BLM Sues George Soros-Backed Foundation for $33.4M

Breaking

In May 2024, BLMGNF filed a lawsuit in California against the Tides Foundation, demanding $33.4 million be returned. The suit alleges that Tides, during its role as BLM’s fiscal sponsor, mishandled the funds, refusing to segregate them properly and misallocating large amounts without BLM’s consent.

The dispute has recently intensified: BLM has asked the California Attorney General to investigate Tides.  Meanwhile, the trial is scheduled for August 2026.

Details & Background

When BLM first launched around 2013, it lacked formal tax-exempt status, so it contracted Tides as a fiscal sponsor—effectively using Tides’ infrastructure to accept donations and manage funds. Under that arrangement, Tides collected contributions, handled administrative tasks, and (BLM claims) promised to return or allocate funds per BLM’s direction once it obtained tax-exempt status.

BLM’s complaint accuses Tides of:

• Egregious mismanagement of charitable funds exceeding $33 million

• Breach of an oral contract, fraud, conversion, negligent misrepresentation, unfair competition, breach of fiduciary duty, and even operating in an unlicensed, quasi-banking capacity.

• Failure to segregate funds: BLM claims Tides commingled BLM’s money with that of other groups, making it impossible to track which donations belonged where.

• Unauthorized transfers: Some funds were allegedly routed to other BLM chapters without explicit approval from BLM’s national network.

• Even using over $1 million of BLM-designated funds for Tides’ own litigation costs. That Tides continued spending at least $6 million from the donor account during litigation, despite assurances funds would be frozen. Tides, for its part, has denied wrongdoing. It asserts that the fund in question was intended to support local Black-led organizations, not solely the national BLM entity. Tides claims BLM’s lawsuit seeks to co-opt funds that donors meant for grassroots groups.

The Tides Foundation also receives substantial support from George Soros’s Open Society Foundations.

Reactions

BLM’s legal team, represented by attorney Lawrence Segal, has been outspoken: “My client now has to pay money just to get their own money back, after my client raised 100% of it.” Segal further claims “more than $1 million has been spent by Tides out of my client’s money just on attorney’s fees — possibly to pay their own lawyers.”

Tides, pushing back, insists the claims are “baseless” and threatens that BLM’s suit undermines the intent of donors and endangers grassroots operations. Outside observers have noted that this conflict may signify a deeper fault line within progressive funding networks — a kind of “left civil war” over control, oversight, and money flows.

Some watchdogs have also called attention to BLM’s own financial controversies, like high administrative costs, spending on real estate tied to leadership, and questions about how much money actually reached local chapters.

Why This Matters to You

This lawsuit strikes at the heart of how modern activist funding is structured: not through direct donations to each group, but via centralized fiscal sponsors that aggregate, reallocate, and oversee large sums. When the back-end system fails, accountability vanishes.

If BLM prevails, it could force sweeping reforms to fiscal sponsorship practices—including more transparency, stricter segregation of donor intent, and legal checks against fund misappropriation.

It also raises the question: how many other movements, nonprofits, or causes might be similarly vulnerable? The revelation that even prominent progressive groups can be locked into financial disputes with their own allies should concern anyone who supports transparency, integrity, or donor rights in civil society.

Above all, this is more than an internal dispute. It’s a test of whether powerful institutions—even ones built for social justice—are above scrutiny when it comes to money and accountability.

Let me know if you want a version focused on Soros’s involvement, or an analysis of how this might affect future left-wing funding networks.