Major corporate giving platforms use the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) to vet charities, effectively blocking donations to many conservative and faith-based nonprofits wrongly labeled as “hate groups.”
Benevity, a platform used by hundreds of corporations to manage workplace donations, says it has processed more than $18.5 billion in transactions. Company materials show that the platform relies on the SPLC list to help determine which organizations employees are allowed to select for donations.
The company’s Global Cause Vetting document states that it “engages in reputational, anti-money laundering and anti-terrorist vetting verification against established watchlists and an in-house list that builds on the Southern Poverty Law Center’s list of malicious organizations.”
“Benevity has outsourced moral judgment to a group that has long since abandoned objectivity,” Daniel Cameron, CEO of 1792 Exchange, told the DCNF. “By depending on the Southern Poverty Law Center’s slanderous and discredited labels, Benevity has allowed ideological bias to distort corporate philanthropy and undermine free expression.”
The SPLC has labeled right-leaning groups such as Turning Point USA (TPUSA) and Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF) as “hate groups,” listing them alongside the Ku Klux Klan over criticism of LGBTQ ideology and other liberal causes.
The Daily Caller News Foundation obtained direct platform access and reviewed corroborating documentation, including timestamped screenshots, demonstrating that employees using the Benevity platform were either blocked from directing donations to organizations on the SPLC list or that those entities did not appear in the searchable end-user database at all.
Following the politically motivated murder of TPUSA founder Charlie Kirk, the SPLC has faced mounting criticism for spending years branding TPUSA as a hateful, white nationalist-friendly movement. According to reports, the SPLC’s hate map listed TPUSA as recently as Oct. 3 but has since removed the group after public backlash.
The left-wing advocacy group has also labeled the ADF as an anti-LGBTQ hate group since 2016. The group has accused the ADF of promoting a “conspiracy theory” that banks and governments improperly work together to censor conservatives and advocating to “dismantle DEI protections and weaponize government regulations to enforce sectarian Christian doctrines in publicly traded companies,” among other allegations.
Meanwhile, Benevity relies on the SPLC to determine whether nonprofits are eligible to receive contributions through its system. The platform is used by more than 200 Fortune 1000 companies, including Starbucks, UPS and VISA, according to the 1792 Exchange, a non-profit that educates businesses about the risks of “woke” corporate policies.
Both TPUSA and the ADF have current profiles in the Benevity database. However, on the employee giving portal of one Fortune Global 500 company reviewed by the DCNF, neither organization appeared in the searchable database.
By contrast, nonprofits providing services to so-called LGBTQ youth, and groups that have engaged in or endorsed protest violence, such as the Ruckus Society or The Sunrise Movement, were listed as eligible recipients on that same company’s Benevity portal.
Notably, the SPLC itself is listed as an eligible recipient on Benevity, raising questions about the propriety of one 501(c)(3) organization effectively deciding which other nonprofits can receive charitable contributions on a platform from which it also benefits.
The DCNF also confirmed multiple instances in which Benevity users were prevented from donating to the ADF, with Benevity explicitly telling some employees via email that the denial was based on the ADF’s inclusion on the SPLC’s watch list. In these communications, Benevity cited no other reason for the organization’s exclusion.
“This isn’t the first time we’ve seen donation platforms discriminate against religious organizations like Alliance Defending Freedom. But Benevity went even further — not only did they block donations to ADF from multiple companies, they put it in writing that their decision was based on the Southern Poverty Law Center’s ideologically motivated smear campaign,” Alliance Defending Freedom legal counsel Michael Ross told the DCNF.
A Benevity spokesperson told the DCNF that “any registered 501(c)3 organization that is in good standing with the IRS” is “available” on the Benevity platform. “Companies using Benevity have access to tools, including third-party lists (not only the SPLC list), that they can use to include or exclude nonprofits in their corporate giving programs,” the spokesperson said.
Benevity did not answer follow-up questions clarifying what it means by an organization being “available” on its platform, or whether a group might appear in the database but still be prevented from receiving donations. The company also would not confirm or deny whether TPUSA, the ADF, or other organizations on the SPLC “hate” list were ever excluded from the system as a result of that listing, or for any other related reason.
“Let’s be clear: ADF is one of the nation’s leading First Amendment law firms, with 16 Supreme Court victories since 2011, and peacefully advocates for mainstream religious views. The SPLC’s label is a baseless, partisan attack aimed at silencing conservative voices,” Ross said. “Americans have the right to support the nonprofits they believe in and companies should support philanthropic freedom for all of their employees on equal terms, not discriminate against religious organizations.”
FBI Director Kash Patel announced on Oct. 3 that the bureau had cut all ties with the SPLC, saying the “so-called ‘hate map’ has been used to defame mainstream Americans and even inspired violence.”
In 2012, a gunman entered the Family Research Council’s Washington, D.C., headquarters and opened fire, injuring a security guard before being subdued. The shooter later told the FBI he had chosen the target after seeing the organization listed on the SPLC’s “hate map” for its opposition to same-sex marriage and related issues. The Family Research Council remains on the SPLC hate list.
“When corporations rely on a partisan list that has already inspired violence, they risk more than reputational damage,” said Cameron. “Benevity has a chance to correct course and model fairness for corporate America by severing its ties from SPLC.”
However, Benevity is not the only corporate giving platform that relies on SPLC resources for nonprofit vetting.
Groundswell, for example, claims to host more than 1.5 million U.S. nonprofits, but explicitly states that it “does not process donations to organizations denoted as hate groups by the Southern Poverty Law Center,” according to its FAQ page. Corporations using Groundswell’s services include Bank of New York Mellon, Under Armour and Publicis Groupe, according to its website.
Likewise, the platform Millie — whose clients include Chipotle, Butcher Box and Sentinel Group, according to its website — openly states that it relies on the “experts” at the SPLC for vetting.
“Vetting nonprofits can be a time and labor-sensitive task with some very heavy weight on the outcome that only a large team of experts could execute successfully. That is why vetting is typically left up to the experts at SPLC. All vetting for the Millie database is even through the SPLC!” a blog post on Millie’s website from 2022 states.
Neither Groundswell nor Millie responded to multiple requests for comment from the DCNF.
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