Blexit’s Finances Are Slumping, But Its Paycheck to Candace Owens Keeps Coming

Donations to conservative commentator Candace Owens’ Blexit Foundation took a precipitous drop in 2021. But the organization paid Owens more than ever: $250,000 in salary, alone. That’s not including the chartered flights.

Founded in 2018, Blexit urges African-Americans to leave the Democratic Party, preferably to take up conservative politics. Amid racial justice protests in 2020, the Blexit Foundation reaped more than $7 million in donations. Now the organization is back in the public eye after its sometimes-collaborator Kanye West kicked off a firestorm of antisemitic comments, shortly after posing in “White Lives Matter” shirts with Owens, and pledging to buy Parler, the rightwing social media site Owens’ husband runs. The Blexit Foundation’s newly released 2021 tax filings suggest an organization that has struggled to keep up its fundraising figures—but kept the money flowing to top execs.

Reached for comment, Owens repeatedly declined to answer specific questions about how much the Blexit Foundation had dispensed, or to whom.

“In short, yes we raised money and proudly dispersed money for and to black businesses and continue to do so. Our filings are public, timely, and entirely comprehensive,” Owens wrote in an email. The Blexit organization did not otherwise comment.

The Blexit Foundation has been a 501(c)(3) nonprofit since 2019. Its charity status makes it tax-exempt, and its tax documents a matter of public record. Over the three years for which Blexit’s documents are available, the foundation has seen a surge—then a slump—in contributions.

In 2019, its first year as a nonprofit, the Blexit Foundation pulled in $904,575 in donations. The organization’s operations were modest that year. None of its top execs, including Owens, worked there full-time or drew a salary from the foundation.

But in 2020, amid national debates over race in the wake of George Floyd’s murder, Blexit’s fundraising skyrocketed. Blexit received $7,446,352 in contributions that year. It also started spending big. That year, Owens took $230,000 in pay from Blexit. The nonprofit’s events director also made six figures, with a salary of $105,000.

Other expenses added up. In 2020, Blexit spent more than $1 million on travel, some of it first-class or charter. “Blexit allows pre-approved charter travel in certain circumstances for urgent business relative to raising funds for the organization as part of the normal course of business and due to heightened travel restrictions caused by the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic’s impact on commercial travel and flight availability,” the organization’s filings from that year show.

The organization also spent more than $1.8 million on fundraising, which resulted in more than $2.4 million for Blexit, giving it a net gain of over $600,000.

But the fundraising momentum did not carry into 2021, Blexit’s most recent filing suggests. Last year, the foundation received $2,342,820 in contributions, less than a third of what it raised the previous year. Despite that, the org spent nearly $1 million more than it earned, with its total payments to employees nearly doubling.

A sizable payment, $250,000 plus benefits, went to Owens. Another $612,000 went to fundraising, and $205,708 went to travel, some of which was first-class or charter.

The Blexit Foundation, like many nonprofits, often advertises its charitable deeds. On Twitter, Owens has touted big fundraising figures for Black-owned businesses that were damaged during protests over George Floyd’s murder in 2020.

“This month, #BLEXIT raised $200k for black businesses which were destroyed in the #BLM riots,” Owens tweeted in June 2020.

“I raised 300,000 for black businesses that were destroyed during the BLM riots,” Owens tweeted at a Republican rival in 2021.

“Among other things, my charity gave almost 100k during the George Floyd riots to black businesses that were destroyed,” Owens tweeted this month. “I also personally paid George Floyd’s rent.”

Owens’ most recent figure, less than $100,000, appears most aligned with Blexit’s public filings. Blexit’s 2020 filings show the organization gave $108,215 in grants that year. Of that, the filings specifically describe $77,215 in grants to eight businesses, including a restaurant in Riviera Beach, Florida; a marijuana extraction company in Denver, Colorado; a computer shop in Richmond, Virginia; and a gym, two pharmacies, a restaurant, and a media organization in Philadelphia.

Local media reports confirm that some of the companies had been damaged during the 2020 protests. The Richmond computer store, to which Blexit contributed $8,000, was looted. Community members launched a GoFundMe with a $25,000 goal for the storeowner and raised $40,966, most of it in a single day.

In 2021, the Blexit Foundation reported giving away just $4,000 in grants or other assistance. The recipients are unclear; on public tax filings, nonprofits that have not donated more than $5,000 are not required to fill out additional information about recipients.

Owens repeatedly declined to clarify to The Daily Beast how much Blexit had given to Black-owned businesses. Instead, Owens took issue with the request on Facebook.

“They wrote not ONE article regarding the 80 million raised by BLM but they now want to know exactly how much money my actual charity specifically gave to black businesses,” Owens wrote on Facebook less than two hours later, attributing “attacks” on Blexit to a documentary she made about Black Lives Matter. (The Daily Beast had written skeptically of Black Lives Matter fundraising, long before Owens’ film.)

In its 2021 filings, Blexit emphasized its charitable giving and its expanded push into education.

“Blexit additionally made several charitable contributions to African-American owned businesses hurt by violence and the effects of the pandemic,” the foundation’s 2021 filing reads. “The organization brought on additional board members and staff and conceptualized new programming for implementation in 2022. Blexit expanded programming by launching an afterschool program.”

Blexit Education’s Facebook page shows the organization running two such programs at churches in South Carolina and Florida, with a combined 88 students enrolling in the 2022 summer program. In 2021, Blexit also promoted a one-week summer camp in Tennessee. Although online details about the program are scant, an enrollment form shows the program cost $200, plus a $50 enrollment fee.

Blexit’s 2021 tax returns state that the organization made $1,008 in “camp registration” revenue, although the document does not offer additional details.

Dominick McGee, the then-leader of Blexit’s Tennessee chapter, posed for pictures promoting the summer camp in 2021, but told The Daily Beast that he was uncertain of details about the camp, like whether it was free.

McGee said he parted with Blexit this spring, accusing the organization of pushing him out for recruiting a lesbian woman to a leadership role.

“They were all about getting Black Democrats to vote Republican and I was like, there’s a whole audience we’re not hitting, which is LGBTQ, and we all have these people in our family,” McGee told The Daily Beast. “Everyone in our family can relate to it and we don’t discriminate, being a nonprofit organization.”

Asked about the allegation, Owens did not directly answer questions about McGee’s claim or the circumstances surrounding his departure this spring.

“The BLEXIT organization is pro-family and recognizes that the transgender agenda and those that wish to promote it are expressly anti-family and increasingly predatory to children,” Owens wrote. “We are and will continue to remain an unabashedly pro-family organization.”