Read on Twitter
To chime in re: the MFF misplaced outrage - it is extremely stressful for a nonprofit that has typically operated with a minuscule budget to suddenly come into that much $$, especially so quickly. They even publicly tried to direct donations elsewhere.
I haven’t dug fully into their 990s, but from what I’ve gathered, they mostly do this work unpaid. They’d have to handle all the accounting work before they could even organize a payout schedule, not to mention there may be specific restrictions to each individual donation.
From a legal standpoint, any donation that came through their Donate page could, hypothetically, be spent however they see fit under a General Operating expense. Some donations may specify they want to bail out people who fit particular factors; those have to be honored.
Not that MFF has said they would do this, and they released a statement for transparency anyway, but they could legally take unspecified donations and put it towards positions that enable further capacity towards their bail work, for example.
They also legally cannot pass that money to other organizations to bail by proxy. So, long story short, they’re under an immense burden right now! For a great cause! Understandably they’re swamped and need to navigate, and can now use this money to significantly scale their work.
sincerely, someone who worked in development/fundraising for 5 years
The legal consequences for nonprofits who mismanage money & lie are steep. Scaling from simply losing their 501c3 status, to having to repay donations and additional fines, and of course the total erosion of their supporters’ trust. MFF needs to get their audit trail in order.
Oh and also they likely will need to do some intentful strategic planning. They got a huge influx of one-time donations; they can likely tackle bigger projects now, but I think the latest data shows that roughly 30-35% of donors bother renewing their gift the next year.
