Analysis by Paul Crespo
While the establishment media portrays the often-violent Black Lives Matter (BLM) protests as part of a grassroots, decentralized racial justice movement, the facts — and money trail — show otherwise. BLM is actually part of “the $636 million far left ‘dark money’ web known as the Tides Nexus.”
This radical network has received millions from George Soros’s Open Society Foundations. What is worse though, is that – the Tides Nexus’ parent organization – the Tides Foundation – has received millions in taxpayer dollars.
Investigations by the Capital Research Center (CRC) into the movement has uncovered that the Black Lives Matter Global Network Foundation (BLMGNF) — the leading group in the radical, Marxist-led anti-police movement — is effectively run by the powerful, and well-funded far left Tides Center.
BLMGNF now passes donations through the Tides Center.
Black Lives Matter Global Network Foundation is the original BLM organization founded and led by self-described “trained Marxists” Patrisse Khan-Cullors and Alicia Garza in 2013. It retains the website www.blacklivesmatters.com. BLMGNF describes itself on its website as “a global organization in the U.S., UK, and Canada, whose mission is to eradicate white supremacy and build local power to intervene in violence inflicted on Black communities by state and vigilantes.”
BLMGNF previously used Thousand Currents — a nonprofit with convicted domestic terrorist Susan Rosenberg on its board, as the organization’s financial funnel. Rosenberg was member of the May 19th Communist Organization responsible for multiple bombings in the 1980s. The change to Tides by the BLM foundation occurred in July 2020.
The change is understandable. It was needed to distance BLM from Rosenberg. It was also fitting, notes CRC, because the Tides Center's sister group, Tides Advocacy, has launched numerous campaigns against American law enforcement
But what is the Tides Center?
According to CRC’s Influence Watch, the San Francisco-based “Tides Center is a left-of-center nonprofit created to manage the fiscal sponsorship services of its ‘sister’ organization, the Tides Foundation. Both groups are part of the Tides Nexus of [eight] pass-through and fiscal sponsorship nonprofits based in San Francisco, California.” However Influence Watch continues,
The Tides Center serves as a “legal firewall insulating the Tides Foundation from potential lawsuits” filed by those potentially harmed by Tides Foundation-funded projects and assists in the organization and creation of new left-of-center political advocacy organizations.Ultimately though, it all points back to the Tides Foundation, the Tides Network, or more simply — just Tides. On its website, Tides refers to itself as “a philanthropic partner and nonprofit accelerator dedicated to building a world of shared prosperity and social justice.”
In practice, says Richard McCarty in the Minnesota Sun, “Tides exists to advance a radical agenda on such issues as abortion, immigration, health care, guns, global warming, and Israel, among others.”
The Tides empire was founded in 1976 by Drummond Pike, who has been a board member for many left-wing organizations. The Tides Network has since grown to include the Tides Foundation, the Tides Center, Tides Inc., and Tides Advocacy. In 2017, thanks to grants from a plethora of left-leaning foundations and donors, Tides had revenues of over $470 million, and has nearly $400 million in assets under management.
Despite having nearly a half BILLION dollars, explains McCarty, Tides still managed to receive taxpayer funding to the tune of $16.8 million since 2005, mostly from the US Agency for International Development (USAID) and the Department of Health and Human Services, in 2016-2017.
So, how does Tides work? Americans for Limited Government’s President Rick Manning says “The Tides Network is all about laundering money as their name suggests.”
McCarty explains:
"There are several ways that Tides advances the left’s agenda. It collects money from liberal donors and gives that money to left-wing extremists making it difficult to trace the source of the funds. If a donor wants to give money to a cause for which a group does not exist, Tides will set up such an organization. It also rents office space to liberal organizations. One of the most valuable services that Tides provides is “fiscal sponsorship” for new left-leaning organizations.Based on this big money trail, the Black Lives Matter movement is far from a simple, spontaneous, leaderless, grassroots movement. In fact, it is just another arm of a very well-orchestrated and well-financed, left wing effort to promote a radical agenda across the U.S., Canada and even the UK. And BLM should be understood as such.
Sponsorship requires a fee of 9 percent or 15 percent of annual revenues depending upon the source; the fee may be adjusted after the first year of activity. In exchange for these fees, organizations can use the Tides Center’s 501(c)(3) tax status and gain access to the Center’s accounting, human resources, and legal services. Over the years, Tides claims to have sponsored over 1,400 “social ventures."
More importantly, as BLM”s sugar daddy, “Tides certainly has the right to pursue its destructive agenda,” says McCarty, “but it has no right to taxpayer money; and Congress should bar the wealthy organization, and its affiliates, from receiving any additional federal funds.”
Free Press International
