Dark Money Behemoth That Hosts BLM Foundation Received $16 Million in Government Grants
The dark money network that houses the Black Lives Matter Global Network Foundation received nearly $16 million in taxpayer-funded grants last year, financial filings reveal.
The Tides Center, a California-based nonprofit incubator, reported the government grants on its 2019 tax forms. It operates by acting as a fiscal sponsor to several left-wing nonprofits, including the BLM Global Network Foundation, which has advocated for abolishing the nuclear family and defunding the police. This arrangement lets the nonprofits avoid disclosing their financial activity, and thus makes it difficult to know where the taxpayer-funded cash ultimately ends up.
The center's 2019 windfall adds to the $170 million it has received in government grants since 2001—grants that have drawn criticism from nonprofit watchdogs. Scott Walter, president of the Capital Research Center, has called Tides as "liberal and politically active as they come" and questioned whether American tax dollars should be awarded to groups housed at such networks.
The new filings show that the center took in $155 million in anonymous contributions on top of the $16 million in government grants it received in 2019, a $34 million increase over its 2018 totals. It also cut nearly $20 million in grants to outside groups, including the Leadership Counsel for Justice and Accountability and the New Venture Fund, a separate nonprofit incubator that is part of a $715 million secret money network managed by Arabella Advisors.
The Tides Center was launched in 1996 as an offshoot of the Tides Foundation. It has incubated numerous social justice, environmental, gun-control, and abortion-rights groups. George Soros's Open Society Foundations, the Ford Foundation, the Rockefeller Brothers Fund, the W.K. Kellogg Foundation, and the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation have all pushed funding through the network.
The Tides Center did not respond to a request for comment.
Homicide Rate in District of Columbia Highest Since 2004
While D.C. officials are busy locking down the city for fear of the spread of the coronavirus, data from the Metropolitan Police Department show that homicides in the city are at the highest number since 2004.
On New Year’s Eve, the data showed that 198 people had been killed in 2020, the highest number in 16 years. The number killed is up 19 percent from 2019 — at 166 and 198, respectively.
Shootings were up too — more than 920 people were shot in D.C. in 2020, which is a 64 percent increase from the number just three years ago.
The Washington Post reported on some of the victims who lost their lives last year and on how the D.C. region also has seen a spike in violence:
The victims of deadly violence include a beloved school bus driver, a construction worker killed while renovating a home and a grandmother who survived covid-19. A little boy was fatally shot at a “stop the violence” cookout, and a toddler was killed by gunfire as he was strapped in a car seat. Most victims of deadly violence in 2020 were black males. Twenty-six were women, and nine were homeless. The youngest was an 11-month-old girl who was injured while living at a homeless shelter; the oldest an 81-year-old man.
In the greater Washington region, some other areas also experienced an increase in deadly violence in 2020 while homicides remained relatively steady in some jurisdictions. Homicides in the Maryland suburbs rose from 2019 to 2020, going up slightly in Montgomery County and up nearly 30 percent in Prince George’s County. Homicides in Northern Virginia went down slightly in 2020, compared with 2019, led by Prince William County, which had seven killings last year, compared with 15 the year before.
Police and experts who study crime patterns cite myriad possible reasons for the spike in killings and shootings in the District and some other cities. They point to the coronavirus crisis, which slowed arrests and complicated efforts to mediate disputes on the streets before they turned violent. Many people struggled with the stress of job loss and, with schools and community programs shuttered or moved online, safety nets were limited for young people.
“It breaks my heart when I think of the promises not fulfilled as a result of violence,” the District’s newly named police chief, Robert J. Contee III, who takes the post on Saturday, said in the Post report.
“The new chief, who must be confirmed by the D.C. Council, promised that officers ‘will be relentless in pursuit of criminals who make our communities unsafe,’” the Post reported. “He also promised he will be mindful of residents’ challenges and concerns, starting with ‘community conversation and agreement.’”
Troy Donte Prestwood, who is chairman of an Advisory Neighborhood Commission in one of the District’s most violence-ridden neighborhoods in Anacostia, said that back in the high-crime era of the 1990s, people were “leaving the city because they were scared for their safety.”
“I’m beginning to hear that conversation come up again in communities like mine,” Prestwood said.
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