Black Lives Matter unveils finances
Foundation says it took in more than $90M last year
NEWYORK— 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 Associated Press.
The Black Lives Matter Global Network Foundation is now building infrastructure to catch up to the speed of its funding andplanstouse its endowment to become knownformorethanprotests 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 impactreport the foundation shared with the AP before releasing it.
Thismarksthefirsttimein the movement’snearlyeightyearhistory that BLMleaders have revealed a detailed look at their finances. Thefoundation’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 andnational 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 whogavethemoneyin2020, andleaders declined to name prominent donors.
Last year, the foundation’s expenseswere$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 impactofCOVID-19onBlack 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 Disas
ter 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.
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 movementgovernedbyconsensus 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 movedawayfrombeinga 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 wewere 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.
Cullors, who was already active in her native Los Angeles, where she created her own social justice organization, Power and Dignity Now, becametheglobalfoundation’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 thanadozen are consideredaffiliatesofthe chapter network.
According to foundation records shared with the AP, several chapters, including in the cities of Washington, Philadelphia and Chicago, werenotifiedlastyearoftheir eligibility to receive $500,000 each in funding under a multiyear agreement. Only one BLM group in Denver hassignedtheagreementand received its funds in September
group of 10 chapters, called the #BLM10, rejected thefoundation’s fundingoffer 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 aletter released Nov. 30, the #BLM10 claimed most chapters have received little to nofinancialresourcesfrom the BLMmovementsince 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 asking for an equal say in “this thing that our names are attached to, that they are doing in our names,” said Black Lives Matter DC organizer April Goggans, 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.”
Records show some chapters have received multiple roundsoffundinginamounts ranging between $800 and $69,000, going back as far as 2016.
The #BLM10 said the amounts given have been far from equitable when comparedtohowmuchBLM 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 wewereresourcedintheway we deserved to be.”
Still, the #BLM10 members said reality didn’t matchthepicture movement founders were projecting around the world. In its early years, BLMdisclosed receiving donations from A-list celebrities such as Beyonce, Jay-ZandPrince, prior to his death in 2016.
Leaders at the BLMfoundation 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.
HOUSTON — With its long-term facilities for immigrant children nearly full, the Biden administration is working to expedite the release of children to their relatives in the U.S.
U.S. Health and Human Services on Wednesday authorized operators of longterm facilities to pay for some of the children’s flights and transportation to the homes of their sponsors. Under the agency’s current guidelines, sponsors can be charged for those flights and required to pay before the government will release children, even if the sponsors have been vetted by the government.
Those costs can sometimes exceed $1,000 per child.
An internal memo sent Wednesday and obtained by The Associated Press authorizes facility operators to use government funding for transport fees “in the event that a sponsor is not able to pay fees associated with commercial airfare, and a child’s physical release would be otherwise delayed.” HHS declined to say how many flights would be funded.
HHS has drastically cut its capacity due to the coronavirus pandemic. Nearly all of the department’s 7,100 beds for immigrant children are full. Meanwhile, Border Patrol agents are apprehending an average of more than 200 children crossing the border without a parent per day. Most Border Patrol facilities aren’t equipped for long-term detention, with children forced to sleep on mats in cells wherethe lights stay on around the clock.
To take children from the Border Patrol, HHS reopened a surge facility at Carrizo Springs, Texas, that can hold up to 700 teenagers, and may soon reopen another site at Homestead, Florida. While they have beds, classrooms and dining areas, surge facilities cost an estimated $775 per child per day and are not subject to the samelicensing requirements as regular facilities.
Hearing for CIA pick: President Joe Biden’s nominee to run the CIA told lawmakers Wednesday that he would keep politics out of the job and deliver “unvarnished” intelligence to politicians and policymakers even if they don’t want to hear it.
“I’ve learned that politics muststop whereintelligence works begin,” William Burns told members of the Senate Intelligence Committee. “That is exactly what President Biden expects of CIA.” Burns said the first thing Biden told him when he asked him to take the post is that he “wants the agency to give it to him straight, and I pledged to do just that and to defend those who do the same.”
The comments from Burns appeared aimed at drawing a contrast with the prior administration, when President Donald Trump faced repeated accusations of politicizing intelligence while also publicly disputing the assessments of his own intelligence agencies, most notably about Russian election interference.
Burns, a former ambassador to Russia and Jordan who served at the State Departmentformorethan30 years under both Democratic and Republican presidents, is well-known in diplomatic circles and appears headed for a smooth confirmation.
Iowa election changes:
Iowa Republicans were moving swiftly Wednesday to sharply limit early voting in the state, months after a
general election overseen by a Republican secretary of state resulted in record turnout andoverwhelming victories by GOPcandidates.
Supporters of the legislation cited fraud concerns as the reason early voting must be reined in. However, like in many other Republican-led states where similar steps are being considered, there historically haven’t been widespread concerns about irregularities in the election system.
As the state House moved ahead with a plan the Senate approved Tuesday, Democrats who are outnumbered in both chambers were left aghast but in no position to stop the changes.
Syriantorturecase: Aformer member of Syrian President Bashar Assad’s secret police wasconvicted Wednesdayby a Germancourtoffacilitating the torture of prisoners in a landmark ruling that human rights activists hopewill set a precedent for other cases in
the decadelong conflict.
Eyad Al- Gharib was convicted of accessory to crimes against humanity and sentenced by the Koblenz state court to 4 ½ years in prison.
It was the first time that a court outside Syria ruled in a case alleging Syrian government officials committed crimes against humanity. Germanprosecutors invoked the principle of universal jurisdiction for serious crimes to bring the case that involved victims and defendants whowerein Germany.
German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas said the trial was a step against impunity in the conflict. His country has given refuge to hundreds of thousands of Syrians fleeing violence and hardship in their homeland, and backed international efforts to collect prosecutable evidence of crimes in Syria.
Al-Gharib was accused of being part of a unit that arrested people following anti-government protests
in the Syrian city of Douma and took them to a detention center knownasAlKhatib, or Branch 251, wherethey were tortured.
China’s Mars craft: China says its Tianwen-1 spacecraft has entered a temporary parking orbit around Mars in anticipation of landing a rover onthe red planet in the coming months.
The China National Space Administration said the spacecraft executed a maneuver to adjust its orbit early Wednesday and will remain in the new orbit for about the next three months before attempting to land. During that time, it will be mapping the surface of Mars and using its cameras and other sensors to collect further data, particularly about its prospective landing site. That follows the landing of the U.S. Perseverance rover last Thursday near an ancient river delta in Jezero Crater to search for signs of ancient microscopic life.
Okla. gruesome slayings: An Oklahoma man who had been released early from prison in January as part of a mass commutation effort is now accused of three killings, including the death of a neighbor whose heart he cut out, authorities said.
A judge denied bail Tuesday for Lawrence Paul Anderson, who faces three counts of first-degree murder, one count of assault and one count of maiming for the attack this month in Chickasha, south of Oklahoma City.
According to the Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation, Andersonis accused of killing Andrea Lynn Blankenship, 41, and cutting out her heart.
Authorities say Anderson brought the heart to his aunt and uncle’s house, cooked it with potatoes and tried to serve it to them before killing Leon Pye, 67, wounding the aunt and killing Kaeos Yates, the pair’s 4-year-old granddaughter.