Capital Research Center | Robert Stilson – The Organizational Restructuring of Black Lives Matter: Movement for Black Lives (1) + Black Lives Matter Global Network Foundation (2)

Black Lives Matter (foto Giphy)

The Organizational Restructuring of Black Lives Matter: Movement for Black Lives (1)

This is the first part of a two part series on the organizational restructuring of Black Lives Matter. Read the second part here.

It will soon be one year since the Black Lives Matter movement became – alongside the Corona Virus 19 Pandemic and the Presidential Election – one of the dominant American sociopolitical stories of 2020. In June of that year, in response to public confusion over the movement’s structure, the Capital Research Center (CRC) published a special Report on “The Organizational Structure of Black Lives Matter.”

That Report sought to explain how the term “Black Lives Matter” could refer to different things in different contexts. An individual’s beliefs or sentiments, a broader protest movement, or any number of distinct organizations operating as part of that movement. Specifically, the Report focused on mapping the legal and financial structure of the two primary national Black Lives Matter organizations: the Movement for Black Lives and the Black Lives Matter Global Network Foundation.

While the Black Lives Matter movement as a whole remains focused on largely unchanged issues – particularly policing and other criminal justice topics – these two organizations have undergone some fairly significant transformations in a short period. In fact, the changes have been so significant that much of what CRC explained in our June Report is no longer especially applicable. Accordingly, CRC is updating that Report for 2021 to chronicle these changes and relate the most current available information on the organizational restructuring of Black Lives Matter.

The Movement for Black Lives

Formed in December 2014, the Movement for Black Lives is one of the principal national organizations associated with the broader Black Lives Matter movement. It functions as a coordinating coalition of groups with similar purposes and objectives. Its donate page and Twitter account both claim over 150 constituent members. The Black Lives Matter Global Network Foundation also identifies it as a partner organization.

The Movement for Black Lives is not a standalone Non Profit, but rather a fiscally sponsored project. This means that it can use its sponsor’s Tax Exempt Status to accept donations. Sponsors also typically provide a number of administrative services to their projects and are responsible for certain forms of oversight. They usually charge a fee for this, which generally ranges between ifve percent and 10 percent of the project’s funds.

The Movement for Black Lives began 2020 as a project of the Alliance for Global Justice, a 501(c)(3) Non Profit perhaps most notable for sponsoring a number of Far Left to Radical Left projects including the Venceremos Brigade, Refuse Fascism, and Popular Resistance. Indeed, the Alliance for Global Justice prides itself on sponsoring “the groups that no other fiscal sponsor will take on.” The Movement for Black Lives has itself attracted considerable controversy over some of its radical policy positions, which include anti capitalism, the abolition of Police and prisons, and “a radical realignment of power.”

In early 2021, the Movement for Black Lives website began identifying it as a project of a different 501(c)(3): the Common Counsel Foundation. It still uses the fundraising services of ActBlue Charitiesyet another separate 501(c)(3) Non Profit – to process donations on its website, which are then routed to its fiscal sponsor. Why the Movement for Black Lives switched to the Common Counsel Foundation isn’t immediately clear, but it could have been simply for logistical reasons.

The Alliance for Global Justice currently lists approximately 70 sponsored projects on its website, although on another page it claims to sponsor as many as 130. The Common Counsel Foundation lists just four, including the Movement for Black Lives. It’s conceivable, though of course speculative, that meeting its obligations as fiscal sponsor became a significant burden for the alliance in 2020. Only halfway through the year – by July – the Movement for Black Lives had reportedly raised $ 5 million, nearly double its 2019 revenues and about equal to the 2019 revenues of the entire Alliance for Global Justice.

Comprehensive data on organizations that funded the Alliance for Global Justice in 2020 – potentially including notations as to whether those funds were specifically earmarked for the Movement for Black Lives – will not be available until all Internal Revenue Service Form 990’s for 2020 are publicly available. That is often 12 to 18 months after the end of the given Non Profit’s fiscal year. For its own part, the alliance’s most recent Form 990 covers only the period ending March 31, 2020, which would not reflect any revenues received on behalf of the Movement for Black Lives after the killing of George Floyd on May 25 of that year.

Read the second part of this series here.

https://capitalresearch.org/article/the-organizational-restructuring-of-black-lives-matter-movement-for-black-lives/

Before It’s News, Thursday, April 29, 2021 15:49

https://beforeitsnews.com/opinion-conservative/2021/04/the-organizational-restructuring-of-black-lives-matter-movement-for-black-lives-3577473.html

The Organizational Restructuring of Black Lives Matter: Black Lives Matter Global Network Foundation (2)


This is the second part of a two-part series on the organizational restructuring of Black Lives Matter. Read the first part here.

The year 2020 witnessed even more dramatic changes within the Black Lives Matter Global Network Foundation (BLM Global Network Foundation). The organization underwent a leadership change and experienced some internal turmoil related to its Chapter Structure. It created two new affiliate entities, switched fiscal sponsors, and had to decide what to do with the tens of millions of dollars in donations and Grants that it suddenly had at its disposal.

Leadership Changes and Chapter Turmoil

Generally viewed as the preeminent national organization associated with the Black Lives Matter movement, the BLM Global Network Foundation operates the blacklivesmatter.com website and claims the movement’s three widely acknowledged co founders – Alicia Garza, Patrisse Cullors, and Opal Tometi – as its own. Garza and Tometi are no longer directly involved with the organization’s operations, but they remain connected to the broader Black Lives Matter movement in other capacities.

Cullors, however, took on a central leadership role during the second half of 2020. She “assumed the role of Executive Directorin July, an act that was seen by some as a “a rebuke of its ‘leaderful’ structure, which gave every member an equal say and kept anyone – including a founder – from overreaching.” The move was later sharply criticized by 10 local Black Lives Matter Chapters, who wrote in a Joint Public StatementIt Is Time for Accountability” that “Patrisse Cullors, as the sole board member of BLMGN, became Executive Director against the will of most Chapters and without their knowledge.”

Determining exactly how many local Chapters there are and who they are is rather challenging. Screen captures from the Internet Archive’s WayBack Machine indicate there were 16 Chapters in February 2020: 15 in the US and one in Canada. By August there were 17 Chapters: 14 in the US and three in Canada. The “Chapters” page was apparently taken down in September. Ten Chapters signed the “It Is Time for Accountability” statement in December, but only four of those were listed as official Chapters in August. According to a 2020 Impact Report released in early 2021, 11 Chapters received funding from the BLM Global Network Foundation in 2020, but some of them “are no longer (…) in our official network.” Five Chapter Reports were included in that 2020 Impact Report, with the anticipation that “dozens more” would be available in future years.

New Organizational Affiliates

All of this is related to a major reorganization undertaken by the BLM Global Network Foundation during the second half of 2020. After decidingto fully lean into its capacity as a fundraising body, grantmaking entity, amplifier, and action oriented think tank of the movement,” the BLM Global Network Foundation spun off two new organizations: Black Lives Matter Grassroots and Black Lives Matter PAC.

Black Lives Matter Grassroots is intended to function as the assembly of official Black Lives Matter Chapters, which will focus on “local, grassroots level work.” It has been characterized as the “activist arm” of the BLM Global Network Foundation, having been createdto support the organizational needs of Chapters.” This new structure was highly controversial among some Chapters, however. In their “It is Time for Accountability Joint Statement, 10 Chapters asserted that Black Lives Matter Grassrootsdoes not have the support of and was created without consultation with the vast majority of Chapters” and that “[its formation] effectively separated the majority of Chapters from [BLM Global Network Foundation] without their consent.

Black Lives Matter PAC was publicly announced in October 2020, reflecting a recognition that “transforming the world requires both protest and politics.” In partnership with the left wing Working Families Party, it contacted 5.4 million voters in eight states during the 2020 General Election. It claims that 44 of its endorsed candidates and measures were successful, including US Representatives Cori Bush (D | MO), Jamaal Bowman (D | NY), and Nikema Williams (D | GA). Black Lives Matter PAC also participated in the dual 2021 US Senate runoff elections in Georgia in favor of Democrats Raphael Warnock and Jon Ossoff, which were both elected.

Structural Changes and Financials

The BLM Global Network Foundation began 2020 as a fiscally sponsored project of Thousand Currents, a 501(c)(3) Non Profit that had served as its sponsor since 2016. But as CRC first reported in July, that sponsorship was transferred to the Tides Center, one of a group of related left of center Non Profits that had combined 2019 revenues in excess of $ 800 million. Even more interesting, perhaps, is an Associated Press Report from February 2021 revealing that the BLM Global Network Foundation had been granted its own Internal Revenue Service Tax Exempt Status in December 2020. This means that going forward it will be required to file Form 990 returns with the Internal Revenue Service.

Those returns will provide considerable detail on the organization’s finances. But for now, the most comprehensive fiscal picture available comes from its recently released 2020 Impact Report. According to that report, it raised approximately $ 90 million in 2020 “across our entities and partners,” incurred $ 8.4 million in operating expenses (this includes those of both the BLM Global Network Foundation and Black Lives Matter Grassroots), and paid out $ 21.7 million in Grants. Black Lives Matter PAC raised $1.05 million from October through the end of the year and spent a combined $ 746,000 in the General Election and in the Georgia Runoffs.

Aside from these top line numbers, the most notable financial revelations from the Report were the organizations to which the BLM Global Network Foundation gave grants. Eleven local Chapters received funding in 2020, alongside 30 other groups that each receiveda six figure grant.” The Grants seem to have prioritized sexual orientation and gender identity: “Of the 30 organizations selected, 23 of them are led by Black LGBTQIA folks and or directly serve these communities.” A full list of grant recipients can be found on the InfluenceWatch profile.

As with the Movement for Black Lives, comprehensive data on Foundations and other Non Profits that gave to the BLM Global Network Foundation in 2020 will not be available until those organizations file their respective IRS Form 990’s for that year – and only to the extent they identify those Grants (technically made to the fiscal sponsor) as having been so designated. As 501(c)(3) Non Profits, neither the BLM Global Network Foundation nor its fiscal sponsors are required to publicly reveal the identities of their donors, and the 2020 Impact Report does not voluntarily disclose this information. It does state that the average donation “via our main Fundraising Platform” in 2020 was for $ 30.64.

A Much More Potent Movement

The Black Lives Matter movement ended 2020 as a much more potent force than when the year began. Its new found sociopolitical influence is best reflected in the vast sums of money that organizations associated with the movement took in over the course of the year – most prominently the BLM Global Network Foundation.

Black Lives Matter is almost certain to continue playing a major role in American politics, especially within the Democratic Party and across the Left more broadly. Hence, it will become increasingly important to understand how the principal entities associated with the movement are organized, who leads them, and (to the extent possible) their donors and financials. Hopefully, this will help avoid a repeat of the significant public confusion that plagued the movement and its observers in the past.

Read the first part of this series here.

Robert Stilson

Capital Research Center, April 29, 2021

https://capitalresearch.org/article/the-organizational-restructuring-of-black-lives-matter-black-lives-matter-global-network-foundation/

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