Quantcast

UPDATE SPINOFF- How is BLM organized and operated fiscally? LONG READ

O.o

Black Women Disproportionately @ Risk For Homicide
Joined
Feb 23, 2014
Messages
59,470
Reaction score
Reactions
401,375 11,864 9,185
442,629
Alleybux
11,900
HOMEPAGESubscribe
HOME NEWS

The story behind Thousand Currents, the charity that doles out the millions of dollars Black Lives Matter generates in donations​

Meira Gebel
Jun 25, 2020, 6:09 PM

Thousand_Currents_–_Exchanging_grassroots_brilliance

A screenshot from Thousand Currents' website. Thousand Currents
  • The Black Lives Matter Global Network Foundation is a non-profit organization — but it is not tax exempt.
  • But organizations can borrow another non-profit's tax-exempt, 501(c)(3) status while raising money or building out its structure, better known as a fiscal sponsorship.
  • So Black Lives Matter has a fiscal sponsorship set up with the 501(c)(3) non-profit organization Thousand Currents.
  • A fiscal sponsor receives donation money on the non-profit's behalf, and decides how and where the money is spent, according to Internal Revenue Service requirements.
  • Visit Insider's homepage for more stories.

In recent weeks, following the police killing of George Floyd, millions of dollars in donations have flooded into bail funds for protesters, Black-owned businesses, and the Black Lives Matter movement itself.
The Black Lives Matter Global Network Foundation, the organization's official name, is a non-profit — but it is not tax exempt. In the eyes of the Internal Revenue Service, such an organization is treated as any normal corporation, and still has to pay income tax.
But organizations like Black Lives Matter can team up with and borrow another non-profit's tax-exempt, 501(c)(3) status, known as a fiscal sponsorship, while building out its own structure. Fiscal sponsorships are typically between two organizations that share a similar mission statement — and that's where Thousand Currents comes in.

What is Thousand Currents?​

Thousand Currents is a 501(3)(c) non-profit that provides grants to organizations that are led by women, youth, and Indigenous people focused on building food sustainability, fighting climate change, and developing alternative economic models for their communities across the world, according to its website.

Executive Director Solome Lemma said the Black Lives Matter Global Network Foundation approached Thousand Currents in 2016 to create a fiscal sponsorship agreement and provide "the legal and administrative support to enable BLM to fulfill its mission."

Black Lives Matter sign

Several organizations and collectives called for a gathering to pay tribute to Georges Floyd killed by police in Minneapolis. Alain Pitton/NurPhoto via Getty Images
Thousand Currents essentially acts as a quasi-manager for Black Lives Matter: It provides "administrative and back office support, including finance, accounting, grants management, insurance, human resources, legal and compliance," Lemma said.
Fiscal sponsorships are not common, but also not "rare", tax attorney Kelly Phillips Erb told Insider. This type of tax arrangement is typically used by newer non-profits on a project basis while they fundraise and apply for their own tax-exempt status. The fiscal sponsor also takes an administrative fee.
In this case, Black Lives Matter agreed to make a donation to grassroots efforts led by Thousand Currents.

Charity Navigator, a non-profit organization that rates charities on their transparency and financial health, gave Thousand Currents four out of four stars, noting that 79% of their finances go toward program expenses.

Where do donations to Black Lives Matter go?​

Any and all donations made to the Black Lives Matter Global Network Foundation go to it — but not entirely directly.
Under IRS requirements, any charitable funds donated to a non-profit using a fiscal sponsor are first given to the fiscal sponsor, which then doles out the money in the form of grants to the non-profit.
For example, when you donate to the Black Lives Matter movement, you are directed to its fundraising partner ActBlue. Then, ActBlue distributes the money raised to Thousand Currents, which is then granted to Black Lives Matter.

Though, there is one caveat: Phillips Erb said one of the main rules of being a fiscal sponsor per the IRS is directing where charitable funds go within the non-profit it is supporting.
"The one who is borrowing status cannot direct where the money goes," Phillips Erb said.

Demonstrators gather at the Lincoln Memorial during a protest against racial inequality in the aftermath of the death in Minneapolis police custody of George Floyd, in Washington, DC, on June 6, 2020. Carlos Barria/Reuters
Because Black Lives Matter does not have its own tax-exempt status, donations filter through various channels before resources are dispensed across BLM's 16 chapters. And where and how that money is allocated, is up to Thousand Currents, and likely agreed upon beforehand.
In an emailed statement to Insider, Lemma said, "Donations to BLM are restricted donations to support the activities of BLM." Black Lives Matter Global Network Foundation did not respond to Insider's requests for comment about whether or not it plans to apply for tax-exempt status.

Some have desired more budgetary transparency from Black Lives Matter in the past. In 2018, one of its New York City chapters left the organization citing its need for more monetary autonomy.
With a resurgence of donations, corresponding with nationwide protests and calls to end police brutality, the Black Lives Matter movement is seeing millions of dollars flooding in on behalf of its mission.
It's unclear how much money Black Lives Matter has received in the last four weeks, but it's likely in the multi-millions (for example, they announced a $12 million grant fund last week).
Thousand Currents' 2019 financials show that the organization brought in $6.8 million, which included the money earned through the fiscal sponsorship of Black Lives Matter. Both organizations could end up seeing their highest donations ever by the end of this fiscal year.



SEE ALSO: 14 ways to support Black Lives Matter protests if you can't be there in person

DON'T MISS: How to help the fight against systemic racism

NOW WATCH:​



tag75489
tag157400
tag75489
 

O.o

Black Women Disproportionately @ Risk For Homicide
Joined
Feb 23, 2014
Messages
59,470
Reaction score
Reactions
401,375 11,864 9,185
442,629
Alleybux
11,900
ADVERTISEMENT


Click to copy

AP Exclusive: Black Lives Matter opens up about its finances​

By AARON MORRISONFebruary 23, 2021



1 of 6
FILE - In this Dec. 12, 2020, file photo, MD Crawford carries a Black Lives Matter flag before a march in La Marque, Texas to protest the shooting of Joshua Feast, 22, by a La Marque police officer. A financial snapshot shared exclusively with The Associated Press shows the Black Lives Matter Global Network Foundation took in just over $90 million last year. (Stuart Villanueva /The Galveston County Daily News via AP, File)

NEW YORK (AP) — The foundation widely seen as a steward of the Black Lives Matter movement says it took in just over $90 million last year, according to a financial snapshot shared exclusively with The Associated Press.
The Black Lives Matter Global Network Foundation is now building infrastructure to catch up to the speed of its funding and plans to use its endowment to become known for more than protests after Black Americans die at the hands of police or vigilantes.
“We want to uplift Black joy and liberation, not just Black death. We want to see Black communities thriving, not just surviving,” reads an impact report the foundation shared with the AP before releasing it.
ADVERTISEMENT


This marks the first time in the movement’s nearly eight-year history that BLM leaders have revealed a detailed look at their finances. The foundation’s coffers and influence grew immensely following the May 2020 death of George Floyd, a Black man whose last breaths under the knee of a white Minneapolis police officer sparked protests across the U.S. and around the world.
That growth also caused longstanding tensions to boil over between some of the movement’s grassroots organizers and national leaders — the former went public last fall with grievances about financial transparency, decision-making and accountability.
The foundation said it committed $21.7 million in grant funding to official and unofficial BLM chapters, as well as 30 Black-led local organizations. It ended 2020 with a balance of more than $60 million, after spending nearly a quarter of its assets on the grant funds and other charitable giving.
In its report, the BLM foundation said individual donations via its main fundraising platform averaged $30.76. More than 10% of the donations were recurring. The report does not state who gave the money in 2020, and leaders declined to name prominent donors.
Last year, the foundation’s expenses were approximately $8.4 million — that includes staffing, operating and administrative costs, along with activities such as civic engagement, rapid response and crisis intervention.
One of its focuses for 2021 will be economic justice, particularly as it relates to the ongoing socioeconomic impact of COVID-19 on Black communities.
The racial justice movement had a broad impact on philanthropic giving last year. According to an upcoming report by Candid and the Center for Disaster Philanthropy, 35% of the $20.2 billion in U.S. funding dollars from corporations, foundations, public charities and high-net-worth individuals to address COVID-19 was explicitly designated for communities of color.
ADVERTISEMENT


After the 2013 acquittal of George Zimmerman, the neighborhood watch volunteer who killed 17-year-old Trayvon Martin in Florida, BLM’s founders pledged to build a decentralized movement governed by consensus of a members’ collective. In 2015, a network of chapters was formed, as support and donations poured in. But critics say the BLM Global Network Foundation has increasingly moved away from being a Black radical organizing hub and become a mainstream philanthropic and political organization run without democratic input from its earliest grassroots supporters.
BLM co-founder Patrisse Cullors told the AP that the foundation is focused on a “need to reinvest into Black communities.”
“One of our biggest goals this year is taking the dollars we were able to raise in 2020 and building out the institution we’ve been trying to build for the last seven and a half years,” she said in an interview.
Cullors, who was already active in her native Los Angeles, where she created her own social justice organization, Power and Dignity Now, became the global foundation’s full-time executive director last year.
Fellow co-founders Alicia Garza, who is the principal at Black Futures Lab, and Opal Tometi, who created a Black new media and advocacy hub called Diaspora Rising, are not involved with the foundation. Garza and Tometi do continue to make appearances as movement co-founders.
In 2020, the foundation spun off its network of chapters as a sister collective called BLM Grassroots. The chapters, along with other Black-led local organizations, became eligible in July for financial resources through a $12 million grant fund. Although there are many groups that use “Black Lives Matter” or “BLM” in their names, less than a dozen are currently considered affiliates of the chapter network.
According to foundation records shared with the AP, several chapters, including in the cities of Washington, Philadelphia and Chicago, were notified last year of their eligibility to receive $500,000 each in funding under a multiyear agreement. Only one BLM group in Denver has signed the agreement and received its funds in September.
____
CHAPTERS CALL FOR MORE TRANSPARENCY
A group of 10 chapters, called the #BLM10, rejected the foundation’s funding offer last year and complained publicly about the lack of donor transparency. Foundation leaders say only a few of the 10 chapters are recognized as network affiliates.
In a letter released Nov. 30, the #BLM10 claimed most chapters have received little to no financial resources from the BLM movement since its launch in 2013. That has had adverse consequences for the scope of their organizing work, local chapter leaders told the AP.
The chapters are simply asking for an equal say in “this thing that our names are attached to, that they are doing in our names,” said April Goggans, organizer of Black Lives Matter DC, which is part of the #BLM10 along with groups in Indianapolis, Oklahoma City, San Diego, Hudson Valley, New York, and elsewhere.
“We are BLM. We built this, each one of us,” she said.
Records show some chapters have received multiple rounds of funding in amounts ranging between $800 and $69,000, going back as far as 2016. The #BLM10 said the amounts given have been far from equitable when compared to how much BLM has raised over the years. But Cullors disagreed.
“Because the BLM movement was larger than life — and it is larger than life — people made very huge assumptions about what our actual finances looked like,” Cullors said. “We were often scraping for money, and this year was the first year where we were resourced in the way we deserved to be.”
Still, the #BLM10 members said reality didn’t match the picture movement founders were projecting around the world. In its early years, BLM disclosed receiving donations from A-list celebrities such as Beyoncé, Jay-Z and Prince, prior to his death in 2016.
Leaders at the BLM foundation admit that they have not been clear about the movement’s finances and governance over the years. But now the foundation is more open about such matters. It says the fiscal sponsor currently managing its money requires spending be approved by a collective action fund, which is a board made up of representatives from official BLM chapters.
After Floyd’s killing in Minneapolis, the surge of donations saw the foundation go from small, scrappy movement to maturing institution. Last summer, leaders sought nonprofit status with the IRS, which was granted in December, allowing the organization to receive tax-deductible donations directly. In the near future, that also will require the foundation to file public 990 forms, revealing details of its organizational structure, employee compensation, programming and expenses.
Brad Smith, president of Candid, an organization that provides information about philanthropic groups, said there are other ways for nonprofits to be transparent with the public besides federal disclosure forms. He said a philanthropic organization’s website is its best tool to show how willing it is to be held accountable.
“In exchange for getting tax exempt status, you as an organization committed to providing a greater level of transparency to confirm you are fulfilling your mission,” he said.
It’s because of Cullors, Garza and Tometi’s vision, along with the work of so many Black organizers in the ecosystem, that the BLM movement finds itself at a new phase of its development, said Melina Abdullah, co-founder of BLM’s first ever chapter in Los Angeles.
“We’re turning a corner, recognizing that we have to build institutions that endure beyond us,” Abdullah told the AP.
____
 

Amanirenas

Qore li kdwe li
Joined
Jun 9, 2014
Messages
14,054
Reaction score
Reactions
104,454 2,521 1,598
110,791
Alleybux
573,574
I see. According to this article, not everyone who claims to be a BLM chapter is an official BLM chapter. Official chapters have recieved money and others haven't. BLM is decentralized, and the founders don't control the donations, the chapter heads get together and decide how the money is spent. BLM chapters have filed for and received tax exempt status.
 

honey8271

Team Owner
Joined
May 15, 2015
Messages
21,653
Reaction score
Reactions
193,972 1,833 850
197,940
Alleybux
4,550
A mess that is just getting itself in order at least that is my understanding of what is going on.
 

ChiShe

General Manager
Joined
Apr 13, 2017
Messages
2,381
Reaction score
Reactions
30,059 1,728 1,856
28,114
Alleybux
7,424
Skinny women of all ethnicities are more desired than their thicc counterparts. Slim black women are more likely to appeal to non black men, giving them a larger and more diverse dating pool.
 

Similar Threads

News Alley

The Lounge

General Alley

Top Bottom