so the minnesota freedom fund turned out to be fraudulent :///
y’all..........remember 1. most grassroots organizations aren’t prepared or expecting to raise 30+ million dollars in 3 weeks 2. days after they started they said they had enough donations and asked people to direct funds to needier orgs 3. they announced they’ve spent over $200k bailing people out and are working on doing more 4. community organizing done right is hard work with a lot of different factors and limited resources Beyond just money.
hold these organizations accountable and demand transparency. but this original post has such little information and y’all are just circulating it? read the thread from the oakland mask org that started years ago and how intense this work is. it’s been three weeks and these are what looks like less than 12 people who have been given an immense amount of cash in an unbelievably short amount of time. i wouldn’t be so quick to call this a shaun king situation.
I follow Fadumo. She's deleted these tweets.
The MN Freedom Fund has existed since 2016. Prior to the George Floyd protests, they were a small bail fund that paid out around $1000 per day. Paying out over $200,000 in 20 days puts them at over 10 times their previous payout rate.
They stopped taking donations very early on because the support overwhelmed their capacity.
Their front page now, as it has been since late May, is almost entirely links to local efforts which need more support - Black Visions Collective, Reclaim the Block, and funds like Rebuild Lake Street and the Northside Business Association.
Meanwhile, The National Lawyers Guild has said that jails are delaying activists from being able to release protestors.
The MNFF should be transparent about how it's using the money, yes. I believe they should also redirect the donations they can't immediately use to other organizations. But they're a 501(c)3 nonprofit, there are restrictions on how they can spend and transfer money. You can check out their nonprofit filing forms on ProPublica - no one at MNFF receives a salary.
Keep orgs accountable, keep pushing for transparency, but please do a little more leg work before accusing an org of fraud.