A closer inspection of the nonprofit tax form filed by the Black Lives Matter Global Network Foundation reveals even more unseemly details about the group’s financial mismanagement than previously known. The group came under initial scrutiny after New York Magazine reported that the organization had secretly purchased a $6 million mansion in Los Angeles that had occasionally served for board members’ private enjoyment.
Black Lives Matter was founded in 2013 after a self-appointed neighborhood security enthusiast stalked and killed Black teenager Trayvon Martin in Florida, then was acquitted. The movement’s funding and following grew dramatically in 2014 after an officer shot and killed Michael Brown Jr. in Ferguson. It had another major surge, reaching $90 million in funding, in 2020 after police in Minnesota murdered George Floyd.
The causes were absolutely the right ones: promoting social justice and organizing to fight all forms of racial oppression. But the group’s founders were rank amateurs who apparently had no idea how to run a nonprofit and ensure proper financial management so that generous donations weren’t wasted or abused.
