As protests over police brutality and racial injustice have intensified in recent weeks, mounting public pressure has prompted both parties in Congress to draft their own reform bills, states, and local governments To topple statues perceived as racist, places like Washington, DC speed up police reform legislation, and some officials even consider dismantling their police departments.
With this turmoil there was an unprecedented increase in donations to organizations and causes associated with the social justice movement, including Black Lives Matter groups and others.
A GoFundMe page associated with the Black Lives Matter Los Angeles chapter had been in existence since 2018 and since early June had raised around $ 615,000. In less than four weeks, it shot up to more than $ 2.4 million.
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And the National Bail Fund Network, which essentially serves as a directory for local groups helping disadvantaged people pay bail, has seen their organizations raise more than $ 75 million in recent weeks, according to a spokesperson. Over a three-week period, the spokesperson says, “Many individual bond funds have seen a 100-200-fold increase in annual fundraising amounts from last year.”
Some of the funds associated with the network, which have met their needs for the foreseeable future by pouring out support, have asked people to stop giving to them and instead other causes.
GoFundMe, the popular fundraising platform, has also been at the center of the movement, connecting citizens eager to support a cause to organizations working to change a system they consider unfair.
A GoFundMe spokesperson said he does not yet have a number of how much has been donated to racial justice and police reform causes, but “we have definitely seen a great deal of support in GoFundMe for a wide range of causes that focus on racial justice and equality. “
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“These fundraising events range from those who help victims and families of injustice, to those who support protesters, to those created by and for organizations focused on driving change, to those who help at the community level” said the spokesman.
A fundraiser has raised more than $ 200,000 for Texas state student Gregory Arellano, whose skull was fractured by a rubber bullet during a protest in Austin, Texas, according to the fundraising page. Another for a bail fund associated with Black Lives Matter Charleston has raised over $ 100,000.
Money doesn’t just come through GoFundMe, either. ActBlue is a small dollar online fundraising platform used by Democratic political candidates and organizations and other progressive groups, which collects a processing fee in exchange for providing a centralized way for these organizations to raise money.
Between May 28 and June 26, ActBlue processed approximately $ 371 million, according to the ticker on its website, for a range of candidates and causes, not just those linked to social justice groups. But while the platform does not break down how much went to individual groups, George Floyd’s death on May 25 in Minneapolis police custody seemed to precede a general increase in donations. By comparison, the site processed $ 141 million in April and $ 178 million in May, which was its fifth highest fundraising month since ActBlue was founded in 2004.
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The flow of support has even helped those who were injured when protests sometimes turned into riots. A GoFundMe fundraiser raised over $ 1 million for a black-owned sports bar in Minneapolis that was first damaged by the coronavirus and then looted and trashed in late May.
But the windfall of fundraising has not been without controversy, either.
Many people, seeking to support the Black Lives Matter movement, went to platforms like GoFundMe and gave the first Black Lives Matter verified charity in the name they could find. For many, that was the Black Lives Matter Foundation, a California-based group whose “mission is to help survivors and families who have suffered the loss of a relative or loved one as a result of an unfair or questionable police shooting, and use our unique and creative ideas to help unite the police and the community to save lives. “
But the foundation is not affiliated with the Global Black Lives Matter Network, which is widely recognized as the movement’s official central organization.
A Buzzfeed story first made the distinction. The foundation, for example, is not as aggressive on the issue of police review as the Global Network, which has advocated reducing funding for the police; His official Washington DC chapter has advocated “underfinancing” the police and framed the current moment as “The Police Against the People.”
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According to Buzzfeed, millions were raised for the Black Lives Matter Foundation, some of which have been frozen by platforms like GoFundMe as they consider diverting funds elsewhere.
“GoFundMe uses the PayPal Giving Fund database to allow people to raise funds for a charity,” GoFundMe said in a statement. “180 campaigns have recently raised money for the Black Lives Matter Foundation, raising $ 350,000. GoFundMe has put all funds on hold and we are working with PayPal and campaign organizers to ensure that the money raised is transferred to the Black Lives Matter movement to through your tax sponsor. “
Foundation leader Robert Ray Barnes confirmed that he had nothing to do with the Global Network Black Lives Matter and said that despite hints, he tried to take advantage of his group’s name with donors, he doesn’t want the money. Nobody’s “thought to me. Not supporting the kinds of things we do.”
He added in a statement to Fox News: “The overall goal of the Black Lives Matter Foundation is to comprehensively improve and elevate the lives of black and brown people. We want the public to understand that all black lives matter and should not be reduced to just Black and Brown’s interactions with the police … Consequently, when we focus only on interactions with the police, we diminish the importance and significance of all other matters that require attention, or ‘matter’ in regards to the general welfare of the members of the black and brown communities. “
Buzzfeed’s story quoted a spokesperson for the Black Lives Matter Global Network as saying that the Barnes organization is “misusing our name.” But the Barnes organization has been around longer than the Global Black Lives Matter Network.
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Black Lives Matter Global Network did not respond to questions submitted by Fox News for this report.
Previous IRS documents indicate that the Black Lives Matter Foundation had not spent much of the money raised, but Barnes says he has most recently worked with programs in Los Angeles that help the homeless and the Peaceful Warriors Foundation in Michigan.
In addition, Barnes confirmed reports that he received a cease and desist order for his California organization, saying that his group “is currently working and in constant contact with the California Charity Trust Section to correct the record and differentiate us. from others “for profit organizations”, which we hope to have resolved in the first two weeks of July. “
The Black Lives Matter Global Network has not escaped scrutiny. Technically it is not an IRS registered charity and therefore raises money through its tax sponsor, Thousand Currents. The Washington Examiner reported Thursday that Alicia Garza, co-founder of the global network, said police murderer Assata Shakur is an inspiration to her. And Susan Rosenberg, who sits on the Thousand Currents board of directors, has been convicted of domestic terrorism, although former President Bill Clinton granted her a pardon.
And as with any large and unexpected flow of money to such a decentralized handgroup, there is a chance that some of it will go to waste, though there have been no such accusations related to the avalanche of cash for activist groups this month.
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For its part, the National Bail Bonds Network says that the money donated to its groups “will be used to get people out of jail, since that is what bail funds do and that was clear when people donated” .
Its spokesman criticized the current preventive bail system, which it also defends because it is not fair for disadvantaged populations.
“Our current criminal justice system imprisons hundreds of thousands of people each year for their inability to post bail,” the spokesperson said. “As long as there is a system of preventive detention and bail money, there are community bail funds to free people.”
