NPI.
The largest donor to Richard Spencer’s nonprofit National Policy Institute had no idea the funds were going to a white nationalist.
A Georgia community group, the Community Foundation for the Central Savannah River Area, gave $25,000 to Spencer’s group in 2013 and 2014, according to three years of tax returns Spencer provided to the Los Angeles Times.
The community foundation, which receives much of its funding from the Masters golf tournament and promotes a wide range of philanthropy, gives away between $5 million to $9 million a year, according to the newspaper.
Neither Berry nor Spencer would reveal the original donor’s identity, the newspaper reported, and those funds were then funneled through the community foundation in a common arrangement in the charity world.
The foundation’s chief executive, Shell K. Berry, told the Times that money was given to Spencer’s group as part of a “donor-advised fund,” a common arrangement for charitable groups where donors give money to one organization with the intention of those funds being passed on to others.
Not being a rich person, I’m not so sure that the “donor-advised fund” leaves everyone involved innocently unaware of where the money was going. I have to think that some people certainly did know. I know that if I had $25,000 to give, I’d be very sure of where it was going.
Spencer, who says the nonprofit organization is his full-time job, collected salaries of $3,156 in 2013, $7,984 in 2014 and $13,275 in 2015, according to the tax returns.
The records also show the National Policy Institute used donor money to pay off more than $26,000 in credit card debt since 2011.
Spencer refused to tell the Times how that debt was accumulated, saying those details weren’t important.
Oh, the devil is in the details, as the old saying goes. Those tax returns certainly strike me as suspect, but I’m not an agent of the IRS.
The white nationalist also declined to tell the newspaper how he supports himself financially, but a recent report by the Center for Investigative Reporting showed his parents received at least $2 million in federal farming subsidies over the last decade.
Goodness. I guess part and parcel of the heritage, identity, and future of people of European descent in the United States is to game the system, then sit back and blame it on all those brown people who happen to be poor. That’s quite the gig.
The Times reported last week that Spencer’s group lost its tax-exempt status after failing to file required forms with the IRS.
Spencer stated that was an embarrassing mistake, and the NPI’s bookkeeper has been fired. A bookkeeper, fancy that. I wonder if they were getting by on three thousand a year, too.
Via Raw Story.
I’ve never heard of a “donor-advised fund.” Not ever. How the unholy fuck is that anything other than laundering money?
I can’t say what it is or isn’t. I’m not up on that sort of rich person thing, and my own giving is limited to small amounts, but it smells to me.
According to Ye Pffft! of All Knowledge, it certainly does not — one of the purposes is to hide the identity of the donor, who nonetheless gets to specify who receives the donations:
There’s apparently some lawyering so that, technically, the original donor’s “intent” is only a “recommendation” (with the implication it doesn’t have to be followed), but I rather suspect that’s a fig leaf to avoid saying “they / we had to do it!” (or similar), which is being employed in this circumstance.
Oho. Thanks, Blf. That does indeed smell.
Spencer’s family are multi-millionaires, right?
I’m guessing (and it is just a guess) that Spencer is still pulling funds from a family trust fund, and there’s probably some clause that requires him to have some sort of employment in order to access that money.
Donor advised funds are also available through some brokerages (e.g. Schwab some years ago; I assume it’s still operational). The stated intent is that people of some means who don’t want to go through the process of creating a private foundation, for whatever reason (e.g. dealing with the legal paperwork and annual IRS filings), can use a donor advised fund to get whatever tax breaks are available when putting money in the fund, then being able to “recommend” donations to eligible recipients. Getting their tax exempt status yanked will make an organization ineligible. It would seem to be impossible that the donor doesn’t know what organization the money goes to, and it’s quite likely the organization knows who the bank-shot donor is (although I suppose the donor could request anonymity).
It wouldn’t surprise me if there were some loophole where a rich person donating a certain amount of money receives some other tax break above and beyond writing off whatever money they donated.
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In this scenario it is conceivable that donating 25k “wherever, just whatever is the least hassle -- I’m not interested in actually helping people, I just want to keep more money” would be a thing. So I suppose Donor advised funds could be utilized in that case and the person could have no idea where the money actually goes.
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That wouldn’t absolve the person from being a cynical, loop-hole utilizing douche, but at least they genuinely wouldn’t have known if their money was going to a white supremacist.
tkreacher:
But it doesn’t work that way! The donor or someone “advises” or “suggests” or whatevers where the money is to go, so no matter which way you slice it, at least one person, and likely more, know exactly where that money is going.
Caine:
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Oh yeah, I get that part. Someone knew where the money was going. But I took the wording
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… to mean that there is an unnamed donor who says he or she did not know their donation was going to Spenser’s group. That some person donated 25k to the Community Foundation for the Central Savannah River Area, and suggested “whatever”, and then the group gave the money to the Nazi.
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Someone certainly did it on purpose, I was just saying I can imagine a scenario where the original donor did not mean for the money to go to Nazis, and wouldn’t have wanted the money to go to Nazis.
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But I see now that I may have read it wrong and they may be saying that the Community Foundation itself was claiming that they didn’t know. In which case, yeah, no -- there’s no excusing them from any culpability.
I’ll just note that 2 million in farming subsidies over ten years doesn’t sound that much if his parents own a large farm that employs a number of people. They don’t even have to be that wealthy, I think. This is kinda off topic, though.
lumipuna @ 10, 2 million is what people have been able to find out, and it is a lot over 10 years, considering the amount of people who don’t end up “qualifying” for said subsidies. Out Montana way, most of the people who don’t “qualify” are Indians, not white people. The subject is more complex than it might seem on the surface, but farming subsidies have long been a way for some white people to easily game the system and get rich off the government. Cliven Bundy would be a good example.
OK, after reading that MJ article I see that his family is indeed quite well off. I can’t judge how well deserved their farming subsidies are, so if you smell a fraud or systemic injustice, I won’t argue against that.