Naive 20 year old meat used to think of charities, nonprofit organizations as truly selfless acts.
But you probably know where this goes.
FIFA, a nonprofit organization founded to, to develop and to improve the beautiful sport
of soccer has $1.8 billion in cash reserves paid its president about $3 million a year in salary.
Its top executives went to jail a few years ago for laundering money and taking bribes.
This pastor, for example, he used his nonprofit to essentially become a millionaire and then
fly in his own private jets. "If Jesus was physically on the Earth today
he wouldn't be riding a donkey. He'd be in an airplane, preaching the gospel all over the world."
These are just two of so many stories we've found on how these organizations lose their way.
And it's no coincidence that so many celebrities and millionaires have all established their own
foundation. So even worse than this, even worse than just saving taxes, nonprofits
raise money. They've raised money from people like you and me who wants to help sometimes.
But few people know that. The truth of where that money sometimes ends and how little it
actually goes to that cause that you're, that you think that you're supporting. So
what is it about the nonprofit organization that makes it the perfect cover up for this crap?
Stealing tens of millions of tax dollars spent for child nutrition
program ramps and nonprofit took over $300,000 in federal funds, just shy of
$200 million in 2021. So when you start a normal company, you incorporate it,
you define the set of shareholders, you issue more shares to investors, and then if things work.
You sell it. And then you retire in Costa Rica. When a traditional company closes a
profitable year, it may choose to save that money for later, or it may pay it
out to its investors as dividends. The way this works, at least in the U S is first,
the IRS will take its cut of the company profits. That's revenue minus expsnses.
Then, if the investors agree, they make a dividend distribution. So
all the profits are divided between all the shares that have been issued for that
company. And each chairholders gets some cash proportional to their share ownership.
Which is taxed again, by the way, but still this is the most direct,
legal, straightforward way to earn money from the company that you started or from your investments.
But it is expensive because it is double taxed. So there must be another. Right. Well,
of course there are plenty of ways. People will always find ways to get fewer taxes,
Go watch our video on the Pandora papers, but non-profits are just one of them. And
if you know your way around the system, you can absolutely use them to your advantage.
So if you're opening a non-profit organization, there isn't much difference with a for-profit.
At first you have to do some basic things like defining a name, creating a governing board,
defining mission statements and all those, bureaucratic details.
Then you have to incorporate it and registered just like a normal business.
You have to file for this tax exempt status. If you get this approved, then you're all set,
but the authorities are going to be on top of you non-profits can make revenue. Yes. They
can pay for things. They can employ people and yes, they can have some additional regulations.
For example, they have to file yearly forms to justify their income and their expenses.
And with these forums, Sort of try and control that there isn't any foul play, but of course,
of course, if you play your cards, right, you can end up with an organization that you control,
maybe through somebody else that just does what you tell them to do
and an untaxed bucket of money. And you can use that cash for things like jets.
So this is Jesse Duplantis that he's a pastor. I'm sure his church does great things for a
lot of people. I don't doubt it. But personally, I just don't trust the guy. So why would you,
it's not the weird hair or the creepy smile it's that he uses his churches and
his non-profits to buy jets. He asked members of the congregation to give him $54 million.
To pay for a private jet. Why you ask? Well, because flying coach
is full of demons. It's not about possessions. It's about priorities. He has said that flying
commercial would require him to stop repeatedly waste a lot of fuel and slow down his job
as a pastor and that the tiny seats and crappy food wouldn't let him
talk to God. And here's where it gets all more twisted. He asked for a donation,
true donation of $54 million to do that. And you see the ministry can say that it is an asset. It
is an asset that the pastor uses to spread the word of God, which is the nonprofits purpose.
So as far as the law goes it's still fair play, even if it's a private freaking jet.
Oh. And by the way, that was, that was his fourth
private jet. This was paid cash. This was paid cash. This was paid cash and the new
one's gonna be paid cash also. So when the media questioned him, this is what he said.
I can't even read this. I'm not asking you to pay for my plane. I'm asking you to pray for my plane.
That's the actual quote. Told me to have that plane. And then in the context of a nonprofit,
that's, there's nothing stopping him from doing that. So this crazy.
One example of how nonprofits can play with the numbers. After all
the expenses tab in your financial model, wink can hold up anything after all, there
doesn't seem to be much control when it comes to conflict of interest with these foundations.
Now we've all heard of course, of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. This nonprofit is
famous for donating to the latest and to the greatest education medicine
and research from the outside. If you're not part of Qanon, it's
seems that everybody loves it right after all that they have. And this is true.
They have donated billions of dollars into global health with the latest technology
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Melinda have been using their influence and wealth to advance health care around the world.
This foundation hovers on a very thin line between right and wrong. So here's, here's how
it goes like in 2020, the Gates foundation. Around $250 million in grants to giant corporations, LG
or Erickson, Merck, and Pfizer. So sure these companies are making great strides in
topics like the vaccine that the COVID vaccine and a bunch of new technologies,
but at the same time, the Gates foundation owns stock in all of these corporations.
Now, is that forbidden?
Nope, but it can absolutely blur the lines and make corporations believe
that they too, even with their massive size are worthy of billions of dollars in donations. Now
donations are essential for nonprofits, but this gets a lot darker. It gets a lot darker when these
organizations are not only the cash reserve for the owner, but do the fundraisers as well.
Yeah. Let's take another controversial nonprofit.
I'm going to get burned for this, but, okay. So let's talk about the NRA NRA history spends
150 years and its core goal has evolved. First it aim to improve marksman shipped,
and then shifted to promoting gun education, gun safety, and then lobbying for guns.
But in later years, the NRA became desperate for donations. It has deficits of up to $40
million. So it's increased its fundraising like crazy, but hold on, hold on. The NRA is
this huge organization, how did it get to this point? This all started when the NRA
decided to focus, change its focus. From education to lobby, they started
promoting this gun loving lifestyle and openly criticized those who criticized the organization.
In fact, it stopped funding, gun safety. The nonprofits budget showed that it had reduced
that to less than 10% of its budget for gun education and for safety.
And that it had shifted the rest to just communications. It was now this
media company that had become a piggyback for its directors corruption within the NRA was so rampant,
that Wayne LaPierre one executive paid $13.5 million of the nonprofit
to a travel consultant. What the hell is a travel consultant? Lapeer also spent
almost $300,000 in a Beverly Hills men's store, $250,000 in travel to Italy, Hungary,
and The Bahamas one NRA member. Dave Butz received $400,000 as payments for consulting on
Public Outreach. And then the NRA lobby against background checks for gun
owners and even spend one from $6 million in six months campaigning against it. And that
is a major no-no non-profits can lobby, but it can not become a substantial portion of
their efforts to all these cases. Finally sparked some legal action.
So in 2020, uh, new York's attorney general Latisha, James opened a full on investigation
and alleged that the NRA had failed to continue its core goal of promoting gun safety for years of
self, the dealing and illegal conduct that violate new York's charities law. And undermine its own
mission. And plus of course there was all this corruption stuff in Washington, DC followed suit.
The accusations were very explicit that the NRA was just too corrupt. It was no longer focused on
its goals. Again, just a piggy bank for its directors, but that is kind of the problem
with nonprofits. It's easy to justify and hard and complex to disprove the NRA could say all of these
expenses were necessary and we kind of would have to believe them in the current state of the law.
Okay. So let's maybe assume that not all the money is laundry list. Let's
go to a different world. Let's assume that someone really, really, really wants
to help pick plastic from the ocean, or I don't know, help the panda. So another
massive problem with nonprofits it's how much money gets lost on the way.
Okay. So let's say that you donate a hundred dollars to a campaign in Omaze. 65 of those dollars
will be used to pay for the reward and for the costs of the reward. Just that $20 or for Omaze is
admin fees. And there are for profit organization, by the way. And after all of these pieces,
$15 of your a hundred dollars donation will make it to the actual non-profit.
Which of course, of course, most certainly has costs as well. So if you really
care about donations, all you're left with is doing research. So you have sites like
charity navigator that can tell you how much a nonprofit pays in overhead expenses.
If you want to help that Panda, you should respect that 33% rule.
This means that any nonprofit that spends more than 33% should raise a red flag. And the problem
is that there are a lot of. That don't work as efficiently so that Panda might get either $87 or
a meager $20. And in some cases it's even worse. If you heard about the cancer fund of America,
you might think that this is a professional solid organization that helps fund cancer research.
Right? If you go to their website, that's what they'll tell you. And then if you look
at their financials, you'd see that they in fact donate to cancer research, but that's after
they pay James Reynolds, the founder $230,000 a year, the fund also pays for another 24
family members salaries. And you want to think that such a high salary means that there's,
I mean, there's probably a lot of money coming in, right.
And you have to manage it. Well, no, the cancer fund of America.
2.5% of all donations to research and support 2.5% of all the money that they get. But once again,
as a non-profit organization, they can't, this is legal and there's
nothing that can stop them. So that's why we need to have. To rate these charities.
And that's why the cancer fund of America has the worst possible rating in charitable watch
since 1993, at least they've been consistent before we finished. I want to talk about one
last case in particular, it brings all of these loopholes together
into one single thing. Plus it deals with one of my passions, I suppose, which is.
Soccer Americans, major sponsors should reconsider supporting FIFA.
Now a byword for global corruption, big money, FIFA world cup spenders,
speak to the world like they're in a parallel universe whenever I'm watching the world cup
or even the qualifiers. I just forget that FIFA is a nonprofit because this massive organism.
That sells massive TV deals and shapes the entire country before a world cup is a nonprofit,
just like that charity on the corner of your street. But again, what is the purpose was the
mission of FIFA, both to take the sport of football, to all corners of the world
while making it better. And, and yes, I think that they have, after all more and
more people watch the world cup now more than ever, uh, FIFA has become a giant moneymaker.
By selling licensing and broadcasting rights plus ticket sales from the actual
world cup. So in 2018, FIFA had $4.5 billion in revenue. And this is a world cup year. This
is the Russia world cup year, but in a none world cup year, they still managed to get
$300 million in revenue. So it makes perfect sense for nation to host the world cup.
I mean, for FIFA. It's going to walk into your nation and make as much money as possible.
Leaving you oftentimes just crumbs plus FIFA as a nonprofit that is always demands for tax
exemption. Once it hosts a world cup, basically when FIFA comes in
stadiums and nearby. Suddenly become tax-free because it's FIFA.
So in short, the host nation pays for everything and gets very, very little in
return. Still countries, countries believe in the power of hosting a world cup. So they do,
they do whatever they can to win this bit. So FIFA has been hit with scandal after scandal over the
last decade, as whistleblowers have come out and just revealed the truth of what goes on this real life
Hagrid is Chuck Blazer. For two decades. He worked with FIFA and racked up $29 million
in credit card bills. He loves this lavish lifestyle that included having an apartment
in Trump tower, just for his cats. So Blazer just rubbed shoulders with most prominent executives,
but it turns out that he was also taking.
To ensure a world cup bids for France and South Africa. And he, of course,
was not the only one. This was a shit storm of a corruption case. A bunch of other cases appeared
Jack Warner, for example, the head of CONCACAF took in $10 million
that were supposed to be used for developing football in the
Caribbean and use $1.6 million of that money to pay for his personal loans.
In 2011, a whistleblower revealed that Qatar had paid $1.5 million to FIFA executives and officials
to ensure that the country would be this year's world cup bid. And of course
these and other scandals rocked FIFA to the point in which Sepp Blatter, the president,
have to resign in 2015 and he of course was no Saint himself.
His name is embedded in most of these accusations. And with FIFA, we come to this typical case with
nonprofits, the massive salaries. Sepp Blatter had a salary of $3 million, with get this ,
a $12 million a year bonus. His replacement Gianni Infantino has a much
more modern. They learned the lesson here, much more modest salary, just $1.5 million.
We would restore the image of FIFA and the respect
of everyone in the world will applaud us.
There's no wonder why people often compare FIFA to the mafia. Sure. It has grown the sport of
soccer to unprecedented heights, but at the same time, it's become so powerful that you can't help,
but wonder if it will always be corrupt or what is their true motivation in the end?
It's scary to think that these non-profits have so much power. It almost makes me want
to avoid them almost. And I say almost because it's really unfair to leave out
the nonprofits that are really doing good work and doing great things.
None of these are sponsored in any way foundations like the NACP legal defense and education fund,
the rotary international, the environment defense fund and the DN Fossey gorilla fund.
These are just some of the hundreds of organizations that.
Again, truly a great work. And most importantly, they show how they spend their donations. So
let's say that you want to work with a nonprofit that's, that's really great.
If you want to be more involved. The best thing to do is just to act and to do your research.
All of these organizations have to give you their financials. There are still a
lot of sites that rate charities and that rate. Just go online and check and make sure that the
money that you're giving actually goes to hat cause that you're supporting. I know that we
trashed a lot of nonprofits in this video, but there is always room for positive action.
In fact, if you know of any nonprofits that are doing great work,
a good place to start is just to put them in the comments. I think that everybody
will appreciate it. Thanks a lot for watching guys. Remember the first five comments on
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