Black Lives Matter's national foundation: what the tax filings, property records, and court files show

Black Lives Matter Global Network Foundation, Inc., EIN 82-4862489, is the national 501(c)(3) charity that held most of the 2020 donation surge associated with the Black Lives Matter name. It is not the same legal person as local chapters, as Black Lives Matter Grassroots, Inc., or as unaffiliated groups that used similar names.

In the fiscal year that began July 1, 2020, the foundation reported $76.9 million in contributions and $79.6 million in total revenue, spent $37.7 million, and ended the year with $41.9 million in net assets, including a $32.0 million securities investment and a Los Angeles property carried at about $5.9 million. Of that year's spending, $26.0 million was grants, including $18.0 million to U.S. organizations, among them official local chapters and the Michael O.D. Brown foundation, and $8.0 million to M4BJ in Canada.^{[1, 2]}

The same filings, and later ones, also show a small paid staff, a board that in the peak year had a single voting member, and large payments to contractors, including firms owned by a later board officer and by the founder's brother. Grant totals then fell sharply: $4.5 million in FY2022 and $643,000 in FY2023, while consulting, legal and management costs remained high. By June 30, 2023, the foundation still held $25.9 million in net assets, but management-and-general expenses exceeded program-service expenses, and grants were 6% of spending. ProPublica's extract of the following year's return shows revenue of $6.8 million, expenses of $9.1 million and net assets of $23.5 million.^{[2, 3, 4, 1]}

Those records support a narrower conclusion than a blanket claim that the money was stolen or that none of it helped anyone. The returns document both substantial grantmaking, especially in 2020 and 2021, and a durable pattern of insider and consultant payments, real-estate holdings and shrinking grant outflow. A 2022 lawsuit by grassroots organizers alleging that an administrator had taken more than $10 million was dismissed in 2023. State charity regulators in California and Washington notified the foundation in early 2022 that it was out of compliance; the foundation said it had hired compliance counsel and shut down online fundraising. A federal criminal judgment for using a Black Lives Matter fundraising page to defraud donors was entered against Sir Maejor Page, of Black Lives Matter of Greater Atlanta, a different organization.^{[6, 7, 9, 20, 21, 8]}

BLMGNF's fiscal year ends June 30. The 2019 and short-period 2020 Forms 990-EZ, as summarized by ProPublica and CharityWatch, report $0 in revenue and expenses, because large 2020 donations were processed through the fiscal sponsor and transferred after the June 30, 2020, close.^{[1, 17]} Amounts below are from Part I and Part IX of the official returns for 2021 to 2023 and from ProPublica's IRS extract for 2024; the 2024 return itself is not yet part of this source set.

The FY2021 balance sheet lists cash of $5,335,856; publicly traded securities of $32,000,114 (Schedule O says the organization “selected an advisor and invested $32,000,000 during the month ended June 30, 2021”); land, buildings and equipment at a cost of $5,998,781; receivables from a founder or officer of $73,523; and grants payable of $1,532,123. The FY2022 return shows securities down to $22,825,096. Land and buildings stayed at the same cost basis, with accumulated depreciation rising to $149,940 in FY2022 and $274,888 in FY2023.^{[2, 3, 4]}

For FY2021, Part I reports one voting board member, no independent members, two employees and 49,275 volunteers; the return was signed May 13, 2022, by Shalomyah Bowers, board secretary. Schedule O states: “PER DELAWARE LAW, THE BOARD CONSISTED OF ONE VOTING DIRECTOR. AS SUCH, NO BOARD MEETINGS WERE HELD DURING THE FISCAL YEAR ENDING JUNE 30, 2021.” The FY2022 and FY2023 returns report three voting members, two of them independent, and two employees, and were signed by Cicley Gay, board chair.^{[2, 3, 4]}

Before it had its own exemption, BLMGNF was, in its own words, “a fiscally sponsored project of Thousand Currents.” CharityWatch, citing Thousand Currents' fiscal 2020 audited consolidated financial statements, reported that in October 2020 the sponsor transferred $66,490,000 to BLMGNF. New York Magazine described the transfer as $66.5 million.^{[2, 17, 15]}

In February 2021 the foundation informally released figures. New York Magazine reported that it said it had taken in more than $90 million in 2020 and still had $60 million on hand; the Indiana Lawyer, describing the same 2020 report, said it distributed about $21.7 million in grants. Those calendar-year figures are not a substitute for the later Form 990. The first full return, for July 1, 2020, to June 30, 2021, reports contributions of $76,872,002, other revenue of $2,772,707, investment income of $114 and total revenue of $79,644,823.^{[22, 15, 2]}

Contributions then declined, to $9,268,283 in FY2022 and $4,618,133 in FY2023. FY2022 total revenue was $8,489,062 after an investment loss of $916,333.^{[3, 4]}

The FY2021 Form 990, Schedule I, lists dozens of domestic grants; its summary line reports 42 section 501(c)(3) or government recipients and three other organizations. The stated purpose on almost every line is “to conduct activities to educate and support Black communities.” Among the largest:

Those domestic grants total $17,971,790 on Part IX. They are the foundation's own documented answer, in its IRS filing, to the question of whether money reached organizations other than consultants and property.^[2]

The largest single grant in the FY2021 filing is foreign: $8,024,626 to M4BJ operating as Black Lives Matter Canada, described on Schedule F as for “conducting activities to educate and support Black communities, and to purchase and renovate property for charitable use.” See the Toronto section below.^[2]

Grantmaking then contracted. FY2022 grants were $4,500,777, including $250,000 foreign. FY2023 grants were $642,992. The foundation described program work in abolitionist organizing, arts and fellowship programming, healing justice, research and education, and policy, with FY2023 program-service expenses of $5,013,945, including those grants.^{[3, 4]}

The FY2021 return states that the founder and executive director served as an unpaid volunteer and reports $0 in compensation to her. The same return, and the two that follow, report large payments to companies connected to people around the foundation. Part VII, Section B, lists the five highest-paid independent contractors for the calendar year ending with or within the fiscal year. Schedule L, Part IV, lists business transactions with interested persons for the fiscal year. The two tables cover different periods, are not always the same amount, and cannot be added together.^[2]

The FY2022 Part VII contractor table, for calendar 2021, lists New Impact Partners at $937,500, Black Ties LLC at $756,330, We Are Rally, Inc., at $693,475, People's Television, Inc., at $557,000 and Dewey Square Group at $534,243, and says 12 contractors exceeded $100,000. Bowers Consulting does not appear in that calendar-year top five, although Schedule L reports $1,690,000 for the fiscal year. Schedule O states that Bowers received compensation from Bowers* for management services to the organization; the FY2023 return specifies $38,400 for calendar 2022. FY2022 legal fees were $1,380,284 and “other” professional fees $8,500,862.^{[3, 4]}

The returns do not, by themselves, establish that these payments were unlawful. They do show that, for several years, firms owned by a sitting officer and by the founder's brother were among the foundation's largest vendors, and that those amounts were large relative to later grant totals. New York Magazine, reviewing the FY2021 return, identified Trap Heals, paid $969,459 in calendar 2020 and $777,824 in calendar 2022, as a company started by Damon Turner, the father of Cullors's child; that relationship is the magazine's reporting, not a Schedule L disclosure.^{[2, 4, 16]}

On April 10, 2021, the New York Post reported that Cullors had bought “four high-end homes for $3.2 million in the US alone, according to property records.” The article itemized:

Those four itemized prices add to $2.915 million, not $3.2 million. The $3.2 million figure is the Post's stated records total; $2.915 million is the sum of the prices it printed. The Post also reported that Cullors “eyed” property at the Albany resort in the Bahamas; no purchase there is documented in the sources reviewed.^[12]

On April 16, 2021, the Post published Cullors's response. She said she had “never taken a salary” from the foundation and that the suggestion that donations went toward her spending was “categorically untrue,” citing work as a college professor and television producer, book deals and a YouTube deal. Snopes rated the claim that she used donations to buy the Topanga house Unproven, writing that the original report did not say BLM donations paid for it, “nor has evidence to that effect come to light.”^{[13, 14]}

The FY2021 return is consistent with the no-salary statement. It also records the excess-benefit line for her “USE OF REAL ESTATE” and the $73,523 travel-and-reimbursement receivable. Those lines concern use of real estate and travel. They are not a disclosure that donor funds bought the four personal houses.^[2]

New York Magazine reported on April 4, 2022, that in October 2020, about two weeks after the $66.5 million fiscal-sponsor transfer, Dyane Pascall bought a seven-bedroom Southern California house, later known inside the organization as “Campus,” “for nearly $6 million in cash” with money donated to BLMGNF, and transferred it within a week to an LLC established in Delaware by the law firm Perkins Coie. The magazine reported that California business-registration documents list Pascall as financial manager for Janaya and Patrisse Consulting and as chief financial officer of Trap Heals.^[15]

The FY2021 return matches the core of that account without naming Pascall or the address. Schedule D lists land of $3,000,000 and buildings of $2,998,781, a cost basis of $5,998,781 and a book value of $5,923,811 after $74,970 in depreciation. Schedule R lists a disregarded Delaware entity with an “UNDISCLOSED BUSINESS ADDRESS, LOS ANGELES, CA 91604,” primary activity “HOLD REAL ESTATE,” end-of-year assets of $5,923,811. The return says identifying information “IS NOT BEING RELEASED HERE DUE TO SAFETY AND SECURITY CONCERNS AND THREATS TO BLMGNF'S LEADERSHIP, STAFF AND CREATORS,” and gives the purpose: “BLACK LIVES MATTER GLOBAL NETWORK FOUNDATION PURCHASED PROPERTY TO SERVE RECIPIENTS OF THE BLACK JOY CREATORS FELLOWSHIP.”^[2]

That language tracks an April 1, 2022, statement the magazine attributed to Bowers: that the organization bought Campus “with the intention for it to serve as housing and studio space for recipients of the Black Joy Creators Fellowship,” had “always planned” to disclose it in legal filings and that it does not serve as anyone's personal residence. The magazine also described an internal strategy memo and reported that Cullors filmed a personal YouTube baking video in the Campus kitchen. The $390 excess-benefit entry for “USE OF REAL ESTATE” is the return's formal acknowledgment that some use was treated as an excess benefit; the form does not describe specific events.^{[15, 2]}

The property remained on the FY2022 and FY2023 returns at the same cost basis, with rising accumulated depreciation.^{[3, 4]}

The FY2021 Form 990 is the primary source for the amount BLMGNF sent: a grant of $8,024,626 to M4BJ operating as Black Lives Matter Canada, for education and support of Black communities “and to purchase and renovate property for charitable use.”^[2]

The Washington Examiner, writing on May 20, 2022, from audited financial statements it said it had obtained, reported that BLM Canada bought the building outright in July 2021 for 8.1 million Canadian dollars, the equivalent of about $6.3 million, and that BLM Canada had disclosed it requested only $5 million toward the purchase. The Examiner reported that Cullors was the sole board member of BLMGNF when the grant was made and that her spouse, Janaya Khan, served on BLM Canada's board at the time. The New York Post reported on Jan. 29, 2022, citing Toronto property records, that M4BJ, “a Toronto-based non-profit set up by Janaya Khan and other Canadian activists,” paid the equivalent of $6.3 million in cash for the roughly 10,000-square-foot building.^{[19, 18]}

The Toronto building is not a $3.2 million purchase. That figure, in the Post's reporting, belongs to Cullors's U.S. personal homes.^[12]

California. On Jan. 31, 2022, the California Department of Justice, Registry of Charitable Trusts, issued a delinquency notice to BLMGNF, registration CT0277977, over the name of Attorney General Rob Bonta. It states that the organization “is delinquent” for failing to submit required annual reports, Form RRF-1 and IRS Form 990, for the fiscal year ending 12/31/2020, and that a delinquent organization “is not in good standing and is prohibited from engaging in conduct for which registration is required, including soliciting or disbursing charitable funds.” It warned that directors, trustees, officers and return preparers responsible for the failure “are also personally liable for payment of all late fees,” and that “Charitable assets cannot be used to pay these avoidable costs.” Current registry status is searchable on the attorney general's charities site and was not re-captured for this report.^{[9, 10]}

Washington. The National Legal and Policy Center's Feb. 4, 2022, complaint quotes a Jan. 5, 2022, Closure Notice from the Secretary of State's Corporations and Charities Division ordering BLMGNF, registration 2005055, to “immediately cease” solicitations, with fines of up to $2,000 per violation. The Washington Examiner, which obtained the letter, reported that the foundation continued to accept contributions from Washington residents after the notice.^{[11, 20]}

The foundation's response. A BLMGNF spokesperson told the Washington Examiner: “We take these matters seriously and have taken immediate action. We have immediately engaged compliance counsel to address any issues related to state fundraising compliance. In the interim, we have shut down online fundraising as we work quickly to ensure we are meeting all compliance requirements.”^[21]

Indiana. The Indiana Lawyer reported on April 28, 2022, that Attorney General Todd Rokita had filed a verified petition in Marion Superior Court to enforce a civil investigative demand his office issued to BLMGNF in February 2022. This report does not state an outcome of that petition; no court order resolving it is in the source set.^[22]

The FY2021, FY2022 and FY2023 returns were later filed and are the documents quoted throughout this report.^{[2, 3, 4]}

On Sept. 1, 2022, Black Lives Matter Grassroots, Inc., filed a complaint in Los Angeles Superior Court, No. 22STCV28481, against BLMGNF, Bowers Consulting Firm and Shalomyah Bowers, for unfair business practices, intentional misrepresentation, fraud, conversion and unjust enrichment. The complaint alleges that Bowers, after “syphoning more than $10,000,000 in ‘fees’ from BLM donors,” refused to yield control when movement leaders and founders insisted that he resign, and that the foundation had been organized “as a matter of convenience to collect donations and fulfill certain administrative duties for BLM.” Those are the plaintiff's allegations.^[6]

On June 27, 2023, Judge Stephanie M. Bowick granted BLMGNF's special motion to strike under California's anti-SLAPP statute, Code of Civil Procedure section 425.16, granted Bowers Consulting Firm's joinder, and directed proposed orders of dismissal. The court held that the plaintiff failed to show a probability of prevailing, including that its admissible evidence was insufficient to establish that it was a third-party beneficiary of the money in the fund. The ruling disposes of the case. It is not a finding that the allegations were true, and it is not a finding that every grant and contractor payment was proper.^[7]

Sir Maejor Page created Black Lives Matter of Greater Atlanta, incorporated it in Georgia and set up a Facebook fundraiser that, the Sixth Circuit wrote, appeared first when users typed “Black Lives Matter.” In 2019 the IRS revoked BLMGA's tax-exempt status after Page failed to file required forms for three consecutive years. Between May and September 2020, the court wrote, “more than $490,000 in donations flowed into” BLMGA's account. The court recounted that Page used $108,499.83 from that account to buy a house in Toledo. He was convicted of wire fraud and money laundering. The district court imposed a below-Guidelines sentence of 42 months on each count, concurrent, and the Sixth Circuit affirmed on Dec. 30, 2025, in United States v. Page, No. 24-3871, from N.D. Ohio No. 3:21-cr-00157-1.^[8]

That judgment is against Page. It is not a judgment that BLMGNF ran a similar scheme.

CharityWatch, summarizing an Associated Press report of Oct. 30, 2025, wrote that the Justice Department had opened an investigation into BLMGNF and related organizations over allegations of donor fraud and misuse of charitable funds, that federal authorities had “reportedly issued subpoenas and at least one search warrant,” that the foundation “has denied any wrongdoing and stated that it has not been informed that it is a target of a criminal investigation,” and that the department “has not issued a public statement confirming or detailing the scope of the inquiry.” No charging document or official DOJ release is in the source set; this is reporting about an inquiry, not a charge or a finding.^[23]

CharityWatch also reported that on Nov. 7, 2025, BLMGNF published a statement that Bowers's “time on the board has come to an end” and that it had ceased work with his consulting firm. CharityWatch wrote that the firm had been paid “over $2.2 million in fiscal 2024 alone”; that single-year figure is CharityWatch's and has not been read from the 2024 return in this source set. ProPublica's extract of the FY2024 return shows $6,820,373 in revenue, $9,115,702 in expenses and $23,538,600 in net assets.^{[23, 1]}