The national Black Lives Matter movement claims $33.4 million of its cash is being withheld by one of its progressive partner organizations, The Post has learned.
In a scathing lawsuit, Black Lives Matter Global Network Foundation accuse the Tides foundation — backed by George Soros — of alleged “deceptive business practices” as well as “egregious mismanagement” of its money, while demanding its return.
The lawsuit was filed last year, but the stakes were raised on Monday when the BLMGNF — which oversees its other regional operations — asked the California Attorney General to step in and investigate Tides.
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Even during the course of the lawsuit, BLMGNF accuses Tides of spending $6 million of their donations, despite promising to freeze any cash belonging to the group during the litigation, according to one of their lawyers.
“My client now has to pay money just to get their own money back, after my client raised 100% of it,” said Lawrence Segal, representing BLMGNF.
Segal claimed the BLM money may even have been used by Tides to fund their defense against them.
“More than $1 million has been spent by Tides out of my client’s money just on attorney’s fees —possibly to pay their own lawyers,” said Segal. “It appears that they are paying themselves from charitable donations in order to pay the legal fees that resulted from this case.”
BLMGNF began its relationship with Tides soon after it set up its movement in 2013.
Because the fledgling group was not a tax exempt charity at the time, it needed a fiscal sponsor to distribute the money it received from anonymous donors to other organizations, and selected Tides to do so.
Things got complicated after huge amounts of money poured in following the murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis in 2020, with BLM taking in some $90 million in donations between 2020 and 2022.
However, that was a drop in the ocean to Tides, which oversees more than $1.4 billion in cash from myriad nonprofits, but commingles all funds, the lawsuit claims. That makes it difficult for groups like BLMGNF to monitor where their cash is going, legal papers say.
“TIDES does not segregate monies,” Segal told The Post. “All of my client’s money is apparently commingled in one giant account. Tides’ fiscal sponsorships are very loosely regulated, at best.”
Tides did not return a request for comment from The Post. The group has previously called the lawsuit “completely false” and defended their actions, saying: “BLMGNF’s lawsuit seeks to circumvent the intent of the Fund’s donors and deprive grassroots Black Lives Matter chapters critical resources, for its own benefit.”
BLMGNF have also been criticized for how they have handled donations. Out of the $90 million windfall in donations following Floyds’ death, it only gave out about $30 million for charitable purposes in the next two years.
Another $22 million went on expenses including salaries and investments.
Patrisse Cullors, a cofounder of the group, went on a real estate spending spree, The Post revealed in April, 2021.
Cullors, who maintained she did not use BLMGNF donations to make the real estate purchases, resigned a month after that story.
One of her brothers, Paul Cullors, is still associated with BLMGNF, taking in more than $200,000 a year as “head of security,” federal filings show.
In addition to the lawsuit, Tides has been under fire by the Congressional Ways and Means Committee for acting as a conduit for contributions for nonprofits that organized anti-Israel protests on Ivy League campuses following the Oct. 7th Hamas terror attacks on Israel.
Last year, Rep. Jason Smith (R-Mo.), chair of the committee, demanded that the IRS revoke Tides’ nonprofit status. The group acted as a conduit for donations from groups such as the People’s Forum, Students for Justice in Palestine and the Adalah Justice Project, he said.
