Shaun King never raised funds for fake charities or foundations
This is a complete lie.
Fox News & Bill O’Reilly, because Shaun has blasted them continuously for the lies they’ve told about the Black Lives Matter movement, created this tale out of thin air. It’s despicable and was created to discredit Shaun’s work and the movement in general.
LIE #1 from Bill O’Reilly: In February of 2010, in the aftermath of the earthquake in Haiti, Shaun King falsely claimed to have a charity called A Home In Haiti.
From Shaun…
In February of 2010, I was the Senior Pastor of Courageous Church. In January, on the actual day the earthquake hit Haiti, our church started doing work and sending teams there right away. We provided computers, GPS devices, walkie-talkies, food, tents, tarps, and more. We paid for emergency aid workers to go there, we paid for doctors to go there, we sent our own teams there, and eventually I traveled to Haiti over and over and over again to help.
Of course we did not have a 501c3 for our Haiti project three weeks after the earthquake. Our church, like many churches, rushed to make a difference. Churches are fully allowed to have projects under their umbrella. For many months, while we waited for our 501c3 to be approved for aHomeInHaiti, our church worked around the clock to provide aid to Haiti. This notion that we were falsely claiming, just weeks after the earthquake, to have a 501c3 that we didn’t actually have is bogus.
LIE #2 from Bill O’ Reilly: When Shaun King worked for a tech company called Upfront, he raised money for a fake foundation called the Upfront Foundation that never actually existed.
From Shaun…
I am very proud to have been the co-founder of a tech company called Upfront. We were awarded an amazing patent for our technology and it was one of the most rewarding few years of my professional life. Our dream, if Upfront blew up, was to have something called the Upfront Foundation and to allow the celebrities on our platform to direct a percentage of the profits they made to the charity of their choice. This was always my idea and was actually a huge part of why I even wanted to start Upfront. I knew that celebrities were making tech CEO’s into billionaires, but that they were never able to see those funds themselves. We wanted to democratize social media, allow celebrities to make money, and help a ton of charities in the process.
Upfront never grew to to the place we dreamed it could. Before we actually launched our iPhone app, I also had not accounted for the fact that Apple would take 30% of everything we made right off the top. Our vision was for at least 10% of what we made to go to charity, for 50% of what we made to go to artists, and for the remaining 40% to to our business. That Apple fee crushed my concept for the Upfront Foundation before it ever even got started.
We still toyed around with ways we could do it, but just couldn’t make it work financially. We never raised funds for the Upfront Foundation because it never got off the ground. I still like the idea and wish that social networks shared a percentage of their profits for social good — particularly since celebrities and influencers drive so much traffic for ads/revenue. I love what we accomplished with Upfront and respect the team that is still there leading the company.
This notion that Shaun had a fake charity for Haiti or a fake foundation with a tech company is completely bogus.
