BBFK: PPP Loans WatchDog AR

This week we have Arkansas and the group in discussion is Heifer Project International and some questions we have for them:

1. Why did you take out a PPP loan for $4 million when the organization has over $200 million net assets? 

2. Why did your Grants go down by $6 million, but your salaries, other compensation, employee benefits, and other expenses go up by over $1 million?

3. Why did you spend over $6 million on advertising and promotion?

4. Postage, shipping, printing and other media for over $6 million for fundraising?

5. Does your organization need 15 directors/VPs making over $2 million in total?

6. Why did you spend the most on Give Bridge for fundraising (at least 3x more than the other 4 fundraising companies)?

7. We would love to hear more about how Shared Wealth Ventures LLC, Heifer Project Nepal, Heifer Cambodia LLC, and all other related organizations work with Heifer Project International?

We reached out to the Heifer Project International in order to ask them about these alarming points we came across but  they never responded for comment.

In conclusion, Heifer Project International should give the money back just like Fortune 500 companies did, but with a twist. Half going back to the government and the other half going back to Building Blocks for Kids. Southern Bancorp Bank can give back any revenue made (penalty should double that amount) for creating this loan. Not sure what the government will do with their half, yet BBFK knows exactly what we will do with our portion. 

Building Blocks for Kids would get a total amount of $2,000,000. Here is how that breakdown of that money will look like: 

• $20,000 towards our website. 

• $1,980,000 for 66 classrooms in Arkansas

  • Helping 66 teachers, over 1,800 students with financial literacy and career discovery education for a full year. To learn more about the BBFK: MORE Program visit: https://bbfkids.org/

Heifer Project International #doBetter and with this amount we can do #MOREtogether to truly help the youth in Arkansas, give our youth a better chance for financial freedom and a better place to live. #doMORE

If you believe in our program for high school and college students you can help out but donating at https://bbfkids.org/donate 

BBFK:PPP Loans Watchdogs AZ

This week we have Arizona and the group in question this week is Lifewell Behavioral Wellness and some questions we have for them is:

1. Why did you take out a PPP loan for $6.23 million when the organization has over $23 million? 

2. Would you be able to give a breakdown of the expenses of the program services provided (contract revenue over $42 million)? Who’s paying this bill, government?

3. Why did you spend over $45,000,000 in lobbying and millions more in nontaxable/grassroots lobbying? Would you discuss what you are lobbying for?

4. There is over $2 million spent on Other on Line 11(g), would you be able to break down what the other costs are? Did this money go to CHG Companies INC DBA CompHealth and Staff care Inc? 

5. Would you be able to tell us more about:

   1. Desert Esparanza

   2. Desert Sol

   3. Triple R Community Housing 1

We reached out to the Lifewell Behavioral Wellness in order to ask them about these alarming points we came across but  they never responded for comment.

In conclusion Lifewell Behavioral Wellness, should give the money back just like Fortune 500 companies did, but with a twist. Half going back to the government and the other half going back to Building Blocks for Kids. Bankers Trust Company can give back any revenue made (penalty should double that amount) for creating this loan. Not sure what the government will do with their half, yet BBFK knows exactly what we will do with our portion. 

Building Blocks for Kids would get a total amount of $3,115,000. Here is how that breakdown of that money will look like: 

• $55,000 towards our website. 

• $3,060,000 for 102 classrooms in Arizona

  • Helping 102 teachers, over 2,800 students with financial literacy and career discovery education for a full year. To learn more about the BBFK: MORE Program visit: https://bbfkids.org/

Lifewell Behavioral Wellness #doBetter and with this amount we can do #MOREtogether to truly help the youth in Arizona, give our youth a better chance for financial freedom and a better place to live. #doMORE 

If you believe in our program for high school and college students you can help out by donating at https://bbfkids.org/donate

BBFK: PPP Loans Watchdogs AL #SouthernResearchInstitute

Starting this month we are going to have our watchdogs go in alphabetical order through all the states in our great country. We live in a country full of resources for everyone that gets knocked down, but the worst part is that there are always people or organizations who take advantage of the system. We are going to start by focusing on Alabama and the group in discussion is Southern Research Institute. Some questions we have for them are:

1. Why did you take out a PPP loan for $7.7 million when the organization has over $70 million net assets? 

2. Why are individuals on your board making over $2.2 million in compensation with related organizations? Isn’t that a conflict of interest?

3. Why do you have post retirement benefits of over $1 million?

4. Why are the people on the board involved with companies you do transactions with (over $6 million in total) isn’t that a conflict of interest?

5. Why isn't more detailed information on Schedule O for your expenses of $7.2 million (if you think consulting fees is enough information then we have even a bigger problem)?

We reached out to the Southern Research Institute in order to ask them about these alarming points we came across but they never responded for comment.

In conclusion, Southern Research Institute should give the money back just like Fortune 500 companies did, but with a twist. Half going back to the government and the other half going back to Building Blocks for Kids. Regions Bank can give back any revenue made (penalty should double that amount) for creating this loan. Not sure what the government will do with their half, yet BBFK knows exactly what we will do with our portion. 

Building Blocks for Kids would get a total amount of $3,835,000. Here is how that breakdown of that money will look like: 

• $25,000 towards our website. 

• $3,810,000 for 127 classrooms in Alabama

  • Helping 127 teachers, over 3,500 students with financial literacy and career discovery education for a full year. To learn more about the BBFK: MORE Program visit: https://bbfkids.org/

Southern Research Institute #doBetter and with this amount we can do #MOREtogether to truly help the youth in Alabama, give our youth a better chance for financial freedom and a better place to live. #doMORE

BBFK: PPP Loans Watchdog CA #BigBrothersBigSistersofOrangeCounty #YMCASiliconValley #YMCAEastBay #HabitatforHumanityofGreaterLA

This will be our last blog on our home state of California and for this week we have Big Brothers Big Sisters of Orange County and the Inland Empire, Young Men's Christian Association Of Silicon Valley, Young Men's Christian Association Of The East Bay and Habitat for Humanity of Greater Los Angeles. 

Some of the questions we have for Big Brothers Big Sisters of Orange County and the Inland Empire are:

1. Why did you take out a PPP loan of $981,000 when the organization had $16 million in net assets? 

2. On the $5.3 million spent on programming, can you tell us more about what you did with the students? 

3. For program expenses you had $427,000, what did you purchase?

4. Did you lose $79,000 on your Gourmet Dinner fundraising event?

5. What is the BBBSOC Qalicb Inc?

Some of the questions we have for Young Men's Christian Association Of Silicon Valley are:

1. Why did you take out a PPP loan of $9.45 million when the organization had $66 million in net assets? 

2. Can we have a better breakdown on the $58 million (4a&4b) of your program expenses?

3. Why is your pension plan at $2.5 million?

4. Bank charges over $1 million, bad debt over $700,000, what happened? 

5. Why are the top 11 people making over $3.5 million?

Some of the questions we have for Young Men's Christian Association Of The East Bay are:

1. Why did you take out a PPP loan of $7.2 million when the organization had $90 million in net assets? 

2. You already received over $26 million in government grants, why did you think it was acceptable to ask for more?

3. What did the employee benefits of $3.7 million go towards?

4. Can you break down the $3.6 million for other expenses (11g)?

5. Isn't your CEO’s base compensation a little high at $590,000?

Some of the questions we have for Habitat for Humanity of Greater Los Angeles are:

1. Why did you take out not one, but two PPP loans of $1.7 million and a second for $1.5 million when the organization had $22 million in net assets? 

2. We see you made over $18 million in revenue on home sales, restore sales and mortgage discounts. Can you tell us more about your home buying and selling process?

3. Why didn’t you give a better breakdown in schedule O for the $15 million spent on 24a-e (cost of home construction, home goods, home repair, building events/community and other)?

4. What are your other assets of $8.4 million?

5. Can we learn more about your relationship with Partnership Housing Inc?

We reached out to Big Brothers Big Sisters of Orange County and the Inland Empire, Young Men's Christian Association Of Silicon Valley, Young Men's Christian Association Of The East Bay and Habitat for Humanity of Greater Los Angeles in order to ask them about these questions, but they never responded for a comment.

In conclusion, Big Brothers Big Sisters of Orange County and the Inland Empire, Young Men's Christian Association Of Silicon Valley, Young Men's Christian Association Of The East Bay and Habitat for Humanity of Greater Los Angeles should give the money back just like Fortune 500 companies did, but with a twist. Half going back to the government and the other half going back to Building Blocks for Kids. Farmers & Merchants Bank of Long Beach, Heritage Bank of Commerce, Cornerstone Community Bank, and Cathay Bank can give back any revenue made for creating this loan. Not sure what the government will do with their half, yet BBFK knows exactly what we will do with our portion. 

Building Blocks for Kids would get a total amount of $10,410,000. Here is how that breakdown of that money will look like: 

• $60,000 towards our website. 

• $10.350,000 for 345 classrooms in California

  • Helping 345 teachers, over 9,660 students with financial literacy and career discovery education for a full year. To learn more about the BBFK: MORE Program visit: https://bbfkids.org/

Big Brothers Big Sisters of Orange County and the Inland Empire, Young Men's Christian Association Of Silicon Valley, Young Men's Christian Association Of The East Bay and Habitat for Humanity of Greater Los Angeles #doBetter and with this amount we can do #MOREtogether to truly help the youth in Los Angeles, give our youth a better chance for financial freedom and a better place to live. #doMORE

BBFK: PPP Loans Watchdog CA #VistadelMar #UCLAhealth

As we continue with our home state of California, believing that we should be the harshest critic of ourselves, this week we have Vista Del Mar Child and Family Services and Lundquist Institute for Biomedical Innovation at Harbor-Ucla Medical

Some of the questions we have for Vista Del Mar Child and Family Services are:

1. Why did you take out a PPP loan of $6.15 million when the organization had $51 million in net assets? 

2. I understand that your organization is publicly trading around $18 million, why did you guys think it was ok to ask for a PPP loan when you could have just taken out from your investments? 

3. Furthermore, what is it that your organization is investing in to lose $5 million dollars from those investments? 

4. How is the $1 million dollars in travel expenses used, are they for inbound and outbound patients or are they for something other than that? 

5. Your organization is already getting $35 million in grants from the government, why did you guys need the extra money from the PPP loan? 

Some of the questions we had for Lundquist Institute for Biomedical Innovation at Harbor-Ucla Medical are:

1. Why did you take out a PPP loan for $8.83 million when the organization has over $88 million net assets? 

2. Your organization received around $57 million on average over the last 3 years from government grants, so why did you believe it was okay to ask for another $8 million when you had then 3x that amount in your checking account?

3. Why did you give over $66 million to lobbying over the last 60 years?

4. Why did your organization donate to: Duke $500,000 and Regents Ucla $700,000 Washington University $450,000 Novadigm $520,000? 

5. Your organization received a government bond and seeing that you guys are adequate books and records. Are you guys on schedule for completion or are you guys severely behind due to Covid? 

We reached out to Vista Del Mar Child and Family Services and Lundquist Institute for Biomedical Innovation at Harbor-Ucla Medical in order to ask them about these topics, but they never responded for a comment.

In conclusion, Vista Del Mar Child and Family Services and Lundquist Institute for Biomedical Innovation at Harbor-Ucla Medical should give the money back just like Fortune 500 companies did, but with a twist. Half going back to the government and the other half going back to Building Blocks for Kids. City National Bank and Loan Source Incorporated can give back any revenue made for creating this loan. Not sure what the government will do with their half, but BBFK knows exactly what we will do with our portion. 

Building Blocks for Kids would get a total amount of $7,490,000. Here is how that breakdown of that money will look like: 

• $20,000 towards our website. 

• $7,410,000 for 247 classrooms in Los Angeles

  • Helping 247 teachers, over 6,900 students with financial literacy and career discovery education for a full year. To learn more about the BBFK: MORE Program visit: https://bbfkids.org/

Vista Del Mar Child and Family Services #doBetter and with this amount we can do #MOREtogether to truly help the youth in Los Angeles, give our youth a better chance for financial freedom and a better place to live. #doMORE

BBFK: PPP Loans Watchdog

At Building Blocks for Kids our team has begun a new branch of the organization which is doing investigative journalism as a watchdog over the nonprofit industry. We have been looking at hundreds of 990’s (a public form that informs the public about a non-profit organization's financial information) during 2021 and we have been noticing some alarming issues. In the spirit of tax season we are going to discuss nonprofit organizations that took out PPP loans. We will be doing this once a week for the next year, starting with the Motion Picture And Television Fund and United Way of Greater Los Angeles.

Some of the questions we had for Motion Picture And Television Fund are: 

1. Why did you take out a PPP loan for $7.38 million when the organization has over $70 million net assets? 

2. Why does your organization feel that your program needs to pay $1.9 million in pensions when you just lost $16 million for the year?

3. What was included in other employee benefits for $7 million?

4. What happened with Scherer Strategies for $50,000 (fundraising consulting), but you didn’t raise $1?

5. Did you lose $2.5 million off your 5 fundraising events?

Some of the questions we had for United Way of Greater Los Angeles are:

1. Why did you take out a PPP loan for $1.39 million when the organization has over $41 million net assets? 

2. Why did your CEO (Elise Buik) increase her salary during 2020 from $400,000 (on average for the last few years) to over $800,000 (even if some of that was deferred compensation)?

3. Your 990 also showed $1.5 million in pensions, do you not believe that is a little too high? 

4. Over $5 million other/miscellaneous expenses (staying right under the 10% mark, therefore not having to disclose exactly where it goes) seems very suspicious, what was the reason for this? 

5. Why was your total expense towards ads so high? ($1.4 million for reference) 

6. Your expenditure for lobbying was $861,000 (over $48 million since 1962 and most that was spent more than likely in the last 20 years), does this not seem like too much money? 

Throughout the country, United Way took in over $70 million dollars worth of taxpayers’ money. This international network is abusing governmental systems meant to support other communities, taking money through PPP loans when it is obvious that they do not need it. We reached out to the United Way of Greater Los Angeles and Motion Picture And Television Fund, but they never responded to comment. 

In conclusion, we are very privileged to live in such a great country that whenever people need a helping hand we have systems in place to get them back on their feet. When individuals or groups take advantage of the system, it takes away from those that truly need it and gives the entire concept a bad name. This is why the Motion Picture and Television Fund and United Way of Greater Los Angeles should give the money back just like Fortune 500 companies did, but with a twist. Half should go back to the government and the other half should go back to Building Blocks for Kids. The City National Bank and CRF Small Business Loan Company, LLC can give back any revenue made for creating these loans. We’re unsure what the government will do with their half, but BBFK knows exactly what it will do with its share. 

Building Blocks for Kids would get a total amount of $3,500,000 & $690,000. Here is how that breakdown of that money will look like: 

• $110,000 towards our website. 

• $4,080,000 for 136 classrooms in Los Angeles

  • Helping 136 teachers, over 3,800 students with financial literacy and career discovery education for a full year. To learn more about the BBFK: MORE Program visit: https://bbfkids.org/

Motion Picture and Television Fund and United Way #doBetter and with this amount we can do #MOREtogether to truly help Los Angeles end homelessness, give our youth a better chance for financial freedom and a better place to live. #doMORE

Fall 2021 Kickoff!

With the new school year beginning and students going back to in-person teaching, we look forward to students gaining their learning experience back. However, as we maintain optimism, this year certainly was filled with setbacks for our nonprofit: Building Blocks for Kids (BBFK).

 The majority of staff from BBFK encompasses college interns. During the summer of 2020, we were happy to receive our first set of paid interns from Stanford University. This opened doors to the possibility of hiring more students across the nation, so we reached out to schools, produced constant emails, developed social accounts where students could directly apply to join BBFK, and conducted meetings with school site staff. Despite these efforts, BBFK had a difficult time hiring college interns. The program received many rejections from campuses to enlist their students. Some schools didn’t have the financial capability to fund student interns, so as a solution, Building Blocks for Kids made an attempt to apply to a number of grants, including the USC grant and LA2050, but ultimately, we weren’t amongst the list of those who were awarded. Hiring student workers and gaining grants weren’t the only issue BBFK had to face.

Volunteers always provide a promotional value for kids to learn something new from new faces. They are what make a program run smoothly and engaging. However, BBFK faced difficulties in recruiting volunteers. Although people appeared excited to work with BBFK, there were disappointing moments when those interested  stopped contacting the program or verbally stated that they could no longer be a volunteer. 

You would expect all of these challenges to have darkened our spirits, but with the bad, there have also been good moments.

Building Blocks for Kids gained three interns from UCLA and UC Berkeley. Although there is a combination of paid and unpaid interns, each individual does their part to help strengthen the program all while learning something new. 

We were also excited to receive emails from foundations/individuals who were interested in partnering with the program. Through productive meetings, the BBFK program steadily secured more partnerships and volunteers that could help build the program for this upcoming school year. We look forward to having a positive impact on students back in a classroom setting. This is especially true for students attending USC Hybrid and Hueneme High. The Building Blocks for Kids: MORE program will be running at both of these schools during the Fall and Spring semesters of 2021-22. Students will have the chance to learn about a variety of careers all while becoming financially literate. 

The BBFK: MORE program is partnering with  EASY’s promotion fundraiser to help raise funds, so that the program can be successfully managed, scholarships can be created, and college interns and employees can be paid.  

Attempting to raise funds for the program isn’t always an easy task. It’s often hard to reach the goal of obtaining funds for the students, interns, and scholarships, so apart from fundraising, BBFK always tries to look into other ways of raising money. One of those ways includes potentially receiving aid from the general public.

For example, recently Governor Gavin Newsom signed a homeless funding package that aimed to make housing affordable and tackle the homelessness crisis. In an article titled as, “Governor Newsom Signs Historic Housing and Homelessness Funding Package as Part of $100 Billion California Comeback Plan”, BBFK believes  money like this could perform wonders in building the education of students within America. If funds like this were supplied to non-profits, like BBFK:

• 3,000,000+ classrooms and teachers would be educated

• $40 billion would go to scholarships

• 2,000,000+ paid college internships 

• 800,000+ jobs would be created

• 13,000,000+ high school summer internships 

This is only a wish that BBFK has as we move forward to running the program in-person. As a financial literacy program, we know the importance of budgeting. It’s important to always know where your money is going and being applied to, but in the homelessness plan created by Governor Newsom, it’s hard to tell exactly how these funds are being budgeted. 

As we believe in our slogan, “We Can Do MORE Together ” with funds similar to this, more people can get involved and bring a positive experience for all our high school students where learning and fun intertwine.

BBFK April Newsletter

Spring is blooming and so is good news! As we reach closer to our intended semester of Fall 2021 to run our MORE program, we have an exciting new partnership with LAUSD’s USC High school! In the upcoming fall semester, we have lots to anticipate in and outside the classroom. Our BBFK interns are working to organize the semester program from Day 1, coordinating activities and lesson plans to meet the schedule. We still have much more to plan ahead so please tune in for more soon!

What has been keeping BBFK busy so far?

Other than securing our partnership with USC Hybrid High school, our team has been keeping ourselves busy with collaborations and grant applications to fundraise for our program. We’ve collaborated with DoorDash for a dollar-to-dollar fundraising match which helped us raise $1,000 in grants. Thanks to DoorDash, we are getting closer to our goal! For grant applications, our team was able to submit an application for the LA2050 and USC Good Neighbor Grants to join a large pool of applicants to receive a donation that can help our program reach our financial goals. Once we have these goals reached, this will allow us to administer more classrooms and hire staff to run the program and guide the students as well.  

On the partnership side, we have also started conversations with corporate companies such as Northrop Grumman, Disney, Microsoft, and PWC and we are hoping that each one of these opportunities will turn into successful long-term partnerships. Lastly, we have been expanding on our college footprint by having discussions with Santa Clara University, CSU Northridge, University of Iowa, and University of Miami. Moreover, we are hoping to manage this by providing internships where students are getting paid by the university, such as our current three interns from UCLA and UC Berkeley!

Question of the month: Pensions or Youth Education?

Let’s think about where we invest our money for our future. Congress is giving about $86 billion to help cover failing pension plans. With that money, the government can support us in expanding our program throughout the state of California and the country at large. 

$86,000,000,000 can support: 

• 2.8 Million classrooms/teachers

• 72 Million students 

• 1.4 Million college interns 

• 933,000 Jobs created

Our government needs to invest in education so that our citizens don’t fall into the same trap. With our program, the implementation of financial literacy and career discovery gives students the opportunity to be exposed to resources that will help them in the present and future.

The financial literacy lesson of the month for President Biden, Vice President Harris and the rest of the government is don’t chase after a bad investment.

https://www.cnbc.com/2021/03/08/covid-relief-bill-gives-86-billion-bailout-to-failing-union-pension-plans.html

As May approaches, the interns are beginning to get busier with studying for final exams while also managing time to continue outreach, fundraising, and planning efforts for BBFK. Hopefully, we can pick up the pace when summer comes around and everyone has more time on their plate to get busy again! To end on a subtle note, we appreciate your interest in our mission and keeping up with our organization. If you have any questions, please don’t hesitate to reach out to us to learn more about us and if you wish to support us, you can always help by donating through Donorbox, PayPal, or Benevity Causes Portal. You can also use our amazon smile link or sign up at Ralph’s using our code PD925 and a percentage of your purchases will go to our organization.

Have a wonderful spring!