Kanye West’s Charity Did Not Do Charity
It was reported by The Daily that Kanye West’s charity foundation set up in the rapper’s name spent over a half a million dollars in 2010, and none of that was given to a single charity. According to the site, the majority of the spending was on expenses.
The expenditures in 2010 amounted to $572,383, and this was used to pay salaries and other overhead expenses. What is funny is that the total amount of donations the foundation received that year came out to $178,916 even after West’s $88,501 donation.
This foundation was considered a non-profit organization up until it decided to close its doors in April 2011. When the charity shut down, the former executive director Joseph Collins emailed the New York Times and had this to say, “I am reaching out to let you know that the Kanye West Foundation has officially closed its doors after a successful 4+ years of programming and events.”
The program was set up to help the dropout rates in schools. It must not have had much luck considering in 2009 it only managed to donate $581 to only one charity out of a total spent on its books of $553,826. The charity in question was “Loop Dreams,” which according to news.com.au taught kids about music production.
In the same NY Times article, there was mentioning of the charity closing down very strangely, and Collins only gave one statement which was that reporters should get in touch with Mr. West. In 2010, it seems as if Kanye and his company West Brands donated $35,000 which made up the majority of the money that was donated to the charity – $123,501 out of $178,916. Four other contributors made up the rest of the money, but that still did not even come close to the amount of money that was spent in the charity’s name.
At least in 2009, the charity earned $442,951. It made it a little more difficult for them to hide their tracks even though again only $581 was actually donated to anything. Also, Kanye only donated $5,000 that year; so it begs the question, who was being robbed?
Charity Navigator, “a non-profit watchdog,” stated a charity should not spend more than 15 percent of its income on expenses. The Better Business Bureau’s Wise Giving Alliance also suggests that at least 65 percent of money spent should be on charity activities. In what has been released, Kanye did not even come close to either of these amounts.
