Records suggest cash donations gathered by BLM may be larger than previously disclosed

In February of 2021, the BLM national organization claimed that it spent around one third of its $90 million in donations raised in 2020, leaving the group with around $60 million by the end of the year.

In records reviewed by the Washington Examiner, IRS records suggest that the group, through its fiscal sponsors, raised around $79 million through the Democratic fundraising platform ActBlue in 2020 and another $13 million in 2021.

The outlet said that these figures "...likely don't represent the flood of corporate donations that poured into BLM's coffers during the nationwide unrest that followed George Floyd's killing."

"It appears that millions of dollars in donations to BLMGNF are unaccounted for," Paul Kamenar, the legal counsel for the National Legal and Policy Center, a conservative watchdog group, told the Washington Examiner.

"Corporations and Foundations usually make their charitable contributions directly to the charity rather than through an intermediary such as ActBlue, which takes a percentage of the gift as a processing fee and is used for small-dollar donations from individuals," he added. "The questions surrounding BLMGNF's finances call for a full independent audit that must be released to the public."

Despite dozens of big-name corporations pledging large donations during the summer of 2020, BLM has yet to disclose exactly how much was received from these corporations.

In February, BLM co-founder Patrisse Cullors said that the money her group received came from "white corporation guilt," a line that suggests a large portion of their donations did not come from the smaller donations processed through actBlue.

"Adding to the BLM financial mystery is that the group had multiple pools of income during 2020," the Washington Examiner wrote.

BLM had previously operated as a fiscally sponsored project of the Thousand Currents charity in the first half of 2020, switching to the Tides Foundation in the latter half.

From late July of 2020 to mid-February of 2021, web archives reportedly show that the ACtBlue donation button on BLM’s website routed contributions to a support fund operated by the Tides Foundation. ActBlue technical services, which processes donations made on the platform, reported to the IRS in 2021 that the Tides Foundation c/o BLM Support" paid $3,111,919 in ActBlue fees in 2020.

"ActBlue charges a flat 3.95% processing fee on all contributions made through the platform, which implies the Tides Foundation raised $78.8 million in small-dollar donations through the platform for BLM in 2020. It's not clear whether Tides then distributed those funds to BLM or if Tides remains in control of the funds," the Washington Examiner reported.

During a talk with Moorehouse College last month, Cullors said that both the Tides Foundation and BLM were "holding money" for the group during the latter half of 2020.

"Thousand Currents is a small fiscal sponsor. They were like, 'You're too big for us. You have more money than we do, you all gotta go. Find someone else,'" Cullors said. "And so we went to Tides Foundation."

"In the in-between time, Black Lives Matter Global Network Foundation became a c3. We got our legal status," Cullors added. "And that legal entity, as well as Tides, was holding money. Lots of people were giving money."

Records from 2021 viewed by the Washington Examiner from ActBlue Technical Services suggest that BLM had continued to take in a substantial amount of smaller donations.

In January 2022, ActBlue Technical Services reported to the IRS that "Black Lives Matter Foundation Inc." paid $517,847 in ActBlue processing fees in 2021, which that figure suggesting that BLM raised $13.1 million through ActBlue in 2021.