{"id":215227,"date":"2025-09-10T10:13:11","date_gmt":"2025-09-10T10:13:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/215227\/"},"modified":"2025-09-10T10:13:11","modified_gmt":"2025-09-10T10:13:11","slug":"fire-victims-baffled-at-how-100m-in-charity-concert-money-was-spent-its-a-s-tshow","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/215227\/","title":{"rendered":"Fire victims baffled at how $100M in charity concert money was spent: &#8216;It&#8217;s a s&#8211;tshow.&#8217;"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>LOS ANGELES \u2014 A <a href=\"https:\/\/nypost.com\/2025\/01\/15\/us-news\/la-wildfire-relief-concert-set-for-late-january-featuring-california-based-lineup\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">star-studded benefit concert<\/a> featuring everyone from Billie Eilish to Lady Gaga raised about $100 million for victims of the LA wildfires in January \u2014 but struggling locals say they have yet to see a dime from it eight months later.<\/p>\n<p>The massive, <a href=\"https:\/\/nypost.com\/entertainment\/how-celebrities-are-supporting-la-fire-relief\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">much-ballyhooed FireAid event<\/a> \u2014 which drew heavy-hitter supporters such as former Veep Kamala Harris and her hubby Doug Emhoff \u2014 has doled out the dough to 197 charities, many of which are focused on a variety of niche, woke and DEI causes not directly related to helping fire victims.<\/p>\n<p>One charity is focused on buying uniforms for kiddie choir singers ($100,000) and another offers pet healthcare ($250,000).<\/p>\n<p>Victims speak on stage at the FireAid concert. Getty Images for FIREAID<\/p>\n<p>House engulfed in flames during the Eaton fire in January, 2025. AFP via Getty Images<\/p>\n<p>Organizers \u2014 who have been accused of being tone-deaf \u2014 said in their defense that they never claimed FireAid Inc. funds would go directly to helping victims.<\/p>\n<p>An audit released Monday by the Annenberg Foundation, which is managing the funds, showed how the money so far has been spent \u2014 and the causes that are being funded are all over the map.<\/p>\n<p>The beneficiaries ranged from the Buddhist Tzu Chi Foundation ($100,000) to a group making podcasts about the wildfires ($100,000), to the local YMCA ($250,000).<\/p>\n<p>Several grants went to nonprofits that focus on political advocacy for minority groups, including the NAACP Pasadena ($100,000), the Los Angeles Black Worker Center ($250,000), My Tribe Rise ($200,000), and the CA Native Vote Project ($100,000), which conducts voter registration drives for Native Americans across the state.<\/p>\n<p>Kamala Harris and Doug Emhoff at the FireAid concert. Getty Images for FIREAID<\/p>\n<p>Olivia Rodrigo poses backstage during the FireAid Benefit Concert for California Fire Relief Getty Images for FIREAID<\/p>\n<p>One group got $500,000 to seed burned forests with restorative fungi and bacteria. Another half-million-dollar grant went to a group that provides mental healthcare for musicians.<\/p>\n<p>Missing from the list were the names of people with burnt-down houses.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThere are a lot of people in our group chats who are like, \u2018What\u2019s the FireAid money being used for?\u2019 Because I don\u2019t think any of us have seen any of it,\u201d said Ben Einbinder, who has become a community organizer since losing his home in the Palisades.<\/p>\n<p>\tHow the money raised by FireAid has been spent:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Music Health Alliance ($500,000)<\/strong> \u2014 For mental healthcare for musicians who were fire victims\u00a0<\/li>\n<li><strong>The Center for Applied Ecological Remediation ($500,000)<\/strong> \u2014 For \u201cpost-fire bioremediation\u201d that \u201cuses fungi, beneficial microbes, and native plants\u201d to restore soil health<\/li>\n<li><strong>Home Grown ($500,000) <\/strong>\u2014 For \u201ccleaning and sanitation\u201d of pre-schools<\/li>\n<li><strong>The Center for Nonprofit Management ($250,000)<\/strong> \u2014 For workshops and training for other nonprofits<\/li>\n<li><strong>Los Angeles Children\u2019s Chorus ($100,000) <\/strong>\u2014 For uniforms and supplies for your choir members<\/li>\n<li><strong>Woodcraft Rangers ($100,000)<\/strong> \u2014 For \u201ctrauma-informed\u201d camping trips for teen fire victims<\/li>\n<li><strong>CAMP (Community Animal Wildfire Project) ($100,000)<\/strong> \u2014 For free vet clinics for \u201cfire-affected animals\u201d<\/li>\n<li><strong>Altadena Talks Foundation ($100,000) <\/strong>\u2014 For podcasts about the wildfires<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Some 10,000-plus SoCal residents lost their homes in one of the costliest natural disasters in state history, and many are furious over where the FireAid money has gone.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt\u2019s just a s\u2014tshow, to be quite honest,\u2019\u2019 said Pacific Palisades resident David Howard, whose house burned down.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cAnd it\u2019s disheartening because people are suffering enough.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>No Doubt performing at a FireAid benefit concert. Getty Images for FIREAID<\/p>\n<p>Concerns over where the\u00a0$100 million is going to became so loud and serious that the concert\u2019s organizer, the Annenberg Foundation, had its own audit done \u2014 resulting in this week\u2019s document dump.<\/p>\n<p>The staggering haul was not technically mismanaged or embezzled, said the report, which was written by a law firm hired by the foundation in response to demands for transparency from critics including Reps.\u00a0 Kevin Kiley (R-Calif.) and Jim Jordan (R-Ohio).<\/p>\n<p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\tStart your day with all you need to know\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n<p class=\"inline-module__cta\">\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\tMorning Report delivers the latest news, videos, photos and more.\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n<p>\t\t\t\t\t\tThanks for signing up!\n\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n<p>Local residents said they have seen some of the FireAid money in action \u2014 despite some of the far-flung causes. <\/p>\n<p>For example, one organization called Baby2Baby held an event giving out toys to pre-school-age\u00a0fire victims.<\/p>\n<p>Katy Perry poses backstage during the FireAid Benefit Concert Kevin Mazur\/Getty Images for FIREAID<\/p>\n<p>But even though FireAid has revealed which organizations it has given money to, it hasn\u2019t revealed what exactly the organizations are doing with the cash.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cSome of the organizations\u2026 it would be hard to say whether they were actually using the FireAid money for wildfire relief,\u201d Einbinder said.<\/p>\n<p>The situation amounts to false advertising, at best, Howard said.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cEven the artists performing on stage were telling fans and people engaging with the concert that this money is going directly to the victims,\u2019\u2019 the struggling resident said. <\/p>\n<p>\u201cBut the trickle-down on that makes it so the people who need it the most haven\u2019t seen anything.\u2019\u2019<\/p>\n<p>Howard said the issue for him and many of his neighbors is not about any individual FireAid beneficiary organization, adding that many probably do good work.<\/p>\n<p>Instead, he said, there are simply too many of the charities receiving the money to put it to any coordinated, meaningful use to help fire victims.<\/p>\n<p>Of course, that\u2019s assuming all of the organizations are directly helping fire victims, which nobody has been able to verify.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cFireAid is giving money to a nonprofit that teaches other organizations how to be a nonprofit,\u201d Howard noted, referring to the Center for Nonprofit Management, which got $250,000.<\/p>\n<p>Samuel L. Jackson and Rod Stewart embrace onstage at FireAid. Kevin Mazur\/Getty Images for FIREAID<\/p>\n<p>A newly formed group, Pali Strong, whose logo features prominently on signs and banners across the Palisades, took in $500,000 of FireAid money.<\/p>\n<p>Pali Strong and several other FireAid grantees hired a third-party organization called Community Partners, which lets organizations piggyback on its nonprofit credentials and skip the red tape of registering with the government.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n<p>The scheme helps organizations launch faster, but Community Partners takes a 9% cut of their clients\u2019 grant money \u2014 which means $45,000 of Pali Strong\u2019s grant went directly to overhead before it even started doing anything.<\/p>\n<p>As for the rest of its FireAid money, Pali Strong provides \u201ccritical relief and recovery information to Palisades residents via Zoom educational sessions and group text messages as well as advocating with local leaders,\u201d according to its description on the FireAid site.<\/p>\n<p>A firefighting helicopter flies near as a home burns from the Mountain Fire on November 6, 2024  Getty Images<\/p>\n<p>When asked for comment, the Annenberg Foundation directed The Post to the audit report, which it commissioned from the law firm Latham &amp; Watkins LLP.<\/p>\n<p>The audit found no evidence of \u201cmisrepresentations in the solicitation of charitable funds,\u201d \u201cimproper selection of grantees,\u201d or \u201cfraudulent intent,\u201d the report said.<\/p>\n<p>Howard acknowledges that the event organizers never came out and said they would give cash to victims, but donors, concertgoers and even the artists themselves didn\u2019t seem to get the memo.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWhen an artist goes on stage telling you that the money is going to go directly to the survivors of this disaster, and that\u2019s not true, that\u2019s a problem,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"LOS ANGELES \u2014 A star-studded benefit concert featuring everyone from Billie Eilish to Lady Gaga raised about $100&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":215228,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5123],"tags":[1582,276,2809,2961,117681,224,5337,23754,1154,5609],"class_list":{"0":"post-215227","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-los-angeles","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-california","10":"tag-california-wildfires","11":"tag-la","12":"tag-la-fires-2025","13":"tag-los-angeles","14":"tag-losangeles","15":"tag-natural-disasters","16":"tag-us-news","17":"tag-wildfires"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115179474357782560","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/215227","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=215227"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/215227\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/215228"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=215227"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=215227"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=215227"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}