1792 Insights
The 1792 Exchange is committed to delivering sharp, data-driven analysis of corporate America’s political entanglements. Discover what investors, executives, and concerned citizens should know regarding why businesses should return to neutral, mission-focused operations.
How Companies Have Responded to the SPLC
Growing scrutiny of the Southern Poverty Law Center has sparked a broader conversation about how its “Hate List” is being used to blacklist mainstream advocacy organizations, particularly Christian and conservative nonprofits, from corporate charitable giving programs. This occurs most notably through Benevity who is used by hundreds of the Fortune 1000 companies. Below, we track how companies are responding to the public call to distance themselves from the SPLC and to stop using its designations as a filter in corporate giving. 9 Publicly removed the SPLC filter 5 Confirmed no politicized filters 5 Distanced themselves from the SPLC 2 Dodged or downplayed the filter 238 Have not addressed the SPLC filter 9 Publicly removed the SPLC filter BlackRock IWP Capital Salesforce Bowyer Research (Substack) Mastercard Bowyer Research (Substack) Texas Instruments Bowyer Research (Substack) AT&T Bowyer Research (Substack) NVIDIA Daily Signal Microsoft Daily Signal American Express Inspire Investing DoorDash Daily Signal 5 Confirmed they do not use politicized hate-group filters for charitable eligibility Meta Bowyer Research (Substack) Morgan Stanley Bowyer Research (Substack) Citi Citi Foundation statement McDonald’s Inspire Investing Philip Morris Bowyer Research (Substack) 5 Publicly distanced themselves from the SPLC Reported together in a single account of tech companies stepping …
Dustin DeVito on Timcast IRL: Benevity, the SPLC and the American Company
Dustin DeVito, 1792 Exchange’s Director of Research, joined Timcast IRL to discuss his Washington Post piece on the political screen inside corporate gift matching. He explained how Benevity, the platform behind many corporate gift-match programs, relied on the Southern Poverty Law Center’s hate list, what happened to the archived evidence after the piece ran, and how companies are responding. He also covered the origin of the 1792 name and the launch of the American Company. The hate list behind your company’s gift matchDeVito describes how companies exposed in 2024 pledged to stop funding controversial non-business causes. Our Back to Business Tracker followed through on those pledges, and companies like Walmart and Lowe’s shifted to six-figure grants for hurricane relief in North Carolina. The hate list behind your company’s gift match DeVito explains how more than 200 Fortune 1000 companies use Benevity to vet the charities they match. Benevity’s internal vetting document shows its list builds on the SPLC’s hate list, which includes Turning Point USA, Alliance Defending Freedom, Focus on the Family, Do No Harm and Moms for Liberty. The SPLC’s credibility problemDeVito explains that the SPLC, now under federal indictment, is accused of funding the extremist groups it claims to counter. He points to the 2012 shooting at the …
Benevity and Fidelity Foundation Block Donations to the SPLC
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 …
Benevity Blocks Donations to the SPLC, but Still Uses Its Hate List
Tyler O’Neil of the Daily Signal reported that the largest corporate charitable matching platform, Benevity, cut off the SPLC from receiving donations, but has yet to remove the SPLC’s “hate list” as a filter for others, meaning that while the SPLC is no longer eligible, it remains eligible to determine the corporate giving opportunities of hundreds of thousands of employees across the country. Benevity helps nearly 1,000 corporate employers facilitate employee charitable giving by connecting firms with a network of 513,000 nonprofits. For years, the company has offered corporate clients screening based on the SPLC’s “hate” list. Yet a small correction note in a Washington Post op-ed revealed Thursday that Benevity had rendered the SPLC ineligible to receive charitable donations on the platform. “Blocking donations to the SPLC while staying silent on the filter that uses the SPLC’s ‘hate list’ to exclude other charities is an incomplete and unacceptable response,” Greg Scott, executive vice president at 1792 Exchange, told the Daily Signal in a statement Thursday. “No serious platform should screen nonprofits with a disgraced, indicted activist organization. “Benevity should drop that filter entirely and tell its clients and the public it has done so,” Scott added. Benevity did not …
Corporate stewardship, the cost of ideological activism, and the trust that built America.
In this episode of The WallBuilders Show, Doug Napier, Executive Chairman and CEO of 1792 Exchange, joined host Rick Green to discuss The American Company, 1792 Exchange’s new effort to define and celebrate companies that act American. The conversation explores what separates a patriotic company from one that only waves the flag, and how Americans can help recognize the companies doing it right. Key Topics Discussed:
Your Company’s Charity List May Have a Political Screen Built in
Millions of workers in America donate to charities through giving portals set up by their employers, confident that a full range of legitimate nonprofits is just a few clicks away. But this trust, unfortunately, is often misplaced. Many companies turn to third-party platforms such as Benevity, Bonterra and Groundswell to operate their charitable-giving programs. Benevity is the largest of these, processing billions of dollars in donations annually. Though it does not publish a full list of its clients, research by my organization, 1792 Exchange, has identified more than 200 Fortune 1000 companies with Benevity portals, representing millions of employees. Part of the appeal of these services is that experts have done the vetting work. So employees who use them to make donations reasonably assume that if a charity is excluded, it failed some objective test of legal compliance, financial transparency or organizational integrity. In the case of Benevity, however, that assumption is often incorrect. And the problem is not that companies outsource the work of vetting nonprofits to Benevity. The problem is in the process used to decide which organizations to include and which to leave out. The full article can be found in The Washington Post.