The Black Lives Matter Global Network Foundation claims to have raised more than $90 million in 2020, a year filled with protests against racial inequality and police brutality.
A report released this week also said that the foundation had $8.4 million in expenses in 2020 and announced plans to share $21.7 million in grants to a variety of leftist activist groups and local BLM chapters.
Patrisse Cullors, the executive director of the BLM Global Network Foundation and a self-described Marxist who formed the BLM national organization with Alicia Garza and Opal Tometi, claimed in a new letter this week that “in July, we paused — for a moment — as we were inundated with a surge of interest, attention, and allies.” She said that “our network of almost twenty chapters at the time came together to ideate something different; an entity and structure that could remain true to the grassroots origins of #BlackLivesMatter.” Garza currently runs the Black Futures Lab and Tometi-founded Diaspora Rising.
Cullors said the BLM Global Network Foundation “has decided to fully lean into its capacity as a fundraising body, grantmaking entity, amplifier, and action-oriented think tank of the movement.” She said BLM Grassroots would be the “sister organization” and would be comprised of BLM’s local chapters. Cullors also noted the creation of the Black Lives Matter Political Action Committee in October and said that “the BLM PAC now has two elections under its belt: the 2020 general election and the 2021 Georgia special Senate runoff.” She promised that “politically, we are just getting started.”
The BLM “2020 Impact Report” said the group raised over $90 million last year and claimed that the average donation through its main fundraising platform (ActBlue) was $30.64, with more than 10% donations recurring. The group said that it was “a record-breaking year.” BLM saw massive growth following George Floyd’s death in Minneapolis police custody. Jury selection in that murder trial begins in March.
“Our plans, strategies and infrastructure had to catch up to the speed of funding that suddenly increased exponentially in several months,” the BLM report said. “Now, we are suddenly at liberty to do #SoMuchMore than we had ever imagined.”
Local BLM chapters expressed frustration with the BLM national group’s leadership in a December letter signed by the branches from Philadelphia, Indianapolis, Washington, D.C., Chicago, Oklahoma City, New Jersey, San Diego, Denver, Hudson Valley, and Vancouver in Washington state.
The chapters said that Cullors being appointed executive director, as well as a BLM grassroots group and PAC being created, occurred “without the knowledge of the majority of Black Lives Matters chapters across the country and world.” The letter asserted that Cullors gained her leadership position “against the will of most chapters.” The local chapters argued that BLM Grassroots “does not have the support of and was created without consultation with the vast majority of chapters.”
“For years there has been inquiry regarding the financial operations of BLMGN and no acceptable process of either public or internal transparency about the unknown millions of dollars donated to BLMGN, which has certainly increased during this time of pandemic and rebellion,” the local BLM chapters said. “To the best of our knowledge, most chapters have received little to no financial support from BLMGN since the launch in 2013. It was only in the last few months that selected chapters appear to have been invited to apply for a $500,000 grant created with resources generated because of the organizing labor of chapters. This is not the equity and financial accountability we deserve.”
A 2017 report from Black Lives Matter describes its founders (Garza, Cullors, and Tometi) as “three radical Black organizers.” Cullors said that she and Garza are “trained Marxists” during a 2015 interview. A key mentor in building and shaping the group was Angela Davis, a two-time vice presidential candidate for the Communist Party USA.
Black Lives Matter says it was founded in 2013 in response to George Zimmerman being acquitted in the murder trial of Trayvon Martin. Former President Barack Obama’s Justice Department under Attorney General Eric Holder found “insufficient evidence” to pursue federal civil rights charges. The “Hands Up! Don’t Shoot!” slogan featured prominently at BLM protests was disputed by the Obama-Holder Justice Department.
The new BLM national report stated that the foundation and grassroots group combined had $8.4 million in expenses in 2020, including for “staffing, operating and administrative expenses, civic engagement, programs and field expenses, rapid response, and crisis intervention.” BLM said that its general election get-out-the-vote campaign had a budget of close to $2 million and that its PAC raised a total of $1.05 million and spent over $746,000.
The BLM national group said in 2020 that it selected 30 “local organizations” which it acknowledged were “not part of our grassroots apparatus” to be the first foundation grantees, stating that 23 of the 30 were “led by Black LGBTQIA folks and/or directly serve these communities in places like Chicago, New York, New Jersey, DC, and Alabama” and that each received a six-figure grant commitment from BLM.
The foundation “remains firmly committed to our grassroots network” and is committed to providing funds for local BLM groups in Boston; Chicago; Washington; Denver; Detroit; Philadelphia; Memphis, Tennessee; Nashville, Tennessee; Lansing, Michigan; South Bend, Indiana; and Canada, the report said.
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BLM said that it had committed $21.7 million to the activist groups and BLM chapters. The report said the foundation had “committed 23% of its total assets in disbursements and charitable giving” last year, and “after our expenses and grant disbursements, we are left with an approximate balance of $60 million.”
The BLM national organization switched to the leftist Tides Foundation for its fiscal sponsorship. Tides handles donations totaling in the hundreds of millions of dollars and is involved with a host of left-leaning groups. Thousand Currents said last summer it had served as the fiscal sponsor for the Black Lives Matter Global Network Project from 2016 to 2020 but that Tides would take over.
Susan Rosenberg, who is listed as the vice chairwoman of the board of directors for Thousand Currents last summer until the webpage was pulled down, had been a member of the leftist revolutionary militant group known as the May 19th Communist Organization and was convicted on weapons and explosives charges and sentenced to 58 years in prison, serving 16 years before her sentence was commuted by President Bill Clinton in January 2001.
