The Black Lives Matter Global Network Foundation did not raise a single penny for the first six years of its existence. It couldn’t.
The foundation wasn’t even registered with the Internal Revenue Service as a charity. But after George Floyd’s murder in May of 2020, tens of millions of dollars were given to this organization from major corporations and celebrities. And now, no one even knows where all that money has gone. Even worse, there doesn’t appear to be anyone in charge of the organization who can provide that information.
Founded in 2013 after the death of Trayvon Martin, Black Lives Matter was little more than a hashtag and a website that loosely coordinated activism in communities across the country to “intervene in violence inflicted on Black communities by the state and vigilantes.”
For years, there did not appear to be a lot of outside resources directed to the organization. But that all changed in 2020.
Unable to accept the avalanche of money sent its way, BLM channeled donations through Thousand Currents and the Tides Foundation until the IRS approved its application for nonprofit status in December 2020. Around that time, Thousand Currents transferred $66.5 million to BLM — a transaction personally signed off on by BLM co-founder Patrisse Cullors.
Cullors later issued the organization’s first-ever “impact report” in February 2021, claiming that…
