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Comment by yucky | Hacker News Reader

> Wikimedia's donations are used to fund some nefarious things, since their endowment is run by the Tides Foundation

> Tides Foundation is an American public charity and fiscal sponsor working to advance progressive causes and policy initiatives in areas such as the environment, health care, labor issues, immigrant rights, LGBTQ+ rights, women's rights and human rights.

> Among the most unbelievable “projects” of the Tides Center is something called the Institute for Global Communications (www.igc.org). IGC is a clearinghouse for Leftist propagandists of all stripes, including living-wage advocates, anti-war protesters, slave-reparations hucksters, and a wide variety of extreme environmentalists.

When do we get to the nefarious part?

>extreme environmentalists.

I'd be pissed if my $5 went to a Just Stop Oil kid throwing tomato soup on a Van Gogh. I'd call that kind of switcheroo nefarious.

I'm not asking if misleading people about donations is nefarious (I'd call it "dishonest" personally), I'm asking if you think the causes they donate to are nefarious.

Judging by the deep partisan slant on [2], "extreme environmentalists" could mean literally anything.

    > Judging by the deep partisan slant on [2], "extreme environmentalists" could mean literally anything.

You can say the same for the generalities that Tides uses to describe their mission. "Immigrant Rights" for instance could mean anything from helping legal immigrants get access to resources, to funding caravans of illegal aliens from Central America through Mexico and into the US to make false asylum claims. Depending on which type of immigrant rights we're talking about, support will vary greatly. That goes for every single claim they make, so without seeing the actual specific programs it's hard to make a clear judgment, which is by design.

But more importantly, if people want to donate to those types of causes they should do so directly, not have to worry about donations made to Wikipedia being funneled into these sorts of things. If it's not legally fraud, it should be.

Yep, or gluing themselves to the floor of a VW factory

Is it not nefarious to direct donations meant for one thing (keeping Wikipedia running) and secretly direct it to be used for other things that the donors may or may not even agree with, much less want to give money for?

Yup. To generalize your point, any time a charity donates its own donations to another charity it's liable to run into some sort of ethical issue.

Here's the page of The Tides Foundation, in case anyone is curious: https://www.tides.org/

Here's the Wikipedia page on them: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tides_Foundation

(which some might claim is biased, because of connections to the foundation)

Here's a page that contains some more information about controversies, as well as some numbers on grant recipients: https://www.influencewatch.org/non-profit/tides-foundation/

(which others might claim is also biased, because of Capital Research Center)

As a European, I don't really have a horse in this race, but the whole foundation doesn't strike me as one that's too extremist, but maybe that's because I'm also left leaning by US standards, or haven't read into it too deeply. That whole "dark money" thing is perhaps the most objectionable aspect, otherwise it seems like a mostly progressive social justice movement.

Either way, I suggest people familiarize themselves with the foundation themselves and come to their own conclusions. Thanks for bringing it to our attention.

"Bad" and "nefarious" things... that's some pretty heavy assumptions and value judgement.

The lack of honesty and transparency is definitely cause for concern, and makes me hesitate to donate, but it feels like you have your own dishonest agenda.

That article says the endowment is managed by Tides Foundation. I can see how that would make you suspicious given your objection to their other work, but the

> Your donation --> Wikimedia Foundation --> Tides Foundation --> Bad things that only Tides knows about

pipeline you cite seems invented by you and doesn't have anything to do with who is managing the endowment? It's still Wikimedia's endowment.

You can read more in their financial filings, which is part of what this thread is about:

>"The Foundation has an agreement with the Tides Foundation that established the Wikimedia Endowment as a Collective Action Fund to act as a permanent safekeeping fund to generate income to ensure a base level of support for the Wikimedia projects in perpetuity. The Endowment is independent from the Foundation. From fiscal years ended June 30, 2016 through June 30, 2021, the Foundation provided irrevocable grants in the total amount of $30 million ($5 million per fiscal year) to the Tides Foundation for the purpose of the Wikimedia Endowment."

Money from donors, given to Tides, disbursed into the ether.

That's just how money works, isn't it? When you buy something from Amazon, Jeff uses a lot of it to destroy governments and cities. When you fill up at the gas station, Shell uses it to lobby against climate policy. When you donate something to even the best most amazingest nonprofit, their employees get paid, and then spend the money on the dark causes they care about that you may not.

The difference is that in all of those cases the money has been earned as the cost of work done. The non-profit's employee is spending the money they earned for work done. This is different from the non-profit itself making the donation because that wouldn't be part of the operating cost of the non-profit itself.

Companies make donations and lobby and such too. I don't see the difference.

If I pay a company for a widget, I expect only that widget in return.

If I make a donation to Wikipedia to ensure it can pay for its infrastructure, that is what I expect them to do with the money. I don't expect them to funnel my donation through dark money vehicles to fund causes I have no idea they're even funding and that I may or may not want to support financially.

Do you see the difference?

Nope. When you buy a widget from the company, the company will use the revenue to do whatever it wants. Same with nonprofits. It's not like they guarantee that your donation only goes to X, unless that was specified. Otherwise it just goes into their general fund.

You keep restating something that isn't true, in order to save face. There is no reason for you to do that, we're anonymous here. Non-profit donations to a charity with a stated mission and programs, are very different than transactional purchases made from a commercial enterprise. Perhaps ask others if it's still unclear.

I don't know where you got that idea. I've worked for several nonprofits and donations can and do get used for all sorts of things, not just a single project (unless that was a specific requirement for a donor, which was rare).

It's got nothing to do with saving face. I just don't believe what you're saying is true.

Why would someone who makes a donation to Wikimedia expect that their donation may get used to fund a different organization who will then issue grants to a different organization whose goal is to assist illegal immigrants, for instance?

Is that really a reasonable expectation? If you polled 100 Wikimedia donors, how many do you think would guess that is one of many places where their money may go?

Those are two different questions though. "What a donor (or buyer) thinks happens to their money after they spend it" is not the same as "What the recipient does or is legally allowed to do with that money".

Many nonprofits prey upon donor naivete. Even if they don't funnel it to some other cause altogether, there is no guarantee they actually spend your donations on the services they advertise in their marketing (vs funneling to employees or funds or other nonprofits or for-profits they own or whatever).

Many corporations do the same. It's not like Amazon the bookseller invested all their profits into bookselling, or we'd never have seen AWS.

Or churches, another common form of nonprofit. It's not like tithes go to the man in the sky, they get spent on whatever the organization decides to spend it on.

The key point I'm trying to make is that nonprofit status is not some magical protection bestowed upon your funds. The moment you give your money to another organization, even if they are a nonprofit, they have a LOT of leeway to spend it however they please. 501 status has SOME limitations, not like being able to turn it into shareholder profit and restrictions on political activities (depending on the specific 501 type), but by and large the recipient still has a lot of freedom.

If, as a donor or buyer, you are concerned about where that money goes... you have to do your own deep digging and due diligence. Neither the organization nor the law will protect you here and ensure that the funds are spent how you wish.

So it appears you don't understand what a donor advised fund is, and how that hides the way the money is used. Charities have strict financial disclosures on how their money is used, with the one exception being donations they make to a donor advised fund like the Tides Foundation which can be directed to be used for anything, and there is zero transparency on it. I can look at Gleaners Food Bank for instance, and see how every dollar is spent. That is not the case with Wikimedia because of their use of dark money vehicles.

And that's why they are known as dark money vehicles, and that is why they are not in fact just like any other donation. It's a black box, there are no required disclosures to donors other than the fact the money was given to Tides, which is actually not covered under their mission statement either.

Also, stop trying to compare 501(c)3's to Walmart, it's silly and hurts your case.

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