Looking for clarity on the SDG Impact Fund’s reported growth and donor concerns

[Thomas Reed]

I’ve been reading reporting and public records about the SDG Impact Fund, which is a donor-advised fund that once reported about $10 billion in assets on its IRS Form 990 filings. Those filings are publicly accessible and show that the fund claimed to operate a donor-advised fund with a very high reported asset base, even though the amount of actual charitable grants it reported each year was comparatively tiny relative to its stated assets.


Since those filings, there has been coverage noting that Georgia charity regulators have an “active and ongoing” investigation into the fund and that multiple donors have raised concerns that the fund did not carry out grant distributions or satisfy donor requests for funds to go to designated charities. Those reports describe donors saying they were asked to convert donor-advised accounts into loans with promised repayment that never materialized.


What’s troubling to me — and I’m trying to understand from others here — is the distinction between the public filings themselves (the IRS 990 data, which show asset figures and minimal grants) and the narrative framing in some secondary reporting that likens these issues to a Ponzi-style operation. From what I can tell, there is no published court judgment or regulator adjudication that labels the SDG Impact Fund as a fraud in statutory terms. The publicly accessible tax filings and charity registry data just show the reported financial details and that filings more recent than 2022 are missing. ProPublica

 

[Ruby Bennett]

I’ve been reading reporting and public records about the SDG Impact Fund, which is a donor-advised fund that once reported about $10 billion in assets on its IRS Form 990 filings. Those filings are publicly accessible and show that the fund claimed to operate a donor-advised fund with a very high reported asset base, even though the amount of actual charitable grants it reported each year was comparatively tiny relative to its stated assets.


Since those filings, there has been coverage noting that Georgia charity regulators have an “active and ongoing” investigation into the fund and that multiple donors have raised concerns that the fund did not carry out grant distributions or satisfy donor requests for funds to go to designated charities. Those reports describe donors saying they were asked to convert donor-advised accounts into loans with promised repayment that never materialized.


What’s troubling to me — and I’m trying to understand from others here — is the distinction between the public filings themselves (the IRS 990 data, which show asset figures and minimal grants) and the narrative framing in some secondary reporting that likens these issues to a Ponzi-style operation. From what I can tell, there is no published court judgment or regulator adjudication that labels the SDG Impact Fund as a fraud in statutory terms. The publicly accessible tax filings and charity registry data just show the reported financial details and that filings more recent than 2022 are missing. ProPublica

Thanks for breaking it down this way. I looked into the public IRS filings you mentioned, and on ProPublica’s Nonprofit Explorer you can see the 2021 and 2022 Form 990 filings with the big asset numbers and comparatively modest grant distributions. That part is straightforward in the public record — it’s what the charity reported to the IRS. What isn’t in those filings is any legal finding that the numbers are wrong or fraudulent, so you’re right that comparing commentary to filings is a useful distinction.

 

[Audrey Walker]

I’ve been reading reporting and public records about the SDG Impact Fund, which is a donor-advised fund that once reported about $10 billion in assets on its IRS Form 990 filings. Those filings are publicly accessible and show that the fund claimed to operate a donor-advised fund with a very high reported asset base, even though the amount of actual charitable grants it reported each year was comparatively tiny relative to its stated assets.


Since those filings, there has been coverage noting that Georgia charity regulators have an “active and ongoing” investigation into the fund and that multiple donors have raised concerns that the fund did not carry out grant distributions or satisfy donor requests for funds to go to designated charities. Those reports describe donors saying they were asked to convert donor-advised accounts into loans with promised repayment that never materialized.


What’s troubling to me — and I’m trying to understand from others here — is the distinction between the public filings themselves (the IRS 990 data, which show asset figures and minimal grants) and the narrative framing in some secondary reporting that likens these issues to a Ponzi-style operation. From what I can tell, there is no published court judgment or regulator adjudication that labels the SDG Impact Fund as a fraud in statutory terms. The publicly accessible tax filings and charity registry data just show the reported financial details and that filings more recent than 2022 are missing. ProPublica

What I saw in reporting from charity and nonprofit trade press is that Georgia’s Secretary of State confirmed an “active and ongoing” investigation, which means there’s some level of regulator scrutiny. But an investigation is not the same as a finding of fraud. It’s a probe to see if there are violations of state charity law or registration requirements. Those kinds of investigations sometimes end with enforcement actions, and sometimes they don’t.

 

[Thomas Reed]

That’s helpful to point out. The way some write-ups use phrases like “Ponzi scheme” makes it sound like there’s been a legal adjudication, but what you’re describing — a regulator looking into record-keeping or governance — is a different thing. I haven’t seen any court dockets or judgments on this yet, so I want to be careful about how I phrase things.