{"id":1534295,"date":"2022-07-01T05:04:45","date_gmt":"2022-07-01T09:04:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1534295"},"modified":"2022-07-01T05:04:49","modified_gmt":"2022-07-01T09:04:49","slug":"ben-jerrys-foundation-president-steered-funds-to-his-own-charity","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/ben-jerrys-foundation-president-steered-funds-to-his-own-charity\/","title":{"rendered":"Ben &#038; Jerry\u2019s Foundation President Steered Funds to His Own Charity"},"content":{"rendered":"<aside class=\"mashsb-container mashsb-main mashsb-stretched\"><div class=\"mashsb-box\"><div class=\"mashsb-count mash-medium\" style=\"&quot;\"><div class=\"counts mashsbcount\">22<\/div><span class=\"mashsb-sharetext\">SHARES<\/span><\/div><div class=\"mashsb-buttons\"><a class=\"mashicon-facebook mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.conservativenewsdaily.net%2Fbreaking-news%2Fben-jerrys-foundation-president-steered-funds-to-his-own-charity%2F\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Facebook<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-twitter mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?text=&amp;url=https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1534295&amp;via=ConservNewsDly\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Twitter<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-subscribe mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"#\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Subscribe<\/span><\/a><div class=\"onoffswitch2 mash-medium mashsb-noshadow\" style=\"display:none\"><\/div><\/div>\n            <\/div>\n                <div style=\"clear:both\"><\/div><\/aside>\n            <!-- Share buttons by mashshare.net - Version: 4.0.47--><div><\/div>\n<p>The Ben &#038; Jerry\u2019s Foundation steered more than $100,000 to a charity run by its own president, in the second case of a sitting board member\u2019s nonprofit group benefiting from the foundation\u2019s grants.<\/p>\n<p>Social Ventures Inc., a charity run by Ben &#038; Jerry\u2019s board member Jeff Furman, raked in around $118,000 from the Ben &#038; Jerry\u2019s Foundation between 2016 and 2020, according to financial disclosure records.<\/p>\n<p>During this time, Furman served as president of the Ben &#038; Jerry\u2019s Foundation from 2018 to 2020 and as treasurer in 2016 and 2017. He was also a member of Ben &#038; Jerry\u2019s corporate board and in-house counsel for more than 30 years, according to the foundation\u2019s website.<\/p>\n<p>The funding raises questions about the Ben &#038; Jerry\u2019s Foundation\u2019s financial activities days after the ice cream maker\u2019s high-profile effort to boycott Israel fell apart. The grants are also prompting concerns from ethics watchdogs who say they pose a conflict of interest and could violate laws against self-dealing.<\/p>\n<p>The National Legal and Policy Center, an ethics watchdog group that has been tracking the Ben &#038; Jerry\u2019s Foundation\u2019s spending, told the <em>Washington Free Beacon<\/em> the funding poses a conflict of interest.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Unilever should understand they\u2019re dealing with a radical progressive board with apparently huge conflicts of interest with corporate funds that are magically being steered to personal pet projects and nonprofits of board members,&#8221; said Tom Anderson, the director of the National Legal and Policy Center\u2019s Government Integrity Project.<\/p>\n<p>Federal law prohibits self-dealing, which the\u00a0IRS\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.irs.gov\/charities-non-profits\/private-foundations\/self-dealing-by-private-foundations-use-of-foundations-income-or-assets\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">defines<\/a> as the &#8220;transfer to, or use by or for the benefit of, a disqualified person of the income or assets of a private foundation.&#8221; A disqualified person includes &#8220;any person who was in a position to exercise substantial influence over the affairs of the applicable tax-exempt organization&#8221; during the five years prior to the transaction, according to the IRS.<\/p>\n<p>Social Ventures Inc. says it works to provide &#8220;social justice for disadvantaged people,&#8221; according to its tax discourse records. The Ben &#038; Jerry\u2019s grants made up a substantial portion of Social Ventures\u2019 funding, accounting for one quarter of its revenue in 2020.<\/p>\n<p>Last year, the National Legal and Policy Center filed a complaint with the IRS over the Ben &#038; Jerry\u2019s Foundation\u2019s grants to a different nonprofit group run by another director at the foundation, Anuradha Mittal.<\/p>\n<p>Mittal has been a trustee on the Ben &#038; Jerry\u2019s Foundation board since 2012 and also serves on the independent company board. During this time, the Ben &#038; Jerry\u2019s Foundation gave $195,000 to the Oakland Institute, an anti-Israel nonprofit group run by Mittal that has <a href=\"https:\/\/freebeacon.com\/culture\/ben-and-jerrys-gave-170000-in-grants-to-board-trustees-anti-israel-foundation\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">published<\/a>\u00a0columns in support of Hezbollah and Hamas.<\/p>\n<p>Mittal and Furman appear to have a close working relationship. Furman serves on the board of Mittal\u2019s Oakland Institute, and he recruited her to the board of Ben &#038; Jerry\u2019s,\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/nypost.com\/2021\/08\/28\/head-of-ben-jerrys-board-accused-of-alleged-self-dealing\/amp\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">according to<\/a> the <em>New York Post<\/em>.<\/p>\n<p>Mittal is a leading force behind Ben &#038; Jerry\u2019s decision to halt sales in Israel last July, which anti-Israel activists sought to use as a springboard to pressure other companies to cut economic ties with the Jewish state.<\/p>\n<p>She has posted on Twitter in support of the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions movement, praised singer Shakira for canceling a performance in Israel, and defended Rep. Ilhan Omar&#8217;s (D., Minn.) claim that pro-Israel members of Congress have an &#8220;allegiance&#8221; to a foreign government.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Criticism of AIPAC is not anti-Semitic &#038; calling for Congress not to have allegiances to foreign countries (Israel) is not anti-Semitic,&#8221; Mittal\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/Mittaloak\/status\/1102975089912381440\">wrote<\/a>\u00a0in March 2019, &#8220;but targeting the first black Muslim member of Congress with false accusations of antiSemitism IS Islamophobic!&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Unilever, the parent company of Ben &#038; Jerry\u2019s, rejected the ice cream brand\u2019s boycott attempt on Wednesday and said it would resume sales in Israel through a third-party vendor.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Unilever rejects completely and repudiates unequivocally any form of discrimination or intolerance. Anti-Semitism has no place in any society,&#8221; Unilever <a href=\"https:\/\/www.unilever.com\/news\/press-and-media\/press-releases\/2022\/unilever-reaches-new-business-arrangement-for-ben-jerrys-in-israel\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">said<\/a>. &#8220;We have never expressed any support for the Boycott Divestment Sanctions (BDS) movement and have no intention of changing that position.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Ben &#038; Jerry\u2019s did not respond to a request for comment.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Ben &#038; Jerry\u2019s Foundation steered more than $100,000 to a charity run by its own president, in the second case of a sitting board member\u2019s nonprofit group benefiting from<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":120,"featured_media":2315279,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","fifu_image_url":"","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1534295","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1534295","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/120"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1534295"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1534295\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2315279"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1534295"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1534295"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1534295"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}