Thar’s Gold In Them Thar NGOs!

Or…there was until the Trump administration party poopers rode into town.

You’ll remember one of the biggest drop-mic revelations was the $20B slush fund new Environmental Protection Agency head Lee Zeldin, along with Musk’s DOGE waste-huntin’ hounds found stashed in a sketchy secret Citibank account.

That money was allocated to just eight climate-related NGOs in last-minute ‘awards’ from the Biden administration as they shoveled bucks out the door like a steam-driven locomotive’s fireman flings coal. The most egregious of which was an earmarked $2B award to a Stacey Abrams-connected NGO called ‘Power Forward Communities,’ which was only a little over a year old and had less than $100 in the bank.

The Washington Free Beacon reports that the Biden EPA awarded a group linked to Stacey Abrams with no real track record a 2 billion dollar environmental grant in 2024.

This comes off as a transparent attempt to launder taxpayer money to left-wing activist causes. pic.twitter.com/TS33LRrKzS

— AG (@AGHamilton29) February 20, 2025

Everyone has been dying to know more as Zeldin turned to clawing back the money.

In the meantime, other folks started digging into the Power Forward Communities (PFC) NGO, and one of them uncovered the web of deep money progressive tentacles that run all through these seemingly humanitarian organizations. Sadly, they are, in fact, usually only money laundering schemes for progressive elites and their foot soldiers.

Integral to the PFC story is a fellow named Shaun Donovan, who cut his political progressive teeth as the Commissioner of the NYC Department of Housing Preservation and Development. He left the city to become, first, Obama’s Secretary of Housing and Urban Development and then his director of the Office of Budget Management.

Starting to see some connections here…?

When Obama left, Donovan knew he needed a new gig, so he slid on over to the Ford Foundation, which lobbies the federal government using Henry Ford’s fortune. Eventually, through all his connections, he became the new CEO of Enterprise Community Partners (ECP). 

Worth billions of dollars. That fund until recently was managed by Lori Chatman. In a glowing right up, she talks about how she has a lot of management experience relating to multiple billion-dollar funds.

She was co-CEO of ECP until September of 2023. pic.twitter.com/KYNDMOM6zb

— David Chavous (@DACDAC4DAC) February 20, 2025

The previous CEO of this non-profit NGO – one wealthy enough to boast about investing $72B for a million energy efficient homes – earned $900K a year, which is quite a chunk for a charity, you’d think. But, according to Mr Chavous’ research, the co-CEO pulled down a cool $800K, and the NGO spent over 27% of all its considerable income on salaries.

What does this have to do with Power Forward Communities (PFC)?

For one thing, the well-compensated and connected CEO of ECP, Mr Donovan, is the one who then formed that NGO and bragged about scoring the $2B award for his umbrella organization.

Let them tell you how proud they were that PFC earned that $2 billion. pic.twitter.com/hB2he036Qj

— David Chavous (@DACDAC4DAC) February 20, 2025

Small, incestuous, lucrative world, these NGOs, aren’t they?

It also explains what went down in Lee Zeldin’s testimony to Congress yesterday about the specifics that they have been finding about the proposal that came with PFC’s grant paperwork.

Holy crap.

What was in the documents required to meet the ‘eligibility requirements’ for the federal handouts was so outrageous, it blew even the Biden administration EPA staff’s mind. To the point where, when they were screening the paperwork, as internal documents have subsequently revealed, they wrote notes and memorandums about it to cover their own asterisks. One staff member reviewing the proposed salary structure thought they were so out of whack that they worried it might look bad should the public catch a glimpse.

…In response, several of the NGOs have sued the EPA and Citibank, alleging that there is no legal basis for withholding the money and that the EPA did nothing wrong in allocating the funds. “Documents filed with the court show that applicants had to meet eligibility requirements, and the submissions were reviewed by hundreds of federal employees who used a scoring system to rank applications,” wrote The New York Times last month.

However, the documents obtained by The Free Press show that those reviews revealed serious concerns about the fund recipients. For instance, a panel reviewing the application for Power Forward Communities, a nonprofit coalition with ties to Georgia Democrat Stacey Abrams that was selected to receive $2 billion, questioned the salaries it planned to pay its executives.

“[T]he salary structure for top officers seems high for a nonprofit. . . wondering if this could be a problem with public perception,” the reviewer wrote.

Commenting on a part of the application listing estimated costs, the reviewer wrote, “For such an important section, it was pithy, though not always in a good way. Many of the costs were just presented, but little or no explanation as to why they are reasonable. I would have preferred they omitted the travel discussion and explained why they need to pay the CEO $800,000, growing to $948,000 in year 7. And chief operation officer $455,000 per year.” The Free Press previously reported that 22 of the Power Forward Communities employees were slated to earn more than $150,000.

Reviewers also criticized the nonprofit for its lack of planning for “proactive oversight.”

Zeldin looked as if he relished the chance to read it all for public consumption yesterday.

Power Forward Communities received $2 BILLION from the Biden EPA in 2024 after only receiving $100 in 2023. I terminated this grant in March. Watch my exchange with @RepGuthrie at today’s House Energy & Commerce hearing discussing more about why this award was an epic face plant. pic.twitter.com/IFTkTB1kWQ

— Lee Zeldin (@epaleezeldin) May 20, 2025

After seven years, the CEO’s salary would top out at $948K, the COO taps in at $455K, and twenty-two employees would be in the above $150K a year bracket. 

Is this a great country or what?

But, if you look at the mothership, ECP, that’s where they all are as far as numbers go.

On 12 May, PFC filed a status report with the D.C. district court claiming ‘irreparable harm,’ as they still could not access their Citbank funds because of mean old Lee Zeldin.

I’d say it’s one of the most unintentionally hilarious things I’ve ever read, particularly if you listen to Zeldin’s remarks first.

The second page whines that they had to lay off employees that week from PFC as well as from Stacey Abrams’ ‘Rewiring America‘ which they term the ‘sole corporate member of PFC subrecipient Rewiring Community Investment Fund.’ That makes me wonder if they’d already promised largess to Ms. Abrams and now…well, they can’t.

What a shame, huh?