Black Lives Matter struck a gold mine in the summer of 2020 following the death of George Floyd. Three short years later, the BLM flagship organization is facing bankruptcy.
“Black Lives Matter Global Network Foundation ran an $8.5 million deficit and saw the value of its investment accounts plummet by nearly $10 million in the most recent tax year, financial disclosures show,” The Washington Free Beacon reported May 23. “The group logged a $961,000 loss on a securities sale of $172,000, suggesting the charity weathered a staggering 85 percent loss on the transaction,” the news site states.
BLM was showered with more than $90 million in donations in 2020 as corporations and individual Americans tripped over themselves to display their support as all the levers of credentialed authority in the nation – politicians, major-brand companies, academia, big-box media, religious figures, pro sports leagues and more – lined up to pledge their devotion to the organization.
But, as The Beacon explained, the cash spigot has been turned off. “The Black Lives Matter Global Network Foundation raised just $9.3 million in the fiscal year ending in June 2022 – an 88 percent decrease from the year prior.”
‘I Did Not See That Coming’
In a blunt May 2022 statement that deserved far more attention that it garnered at the time, BLM co-founder Patrisse Cullors acknowledged that she was floored by the avalanche of green that suddenly came her way. “Yes, it was a major shock,” she told an MSNBC podcast. “It was also a lot of like, ‘Oh, wait, I did not see that coming’… that was a lot of white guilt money.”
Cullors was forced to step down from her official role as executive director at BLMGNF in May 2021 after being accused of financial improprieties. But the controversy raged on. In Sept. 2022, the foundation was sued by Black Lives Matter Grassroots, a group that represents local BLM chapters throughout the nation, over more than $10 million in donations paid out as “fees” to a “consulting firm” run by Shalomyah Bowers.
It’s telling that BLM Global Network Foundation responded to the suit by utilizing the same language of victimization it had deployed in successfully tapping into all that white guilt money.
“[BLM Grassroots] would rather take the same steps of our white oppressors and utilize the criminal legal system which is propped up by white supremacy (the same system they say they want to dismantle) to solve movement disputes,” the foundation’s board of directors declared in a statement.
Hey, why not? It had always worked before.
BLM Cash Payouts to Friends and Family
This was no isolated incident; tax documents revealed that BLM had shelled out $970,000 to a company owned by Damon Turner, who fathered a child with Cullors, to “produce live events” and provide “creative services.” Meanwhile, Cullors’ brother, Paul, was paid $840,000 to provide security services for the foundation.
The tax documents for 2022 show that little has changed.
(Photo by Beata Zawrzel/NurPhoto via Getty Images)
“A graffiti artist with no prior experience as a bodyguard, Paul Cullors and his two companies raked in $1.6 million providing ‘professional security services’ for Black Lives Matter in 2022,” The Free Beacon relates. “Paul Cullors was also one of BLM’s only two paid employees during the year, collecting a $126,000 salary as ‘head of security’ on top of his consulting fees.”
And then there are those homes. Cullors frequently found herself in hot water over lavish real estate purchases. “As protests broke out across the country in the name of Black Lives Matter, the group’s co-founder went on a real estate buying binge, snagging four high-end homes for $3.2 million in the US alone, according to property records,” The New York Post reported in April 2021.
There was also a “secret” $6 million mansion in Los Angeles. That revelation even managed to make allies in the dominant media squirm. One can feel the discomfort in Sean Campbell’s April 2022 dispatch for New York magazine:
“It’s far from a box, with more than 6,500 square feet, more than half a dozen bedrooms and bathrooms, several fireplaces, a soundstage, a pool and bungalow, and parking for more than 20 cars, according to real-estate listings. The California property was purchased for nearly $6 million in cash in October 2020 with money that had been donated to BLMGNF.
The transaction has not been previously reported, and Black Lives Matter’s leadership had hoped to keep the house’s existence a secret. Documents, emails, and other communications I’ve seen about the luxury property’s purchase and day-to-day operation suggest that it has been handled in ways that blur, or cross, boundaries between the charity and private companies owned by some of its leaders. It creates the impression that money donated to the cause of racial justice has been spent in ways that benefit the leaders of Black Lives Matter personally.”
“BLM spent about $12 million… on luxury homes in Los Angeles and Toronto,” The Free Beacon notes. “That profligacy did not abate in the 2022 fiscal year, when the charity dropped more than $10.5 million on contractors, much of which went to companies linked to Cullors’s friends and family.”
Add it all up, and it’s a great way to quickly make a pile of cash disappear. As the scandals mount and fickle progressive attention spans are drawn to whatever cause is currently in season, the end is suddenly in sight for a “movement” that was sitting on a financial empire just three short years ago.
“Black Lives Matter Global Network Foundation “has blown through two-thirds of the $90 million it raised in the wake of George Floyd’s death in the summer of 2020,” The Free Beacon details. Oh well, it was a fun ride for all involved while it lasted, including the impulse donors who tossed their money in droves without even bothering to look at what they were funding.
