner they don't know who now leads the nation's most influential social justice organization.
Paul Kamenar, counsel for conservative watchdog group the National Legal and Policy Center, said a full audit and investigation into Black Lives Matter Global Network Foundation, the legal entity that represents the national BLM movement, is warranted.
"This is grossly irregular and improper for a nonprofit with $60 million in its coffers," Kamenar said.
BLM previously came under fire from local black activists after the New York Post reported in April that Cullors, then its executive director, had spent $3.2 million on real estate across the United States. The reports followed BLM's disclosure in February 2021 that it closed out 2020 with $60 million in its bank accounts.
BLM denied allegations that Cullors spent BLM funds on her personal properties. However, BLM and other activist organizations under Cullors's control offered contracts to an art company led by the father of her only child, the Daily Caller reported.
Cullors announced in May she was stepping down and that activists Makani Themba and Monifa Bandele would lead the organization as senior executives. But Themba and Bandele revealed in September that they never actually took the job because of disagreements with BLM's "acting Leadership Council."
Both Themba and Bandele told the Washington Examiner they do not know who took over as BLM's top executive after their departure. And neither would say who served on the council.
"We never actually started in the position, so we never received any detailed information," Themba said.
While a charity's finances are ultimately the responsibility of its board of directors, BLM's bylaws explicitly state that its executive director "shall have charge of all funds and securities of the Corporation."
The two remaining BLM board members, Shalomyah Bowers and Raymond Howard, did not return numerous requests for comment asking who has been in charge of BLM and its money since Cullors left the charity in May.
Bowers served as the treasurer for multiple activist organizations run by Cullors, including BLM PAC and a Los Angeles-based jail reform group that paid Cullors $20,000 a month and dropped nearly $26,000 for "meetings" at a luxury Malibu beach resort in 2019.
Bowers declined to comment when reached by phone on Monday.
Howard has spoken openly on Facebook about his work with BLM and his close relationship with Cullors, but he appears to have recently taken steps to conceal his role with the charity.
As recently as last Friday, Howard's LinkedIn profile stated that he is the director of operations for "An International Social Justice Organization." His page was modified after the Washington Examiner contacted Howard for comment and now states he serves as the director of operations for a "Non Profit." A reference to Howard's position as the finance and operations manager of New Impact Partners, a Dayton, Ohio-based consulting firm owned by his sister, was also removed from his LinkedIn profile.
Also as recently as last Friday, a website for New Impact Partners attributed a quote to "Raymond" from "Black Lives Matter Global Network Foundation," thanking the consulting firm for its help solving BLM's organizational challenges. The attribution was removed from the website after the Washington Examiner asked Howard how much BLM has paid his sister's firm.
Despite New Impact Partners's apparent efforts to conceal its affiliation with BLM, the consulting firm continues to solicit applications for its "Talent Network," which it says will connect job applicants directly to BLM and other activist organizations.
Longtime charity expert Doug White said it's a red flag that BLM won't answer basic questions about its finances or leadership structure.
"Sixty million dollars is not chump change," White said. "What BLM does is of tremendous social importance. That they won't give an honest or complete or straightforward answer in regards to its leadership is a concern. Not only do they not have an executive director right now, we think, but they also don't want to tell you how the organization is being run."
BLM was not a charity in its own right for much of 2020, a year in which it received a windfall of cash from big corporations and individual donors spurred by the police killing of George Floyd and the nationwide riots that followed. Rather, BLM spent most of the year essentially borrowing the charitable status of two other California-based charities, Thousand Currents and the Tides Foundation, which served as BLM's fiscal sponsors.
SIDE NOTE: https://secure.actblue.com/donate/alexandria-ocasio-cortez-1 ... ActBlue has a relationship with Thousand Currents ... https://secure.actblue.com is a front organization with a mission for the destruction of the United States of America ... this organization collects money in support of existing candidates and potential candidates to destroy our country! This is a cancer on society which is global in organization and structure. George Soros and family are the organizers and promoters.
But the IRS granted BLM tax-exempt status in December 2020, enabling the group to operate as a charity independent of its former fiscal sponsors. And Thousand Currents reported in its most recent audited financial statements that it transferred $66.5 million directly into BLM's coffers in October 2020.
Cullors signed the asset transfer on behalf of BLM on Sept. 16, 2020, according to a copy of the agreement provided to the Washington Examiner by the California Office of the Attorney General.
BLM published a report last February saying it incurred $8.4 million in operating expenses in 2020 and that it closed out the year with $60 million under its control.
But BLM reported to the IRS in August 2020 that it expected to incur precisely $12,706,366 in "Professional Fees" expenditures during the same calendar year, a figure $4.3 million higher than the top-line annual spending figure it later reported to the public in February.
Kamenar said his watchdog group believes there should be a "full audit" of BLM to clear up the spending discrepancy.
"Bottom line: Lot of questionable financial activity, organizational structure, location of the books, etc. that call for a full investigation," Kamenar said.
Data that should be contained within BLM's Form 990 tax return for 2020, which was due to the IRS in November, would help clear up the organization's $4.3 million spending discrepancy.
On Tuesday, a Washington Examiner reporter attempted to request BLM's 2020 Form 990 in person at the charity's office in Los Angeles, which the group disclosed as the location its books are stored in previous filings submitted to the IRS, only to be told by a security guard that there has never been a BLM office at the location.
An unidentified BLM spokesperson informed the Washington Examiner on Thursday that the group does not currently maintain a "permanent office" and offered to mail a copy of its 990 within two weeks.
Alan Dye, a partner at Webster, Chamberlain & Bean who specializes in nonprofit law, told the Washington Examiner that charities that don't submit their Form 990s on time could face fines from the IRS and some state-level charity oversight agencies.
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Styron, the CharityWatch executive director, said Form 990s are matters of public record and that BLM should have completed its 2020 form by now.
"Irrespective of where any person falls on the political spectrum or what their position is on any social justice issue, hopefully, we can all agree that tax-subsidized public charities have an ethical responsibility to be transparent with the public about how they are operating and how the donations they receive are being used," Styron said. "The amount of money involved here is not insignificant."
Black Lives Matter fundraising handled by group with convicted terrorist on its board
The co-founder of Black Lives Matter names a convicted cop killer as one of her heroes, and the BLM national organization is fiscally sponsored through a leftist group whose board of directors includes a convicted terrorist.
Alicia Garza, one of three co-founders of the Black Lives Matter national organization, has repeatedly talked about how convicted cop killer and wanted domestic terrorist Joanne Chesimard, also known as Assata Shakur, is one of her main inspirations. Susan Rosenberg, a member of the board of directors for the left-wing Thousand Currents group, which handles the intake of donations made to Black Lives Matter, is a convicted terrorist who, among other things, was suspected of helping Shakur escape from prison.
Rosenberg, who was listed as the vice chairwoman of the board of directors for Thousand Currents until the webpage was pulled down this week, as first reported by the Capital Research Center, had been a member of the radical leftist revolutionary militant group known as the May 19th Communist Organization, affiliated with the Weather Underground terrorist group and other radicals. She was convicted on weapons and explosives charges and sentenced to 58 years in prison, serving 16 years before being pardoned by President Bill Clinton in January 2001.
Thousand Currents did not return a request for comment.
Black Lives Matter, which is not a 501(c)(3) charitable group, uses an IRS-approved 501(c)(3) organization — Thousand Currents — as its fiscal sponsor, and so donations made on the Black Lives Matter website through the left-wing ActBlue donation platform go to Thousand Currents, which says it then distributes them to Black Lives Matter. Black Lives Matter has gained a vast amount of national attention, and funding, since the death in Minneapolis police custody of George Floyd on Memorial Day.
Rosenberg was a radical in the 1960s and 1970s who landed on the FBI’s Most Wanted List for a number of suspected crimes and was nabbed in 1984 while unloading from her car and into a New Jersey storage unit hundreds of pounds of dynamite along with weapons, including a sub-machine gun. She was believed to have been part of future politically motivated bombing plots. Rosenberg and her M19 associates were also charged with roles in bombings during the 1980s at the Capitol and the Navy War College, among other targets. They were also tied to a 1981 Brink’s armored car robbery that killed a guard and two police officers.
Rosenberg was believed to have also played a role in Shakur’s escape from prison.
Garza wrote an article for the Feminist Wire in 2014 explaining that “when I use Assata’s powerful demand in my organizing work, I always begin by sharing where it comes from, sharing about Assata’s significance to the Black Liberation Movement, what it’s political purpose and message is, and why it’s important in our context.” Garza has repeatedly tweeted approvingly about Shakur.
Shakur is currently on the FBI’s Most Wanted Terrorists List with a $1 million reward. A member of the revolutionary extremist group called the Black Liberation Army, Shakur is wanted for escaping from prison in New Jersey in 1979 while serving a life sentence for murdering a police officer during a traffic stop. In 1973, Shakur and two accomplices were stopped for a motor vehicle violation on the New Jersey Turnpike by two New Jersey State Police troopers. Shakur was wanted at the time for her role in a number of serious crimes, including bank robbery, so they opened fire on the officers, injuring one trooper and killing Werner Foerster execution-style at point-blank range. She was caught and sentenced but then escaped, making her way to Cuba in 1984.
Rosenberg wrote an autobiography in 2011 titled An American Radical: Political Prisoner in My Own Country, in which she talked about her radical escapades, and since her release has served as the communications director for the American Jewish World Service and had a stint at John Jay School of Criminal Justice. She also joined Thousand Currents.
The website for Black Lives Matter is operated under an umbrella group known as the Black Lives Matter Global Network Foundation, chaired by BLM co-founder Patrisse Cullors, a self-described Marxist. Black Lives Matter uses ActBlue to raise money, but claims from some conservative activists such as Candace Owens that Black Lives Matter was just a "shell company" for donating money to the Democratic Party do not appear to be true.
Black Lives Matter appears to make up the majority of the donation work that Thousand Currents does, with the 2019 public audit statement for Thousand Currents showing just over $6.4 million in total financial assets, including holding more than $3.3 million in assets for Black Lives Matter as of last June. The audit shows Thousand Currents released nearly $1.8 million in donations to Black Lives Matter during the year ending on June 30, 2019.
The Black Lives Matter Global Network Foundation has pulled in huge amounts of cash since Floyd’s death, telling the Associated Press it received more than 1.1 million individual donations as of mid-June, with each donation averaging $33 — meaning the group has brought in more than $33 million in less than a month.
A 2017 report from Black Lives Matter describes its founders — Garza, Cullors, and Opal Tometi — as “three radical Black organizers.”
Cullors said that she and Garza are “trained Marxists” during a 2015 interview with theReal News Network, noting: “We are super versed on, sort of, ideological theories, and I think what we really try to do is build a movement that could be utilized by many, many black folk.” Cullors told CNN's Jake Tapper in June that "Trump not only needs to not be in office in November, but he should resign now."
The group announced grant funds totaling $12.5 million in recent days.
Black Lives Matter says it was founded in 2013 in response to George Zimmerman being acquitted in the murder trial of Trayvon Martin. President Barack Obama’s Justice Department under Attorney General Eric Holder found “insufficient evidence” to pursue federal civil rights charges.
“A year later, we set out together on the Black Lives Matter Freedom Ride to Ferguson, in search of justice for Mike Brown and all of those who have been torn apart by state-sanctioned violence and anti-Black racism,” the Black Lives Matter website declares.
The “Hands Up! Don’t Shoot!” slogan that features prominently at most Black Lives Matter protests is based on a myth also debunked by the Obama-Holder Justice Department, which concluded the shooting of Brown by Ferguson police officer Darren Wilson was justified.
