Benevity had paid no mind to the SPLC’s indictment, which connects them to funding the KKK and neo-Nazi organizations, until recently. After Dustin Devito’s article in The Washington Post called on charitable giving platforms like Benevity to discontinue their use of the discredited SPLC’s “hate list”, the company asked the piece to be edited to note that they too no longer allow donations to the SPLC. However, Benevity still uses the “hate list” to block donations to mainstream Christian and conservative organizations. Doug Napier comments on Benevity’s move in The Chronicle of Philanthropy.
But the 1792 Exchange, a conservative nonprofit that works to eliminate bias in corporate America and a frequent critic of the SPLC, contends that Benevity is not a neutral platform. While it has blocked donations to the SPLC, it still uses the civil rights nonprofit’s “Hate Map” to disallow donations — sometimes to fringe hate groups but also sometimes to mainstream conservative nonprofits like Turning Point USA and Focus on the Family.
“Benevity is putting their thumb on the scale and inappropriately disqualifying organizations,” said Douglas Napier, the 1792 Exchange CEO.
That said, Napier doesn’t see a problem with Benevity blocking the SPLC.
“If the house is on fire, I don’t think they have to wait for it to burn to the ground” before taking action, he said. “If they think there’s a reasonable risk that somehow they’re going to be participating in or complicit with money laundering, wire fraud, and false statements to federal banks, it may be right for them to take a step back.”