Just 33 percent of Black Lives Matter’s cumulative donations of $90 million went to charitable causes, says a shocking new report.
The group doled out around $30 million between 2020 and 2022, during which time it raised $90 million in donations while promoting itself as the preeminent civil rights organization in the US.
Among the benefactors of BLM’s paltry donations were friends and family of co-founder Patrisse Cullors, particularly her graffiti-artist brother, Paul, who received $1.7 million in salaries and contracts during that period.
Cullors’ brother was on the board of BLM, he received a salary of just under $140,000, while his company, Black Ties Security, was paid more than $750,000 by the group for “security services,” it reports. the New York Post.
Patrisse Cullors’ friends and family were some of the biggest benefactors of Black Lives Matter donations.
Cullors’ brother, Paul, received $1.7 million in salary and contracts from the group for providing security and his board seat.
A year earlier, his company, Cullors Security LLC, received $841,000 for services.
In 2021, he paid $637,000 for a home in a Los Angeles suburb.
Among the causes to which the Oakland-based Black Lives Matter Global Network Foundation contributed were pro-black and trans causes, as well as anti-police efforts, according to the Post report. The newspaper said the total number donated was $30,498,722.
Of that $30.4 million, $4.5 million went to nonprofit organizations run by known BLM supporters and associates. Despite massive donations, BLM posted losses of $8.5 million for 2021.
One group that received a grant was the Tamir Rice Foundation, named for the 12-year-old Cleveland boy who was fatally shot by Timothy Loehmann, a 26-year-old white police officer, in 2014.
The foundation, run by Rice’s mother, has criticized Black Lives Matter in the past. “They are benefiting from the blood of our loved ones and they are not even speaking to us,” Samaria Rice told the Post in 2021.
The largest grant ever given by BLM was for the Love Not Blood campaign, a group created by Cephus Johnson after the shooting death of his nephew, Oscar Grant, by a police officer in Oakland in 2009.
Michael B. Jordan played Grant in the award-winning film Fruitvale Station, which details the shooting.
News broke recently that BLM is suffering from a financial crisis after donations tanked amid opulent spending reports by board members.
Other recipients included the Trans Justice Housing Project in Atlanta, which received $200,000, the same amount was given to the Reuniting African Descendants group, while the Michael Brown Chosen for Change Foundation received nearly $300,000.
The IRS stripped that foundation of its nonprofit status for failing to provide adequate returns.
The shooting death of Brown in Ferguson, Missouri, in 2014 at the hands of police officer Darren Wilson caused national outrage.
The Post report details that between 2020 and 2021, donations to BLM plunged $67 million from $76 million to just $9.2 million.
On Friday, it was reported that Patrisse Cullors was quietly fired from her contract with Warner Bros. TV after failing to produce content.
The BLM activist posted a message on Instagram just a few days ago accusing the media of ‘lying’ about her.
“For the last two and a half years I have been relentlessly attacked by the media. So many lies and so much misinformation. They are hell-bent on destroying my life,” she wrote. “Even though I haven’t been in BLM since 2021, my face is still used to spread so many lies. I am exhausted and fear for my life every day. The worst thing is that many people have remained silent.
‘Many have not and I am grateful for those who have helped combat dangerous lies. But you guys. I don’t know how much more of this I can take.
Cullors became a co-founder of BLM in 2013 before stepping down in 2021. The movement began in her Los Angeles backyard a decade ago.
Now the national Black Lives Matter organization is at risk of bankruptcy after its finances plunged $8.5 million into the red last year, while handing out seven-figure salaries to several employees.
Financial disclosures obtained by The Washington Free Beacon show the dangerous status of BLM’s Global Network Foundation, which officially emerged in November 2020, as a more formal way of structuring the civil rights movement.
However, despite the financial controversy and scrutiny, BLM GNF continued to hire family members of Cullors and various board members.
Cullors, 39, was expected to produce shows through Warner Brothers’ multiple sources of revenue, including animated shows, children’s content, scripted and unscripted shows.
For the prior year, 2021, tax returns revealed that BLM paid a company owned by Damon Turner, the father of Cullors’ son, nearly $970,000 to help “produce live events” and provide other “creative services.”
“While Patrisse Cullors was forced to resign due to charges of using BLM funds for her own personal use, it appears she still keeps it all in the family,” said Paul Kamenar, an attorney with the National Legal Center watchdog group and of Policies.
A consulting firm run by BLM board member Shalomyah Bowers has been awarded $2.1 million for providing operational support to the organization. Bowers said the last BLM board approved the contract with her company when she was not a board member.
The filing also revealed that Cullors reimbursed BLM $73,000 for a chartered flight and paid the foundation $390 for the private use of his $6 million Los Angeles mansion.
Bowers, who replaced Cullors when he stepped down, also benefited handsomely from the group: In 2022, his consulting firm received $1.7 million for management and consulting services, Free Beacon reported.
And the sister of former Black Lives Matter board member Raymond Howard was also employed in a lucrative role as a consultant.
Danielle Edwards’ firm, New Impact Partners, received $1.1 million for consulting services in 2022, Free Beacon said.
BLM GNF has also agreed to pay an additional $600,000 to the consulting firm of an unnamed former board member “in connection with a contractual dispute.”
The nonprofit group ran an $8.5 million deficit and its investment accounts fell in value by nearly $10 million in the most recent fiscal year, financial disclosures show.
The group recorded a loss of $961,000 on a $172,000 security sale, suggesting that the group suffered an 85 percent loss on the transaction. No further details of that security have been shared.
And the cash flowing into BLM coffers has been drastically reduced.
Giving plummeted 88% between 2021 and 2022, from $77 million to just $9.3 million for the most recent fiscal year.
A year later, in May 2022, it was revealed that Black Lives Matter spent more than $12 million on luxury properties in Los Angeles and Toronto, including a $6.3 million 10,000-square-foot property in Canada that was purchased as part of an investment. of $8 million. ‘subsidy outside the country’.
The Toronto property was purchased with a grant that was intended for “activities to educate and support Black communities, and to purchase and renovate property for charitable use.”
The group had said it planned to use the property as its Canadian headquarters, and it has now been named the Wilseed Center for Arts and Activism.
BLM co-founder Patrisse Cullors, quietly released from Warner Bros. contract
Cullors told the Hollywood Reporter in January 2022 that he was working on a documentary about how the reparations were similar to the idea of land devolution, where Native Americans got their land back, and another about black social mobility.
On Friday, Patrisse Cullors was released from her contract with Warner Brothers TV without having produced any content.
Cullors, 39, signed the deal with the media giant in 2020 to much fanfare, but it ended in secret in October 2022, news broke Friday.
“Unfortunately, the deal did not result in any shows being produced,” a source told the New York Post.
Cullors claimed in January 2022 that he was working on a documentary about how reparations were similar to the idea of land devolution, where Native Americans got their land back, and another about black social mobility.
She had also reportedly written a series on marijuana and leading black women, according to the Hollywood Reporter.
The value of the deal was not disclosed.
DailyMail.com has contacted Cullors for comment. Warner Bros. declined to comment.
Vedika Choudhary is an esteemed news reporter at Elite News, where she has been a valuable asset since 2021. With her exceptional reporting skills and dedication to delivering accurate news, Vedika has quickly become a trusted journalist within the industry.