Laws that require charities to disclose their finances and activities to the public endanger the lives of activists, Black Lives Matter co-founder Patrisse Cullors said at a recent event.
The embattled activist, who is facing renewed criticism following reports BLM Global Network Foundation, while under her control, purchased a $6 million Los Angeles mansion, said she gets triggered whenever she hears the term IRS Form 990, the document charities are required to file to the public every year disclosing their financial activities.
"It is such a trip now to hear the term '990,'" Cullors said Friday during an event at the Vashon Center for the Arts. "I'm, like, ugh. It's, like, triggering."
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"I actually did not know what 990s were before all of this happened," Cullors said, an apparent reference to the Washington Examiner's reporting in January about BLM's lack of financial and leadership transparency that led multiple states, including California, to order the charity to cease raising funds until it discloses what it did with the $90 million it raised in 2020.
Cullors said activists suffer trauma and that their lives are put at risk when charities under their control are required to disclose publicly what they did with their tax-deductible donations.
"This doesn't seem safe for us, this 990 structure — this nonprofit system structure," Cullors said. "This is, like, deeply unsafe. This is being literally weaponized against us, against the people we work with."
Cullors said she's been approached by countless activists who are worried that they too will soon field requests from reporters demanding copies of their 990 forms, which charities are required by law to disclose to the public upon request.
"People's morale in an organization is so important. But if their organization and the people in it are being attacked and scrutinized at everything they do, that leads to deep burnout. that leads to deep, like, resistance and trauma," Cullors said.
Cullors, who left BLM without a leader after she resigned in May 2021 amid scrutiny of her personal real estate purchases, said media scrutiny of the charity is an "experiment," that, if successful, will be used to take down other black-led activist groups.
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"They know what they're doing: how to create the infighting, how to create the distrust," she said. "We have to stop it before they do it. We have to shut it down. We have to be showing up against it."
Cullors did not return a request for comment.
The $6 million LA mansion BLM purchased in October 2020, just two weeks after the charity received a $66.5 million cash infusion from its former fiscal sponsor, was used in multiple videos on Cullors's personal YouTube channel, raising concerns from watchdog groups that BLM used nonprofit assets for the private benefit of its leaders.
Cullors disclosed in a phone call with reporters Monday that BLM's mansion was used as a "safe place" for her to stay for at least four nights amid an FBI investigation into a death threat made against her, NBC News reported.
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“So we did use the campus as a haven, as a safe place. That derailed an announcement strategy," Cullors said in reference to the death threats. "Conditions changed, and that’s it.”
