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Between government grants, private donations, and tax breaks, major leftist “charitable” organizations were once flush with cash to fuel their causes – or so their supporters thought. As it turns out, however, multiple left-wing groups appear to have been playing fast and loose with their funding. And now the bill may be coming due.
Leftist Secrecy Costs Millions
Perhaps the biggest scandal surrounding a leftist organization in recent months involved the Southern Poverty Law Center’s (SPLC) alleged funding of extremist groups, including the Ku Klux Klan, Aryan Nations, and the National Socialist Party of America. Well, that shocking development was taken to a new level last week with the arrest of former Director of the SPLC's Intelligence Project Heidi Beirich, who is accused of using donor money to send secret payments to so-called “informants” in radical associations.
“I believe she was part of the effort to open bank accounts in completely fictitious companies’ names and make payments to individuals for reasons that were not accurate as described,” Attorney General Todd Blanche told reporters. The SPLC allegedly funneled at least $4 million to extremist groups, which is not exactly the behavior one would expect from a tax-exempt, non-profit “civil rights” organization.
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And then there’s Code Pink cofounder Medea Benjamin’s “charity” known as Arc of Justice, which reportedly has over $51 million in mysterious assets that haven’t been accounted for thanks to the group’s failure to file taxes for three consecutive years, the Washington Free Beacon reported. California’s attorney general finally pulled the plug on the evasive org, ordering it to “cease all operations,” according to documents reviewed by the Beacon.
Research by the Intelligent Advocacy Network (IAN), a watchdog organization, found that the Golden State withdrew Arc of Justice’s charitable registration around May 2021, but the “$51 million in permanently restricted charitable assets remains entirely outside public accountability and warrants immediate scrutiny.”
The Good News and the Bad News
Here’s the bad news: The American taxpayers are contributing to these “charitable” organizations whether we like it or not. Over the last decade, “government grants to nonprofits and the number of nonprofits that receive tax money has doubled,” according to an investigation by The Center Square. The numbers are staggering:
“In 2016, federal, state and local governments gave $149.5 billion in grants to about 56,000 nonprofits registered with the IRS, an analysis of nonprofit tax returns shows. In 2020, that number went up to nearly $310 billion with more than 110,000 nonprofits receiving taxpayer funding. Two years later, the numbers peaked at $319 billion, though about 10,000 fewer nonprofits received government cash, the data shows.”
At the end of the day, accountability and oversight appear to be basically nonexistent. "Nonprofits should survive based upon the goodwill of people, not the force of taking taxpayer dollars," said David Williams, president of the Taxpayers Protection Alliance. “Nonprofits are not accountable and government officials haven't held them accountable."
Ok, you suffered through that nauseating data, so here’s the good news: Now that folks are getting a clearer picture of what some of these left-wing organizations are really about, private donations may finally start drying up. Americans may not have much say over where their tax dollars go, but they do have a choice when it comes to private donations. For those who still want to give, keeping charity local is one of the best ways to see where the money is actually going and whether it’s being put to good use.
