(New York Post) A progressive non-profit that has been shelling out cash to anti-Israel protest groups is being sued by Black Lives Matter Global Network Foundation for fraud and withholding more than $33 million in donations, a bombshell lawsuit claims.
Tides Foundation, which has managed hundreds of millions in donations for progressive groups since it was founded in 1976, has “refused to honor its promises and continues to commandeer BLMGNF’s donations,” according to the 285-page lawsuit filed in California Superior Court, Los Angeles County, on Monday.
Instead, Tides doled out an undisclosed amount of donations to a radical BLM breakaway group run by anti-police activist Melina Abdullah — who lost a “frivolous” lawsuit against BLMGNF — according to court papers and an attorney for BLMGNF.
Tides, a Los Angeles and San Francisco-based non-profit, acts as a fiscal sponsor — essentially, a clearing house that collects donations for groups that may not have 501(c)(3) tax-exempt status.
In addition to BLMGNF and other BLM groups, it manages donations for pro-Palestinian groups that have supported anti-Israel protests across the country.
Billionaire George Soros and his son Alex Soros have funneled nearly $14 million from their Open Society Foundations to Tides, which sponsor activist groups including the pro-Palestinian Adalah Justice Project and others fueling campus protests.
“Tides has engaged in deceptive business practices and has operated in a quasi-banking capacity without appropriate regulatory oversight of licenses,” the BLMGNF lawsuit says. “Tides operates with a level of autonomy and minimal regulatory scrutiny that is starkly at odds with the regulatory framework imposed on traditional financial institutions.”
According to the lawsuit, Tide has more than $1.4 billion in assets and allegedly acts as a bank — only without banking regulations.
BLMGNF, the national organization of the civil rights movement founded in 2017, took in tens of millions in donations after the death of George Floyd in 2020.
At the time the group did not have tax-exempt status from the IRS, and approached the Tides Foundation to help it manage the flood of cash.
Tides, which takes a percentage of donations to manage a group’s funds, gave verbal assurances that it would return the collected money once BLMGNF received tax-exempt status, the lawsuit claims.
In the meantime, it managed donations in a “collective action fund” that would be accessible to BLMGNF, according to the lawsuit.
BLMGNF ended its relationship with Tides in 2022, and Tides has refused to hand over the cash — totaling some $33 million — the complaint says.
Instead, Tides, which takes between 3 and 9% of the donations it processes, has sent part of the funds to other BLM groups without the permission of BLMGNF, the lawsuit says.
On June 9, 2022, a Tides official said Tides had transferred $7.4 million from the collective fund back to BLMGNF.
Instead, it sent part of the cash — $4.75 million — to an unaffiliated BLM chapter in Oklahoma City, the lawsuit says.
“It is unclear why such a large amount would have been granted to a single city’s BLM chapter,” the lawsuit says.
