The Black Lives Matter Global Network Foundation (BLMGNF) received almost $90 million in public donations from 2020 to 2022.
Still, only 33 percent, or $30 million, went to charitable foundations, according to two federal filings obtained by The New York Post. The filings cover the periods from July 1, 2020, to June 30, 2022, and reveal that BLMGNF allocated $30,498,722 in grants to anti-police, trans, and black nonprofits in the fiscal years of 2020 and 2021.
The organization gave out $4.5 million last year to nonprofits operated by BLMGNFs supporters and friends, even as the organization showed losses of over $8.5 million last year, according to its latest public filings for the fiscal year 2021.
The Oakland, California-based nonprofit gave out millions of dollars to supporters of its co-founder Patrisse Cullors, who resigned from the group in 2021 after her lavish spending on multi-million dollar homes was exposed. Cullors brother, Paul Cullors, a graffiti artist, walked away with $139,708 in salary from the organization. According to the filings, Paul Cullors is one of only two members of BLMGNFs seven-person board to receive compensation. At the same time, the other was Kailee Scales, the organizations former managing director, who received $114,625.
Black Ties Security, Paul Cullors company, was paid $756,330 2021 from the group for security services and was one of the organizations highest-paid contractors. Filings also show that BLMGNF paid another company operated by Paul Cullors Cullors Security LLC $840,993 during the previous fiscal year. Cullors Security LLC is still active and registered to the address of his $637,006 Mission Hills home bought in 2021.
BLMGNF gave a $400,000 grant to the Tamir Rice Foundation. The foundation was created by Samaria Rice, the mother of the 12-year-old black boy who was killed by a white policeman while playing with a toy gun in 2014. Rice has been a vocal critic of Cullors and BLM and told The New York Post in 2021, They are benefiting off the blood of our loved ones, and they wont even talk to us. In 2021, Rice said in a statement with Lisa Simpson, the mother of Richard Risher, who was killed by LAPD officers in 2016, The activists have events in our cities and have not given us anything substantial for using our loved ones images and names on their flyers.
Cephus Uncle Bobby X Johnson, a longtime activist and member of Black Lives Matter who has worked with Cullors, started The Love Not Blood Campaign in memory of his nephew Oscar Grant, a black drug dealer who was shot and killed by a white transit cop in 2009 in Oakland. Johnsons group received BLMGNFs largest grant last year of $1,269,368.
According to The Post, Johnson claimed he started the charity in 2010 but didnt apply for charitable status from the IRS until 2019.
The outlet reported that Cullors identifies as queer and married black Canadian activist Janaya Khan, who identifies as queer and nonconforming, and that LGBTQ causes heralded by Cullors was also given significant grants by BLMGNF.
BLMGNF rewarded the Trans Justice Housing project in Atlanta $200,000 as well as Reuniting of African Descendants, a New York-based black, trans-led grassroots initiative to end genocide against trans and queer people of African descendants despite the organizations nonprofit status having been revoked.
BLMGNF sent the money to Nala Simone Toussaint, a cosmetologist, and co-founder of the group who set up a limited liability corporation, which was dissolved last month, according to The Post. LLCs are permitted to accept donations if they register with the IRS, and in 2022, Toussaint recorded Reuniting of African Descendants as a separate nonprofit.
BLMGNF gave $200,000 to the Oakland-based Anti-Police-Terror Project, which has held protests to defund the Oakland Police Department, stating on its website, Until we can abolish the police, were pushing for effective police oversight in Oakland.
The Michael Brown Chosen for Change Foundation was given $297,000 by BLGNF but had its nonprofit status revoked for failure to file returns in 2018.
The organization was created in 2015 in honor of Michael Brown, an 18-year-old black man killed by a white police officer in Ferguson, Missouri, in August 2014, whose death led to the protests that inspired Black Lives Matter.
According to the nonprofits audited financial statements, BLMGNF lost $961,000 on a securities sale of $172,000 and paid $600,000 to an unidentified former board members consulting firm in connection with a contract dispute.
In 2021, BLMGNF also paid $969,459 paid to Trap Heals LLC, a company operated by Damon Turner, the father of Cullors child, and over $2.1 million was paid to Bowers Consulting, a company run by current BLMGNF board member Shalomyah Bowers. According to IRS filings, Bowers firm also received an additional $34,800 in fundraising expenses.
BLMGNF also spent approximately $12 million on upscale homes in Los Angeles and Toronto, which led to Cullors resigning from the organizations leadership after her purchase of $3.2 million in real estate in 2021 was exposed, even though Cullors claimed she didnt use any of the organizations funds to buy the properties.
The organization gave $200,000 to St. Elmo Village in Los Angeles, a historic artists housing compound where Cullors lived when she co-founded BLMGNF.
BLMGNF also spent $1.1 million for consulting services with New Impact Partners, a Dayton, Ohio-based company operated by Danielle Edwards, the sister of Raymond Howard, one of the organizations former board members.
Donations to BLMGNF plummeted in the 2021 fiscal year, from $76,872,002 in the previous year to $9,268,283.
In 2020, BLMGNF recorded $79,644,823 of investment income and $8,489,062 in 2021, for $88,133,885.
Tom Anderson, director of the Government Integrity Project at the National Legal and Policy Center, an ethics watchdog group, said, These latest revelations in audited financials and 990s [federal tax filings] prove the chaos we cited in our complaint with the IRS.
According to The Post, the organization filed a complaint with the IRS against BLMGNF last year for allegedly violating IRS rules prohibiting the use of nonprofit assets for personal benefit, self-dealing, conflicts of interest, and illegal political fundraising.
The foundation had blown through two-thirds of the $90 million it raised in the wake of George Floyds death in the summer of 2020, The Washington Free Beacon reported.
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