Black Lives Matter has once again found itself embroiled in controversy following fresh accusations of financial impropriety.
On Friday, an executive of the Black Lives Matter Global Network Foundation (BLMGNF) was sued by Black Lives Matter Grassroots (BLMGR) on charges of stealing $10 million in donations to the organisation for use as his own “personal piggy bank”. The suit offers few specifics, but exposes growing division in the movement which took in more than $90 million in donations in 2020.
BLMGFN is the national fundraising arm of the movement, and distributes money to local groups through BLMGR, which operates as an umbrella group.
The lawsuit was filed by Walter Mosley, an attorney representing BLM grassroots, in Los Angeles County Supreme Court against GNF and GNF board member, Shalomyah Bowers, along with his consulting firm.
In a statement, the BLMGNF board vehemently denied the allegations, slamming them as ‘harmful, divisive, and false’, while accusing BLMGR leaders of lining their own pockets with “$10,000 monthly stipends” rather than helping local groups and supporting families.
BLMGNF has faced financial scrutiny for some time, with disclosures in April revealing that the group had spent $6 million on a lavish California home purchased secretly by the foundation, and an additional $6.3 million on another 10,000-square-foot property in Toronto. Board member Bowers defended the purchase of the LA property, bought using donations.
Amid accusations of dishonesty, Bowers said that the BLM foundation had “always planned to disclose” the home’s legal filings, and that it did not serve anyone as a personal residence, claiming that it was bought to be used as a housing and studio space for recipients of the Black Joy Creators Fellowship.
And in May, company filings revealed in excess of $2.1million was paid to Bowers Consulting, a company belonging to Mr Bowers. He was subsequently forced to insist that the contract with his firm was approved before he was a GNF board member. Concerns over fiscal impropriety also resulted in the resignation of co-founder Patrisse Cullors, who denied any wrongdoing.
Now, Bowers has been accused of becoming a “rogue administrator, a middle man turned usurper” whose own consulting firm received $2 million by BLMGNF in 2020.
He has also been accused of charging fees of Black Lives Matter donors, which he then used as his own personal funds. The complaint sought financial relief along with a court order stopping BLMGNF’s use of the Black Lives Matter identity.
The complaint reads: “When more than 300 movement leaders, as well as BLM Founders, insisted that he resign from GNF,” adding: “he continued to betray the public trust by self-dealing and breaching his fiduciary duties.”
‘While BLM leaders and movement workers were on the street risking their lives, Mr. Bowers remained in his cushy offices devising a scheme of fraud and misrepresentation to break the implied-in-fact contract between donors and BLM,’ the lawsuit reads.
In a press conference last week, BLMGR leader Melina Abdullah slammed BLMGNF, saying the group had lost touch with the foundations of the movement.
“Global Network Foundation has been taken away from the people who built it,” she said.
“Global Network Foundation is now led by a highly paid consultant who paid himself upwards of $2 million in a single year.”
In May 2021, BLMGFN filed its first public financial disclosure, a 63-page Form 990 reporting that it took in $90 million in donations in 2020.
Black Lives Matter ended its last fiscal year – from July 1, 2020 to June 30, 2021 – with almost $42 million in net assets. A board member told the AP at the time that the foundation had an operating budget of about $4 million.
The tax filing shows that nearly $6 million was spent on a Los Angeles-area compound, complete with a home with six bedrooms and bathrooms, a soundstage, a swimming pool and office space. It was the BLM foundation´s first public accounting of its finances since incorporating in 2017.