11 Corporations Linked to Turning Point USA Donations

Corporations must ensure Employee Match Programs don’t amplify the next wave of hate.

On September 10th, Turning Point USA founder Charlie Kirk was shot and killed while speaking at a university event in Utah. Within hours, conservative media outlets framed it as an act of political violence at the hands of the ‘radical left.’ ln turn, HBCU's were left threatened and vulnerable and just yesterday Trey Reed, a Black student from Delta State University in Cleveland, MS, was found murdered, hanging from a tree...WITH NO FOUL PLAY FOUND.

When you get to the heart of it, was it really political? Kirk built his career by weaponizing the very act of being — being Black, being a woman, being transgender…

He dismissed white privilege as a “racist idea.”
He called George Floyd a “scumbag.”
He pushed the so-called “Great Replacement Theory” as fact.

On top of that, Charlie Kirk made an abundance of inflammatory statements about Black people that continue to fuel conservative narratives. Via The Guardian:

If I see a Black pilot, I’m going to be like, boy, I hope he’s qualified.

– The Charlie Kirk Show, 23 January 2024

If you’re a WNBA, pot-smoking, Black lesbian, do you get treated better than a United States marine?

– The Charlie Kirk Show, 8 December 2022

Happening all the time in urban America, prowling Blacks go around for fun to go target white people, that’s a fact. It’s happening more and more.

– The Charlie Kirk Show, 19 May 2023

If I’m dealing with somebody in customer service who’s a moronic Black woman, I wonder is she there because of her excellence, or is she there because of affirmative action?

– The Charlie Kirk Show, 3 January 2024

If we would have said that Joy Reid and Michelle Obama and Sheila Jackson Lee and Ketanji Brown Jackson were affirmative action picks, we would have been called racists. Now they’re coming out and they’re saying it for us … You do not have the brain processing power to otherwise be taken really seriously. You had to go steal a white person’s slot to go be taken somewhat seriously.

– The Charlie Kirk Show, 13 July 2023

These remarks are part of the worldview that corporate dollars, knowingly or not, have helped sustain.

Now don’t get us wrong, Turning Point USA is a well oiled machine without corporate support — 2024 contributions and grants alone totaled $84,288,135. While many of the donors are private family foundations and individual donors, corporate America played a small part in funding it.

Between 2020–2023, ~$15,929 dollars (stay with me) flowed to Turning Point USA through corporate match programs, where employees choose the non-profit recipient, but the company approves and provides the matching funds.

• Allstate Foundation – $500 (2021)

• Amazon Smile Foundation – Amount not verifiable (2022)

• Bank of America Charitable Foundation – $7,529 (2020, 2022 — 2021 and 2023 were not verifiable)

• Bristol Myers Squibb Foundation – $25 (2023)

• Cigna Foundation – $100 (2023)

• Duke Energy Foundation – $240 (2021–2022)

• Pfizer Foundation – $3,310 (2021–2023)

• Shell USA Company Foundation – $2,125 (2022, 2023)

• Synchrony Foundation – $2,000 (2022)

• Verizon Foundation – $100 (2020–2022)

Outside of corporate match programs, it appears that Enterprise Holding Foundation (Enterprise Rent-A-Car) may have made direct donations totaling $3,500 in 2022–2023.

Source: ProPublica

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These numbers may seem like peanuts, but they matter.

As DEI budgets are being cut and racial equity commitments are being rolled back due to political pressure, employee match programs have the ability to quietly double gifts to organizations that have built their platforms on anti-Blackness.

What happens next is important!

Charlie Kirk’s death has already sparked vows from his widow and MAGA activist Ben Shapiro to carry on the mission. History suggests that moments like this will generate a surge of sympathy, attention, and funding — Turning Point USA has already seen millions pouring in. In the months ahead, Turning Point USA is likely to continue seeing an uptick in donations, INCLUDING corporate-aligned giving.

That makes this an inflection point for corporations. Employee match programs CANNOT become a channel that amplifies a surge in hate.

Every corporation that claims to have inclusive values needs to:

• Review employee match policies.

• Set guardrails to prevent company dollars from amplifying harm.

• Align charitable programs with stated equity values.

Corporations cannot cut DEI budgets with one hand while doubling extremist donations with the other.

📢 Tell corporations to close the gaps that allow corporate-branded dollars to flow into organizations harming Black and other marginalized groups.

If your employer has an Employee Match Program and it includes Turning Point USA (not Turning Point Inc or any other variation), comment or DM BDI with the company name.

(And if you want to support work that helps to change this, consider donating to the Black Dollar Initiative and let your employer match that.)

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