The Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) likes to portray itself as a humble little non-profit doing the people’s work of identifying and eradicating racism. They’d have us believe they’re just an unassuming little band of warriors carrying out their mission from what they surely see as Racism Central … the deep South. In this case, Alabama.
The media loves to portray the SPLC as the ultimate authority on all things related to race and hate groups operating in the U.S. CNN regularly cites SPLC’s rather questionable statistics as fact. Never mind that time a deranged man used the SPLC’s infamous and incorrect “hate map” to locate the headquarters of the conservative Family Research Council and shoot at the staff (injuring one), or that the SPLC is currently being sued by numerous conservative and religious organizations for recklessly and erroneously labeling them as hate groups.
Celebrities like George Clooney ignorantly buy into the media narrative about the SPLC and subsequently bestow wads of cash on them (as do corporations like Apple).
And what does the oh-so-noble SPLC do with all that cash? Well, for starters, they pay their staff very handsomely. Oh, and they also store large amounts of their largesse in offshore accounts.
Wait … what?
The Washington Free Beacon took a deep dive into the IRS filings of the 501(c)(3) SPLC, and they found that millions of dollars have been transferred to places like the Cayman Islands and Bermuda:
- “The SPLC’s Form 8865, a Return of U.S. Persons With Respect to Certain Foreign Partnerships, from 2014 shows that the nonprofit transferred hundreds of thousands to an account located in the Cayman Islands.”
- “SPLC lists Tiger Global Management LLC, a New York-based private equity financial firm, as an agent on its form. The form shows a foreign partnership between the SPLC and Tiger Global Private Investment Partners IX, L.P., a pooled investment fund in the Cayman Islands. SPLC transferred $960,000 in cash on Nov. 24, 2014 to Tiger Global Private Investment Partners IX, L.P, its records show.”
- “The SPLC reported a $102,007 cash transfer on Dec. 24, 2014 to BPV-III Cayman X Limited, a foreign entity located in the Cayman Islands. The group then sent $157,574 in cash to BPV-III Cayman XI Limited on Dec. 31, 2014, an entity that lists the same PO Box address in Grand Cayman as the previous transfer.”
- “On March 1, 2015, SPLC sent $2,200,000 to an entity incorporated in Canana Bay, Cayman Islands, according to Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) records and run by a firm firm based in Greenwich, Ct. Another $2,200,000 cash transfer was made on the same day to another fund whose business is located at the same address as the previous fund in the Cayman Islands, according to SEC records.”
And the little band of warriors themselves? Their fearless feckless leader, Richard Cohen, was paid $346,218 in 2015. The SPLC spent $20 million on salaries that year. It pays very nicely indeed to be a fake non-profit whose primary goal is to silence conservatives and Christians!
Many tax and non-profit law experts are troubled by the SPLC’s overseas investments, with one telling the Free Beacon, “It is unethical for any US-based charity to invest large sums of money overseas. I know of no legitimate reason for any US-based nonprofit to put money in overseas, unregulated bank accounts.”
Said a financial expert, “It seems extremely unusual for a ‘501(c)(3)’ concentrating upon reducing poverty in the American South to have multiple bank accounts in tax haven nations.”
Unusual, indeed.
The SPLC should next make a map of where all their money is hidden. A lot of Americans would be interested in that.