Victims-turned-activists personally profiting off of foundation set up after the Parkland shooting?
Updated: May 20, 2020
IRS 990 forms can give some insight into charities and how money is used. After Fred Guttenberg’s daughter, Jamie, was killed at MSD on 2/14/2018, he soon established a foundation in order to do good and honor her. In reality, it’s a noble action on his part.
Fred is known for his exchange with Marco Rubio at the CNN gun violence town hall after the shooting, as well as what happened during the Kavanaugh hearings:
More recently, at the 2020 State of the Union address (and a guest of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi), he was ejected from the chambers for his outburst when Trump mentioned the 2nd amendment:
Fred’s foundation has to file a 990 with the IRS, which they did for 2018. Total revenue for that period was $319,447.
The interesting part though is why is he personally profiting at all from any of this?
His daughter was tragically killed, he sets up a foundation to honor her and fight for what he believes in (as well as do some good in the community), but gets $33k in profits from it?
Further, per the IRS:
The board is Fred, his wife, Fred’s sister and her husband.
They’re also propped up by Everytown for Gun Safety (in which Fred is a member of the Everytown Survivors Network, which is a branch of and bankrolled by the Everytown for Gun Safety Support Fund):
We make no assumptions other than the fact he, according to the IRS form his foundation filed, made over $30,000 from a foundation that was setup after Jamie was killed in order to honor her. It is 100% legal, though. We hope he used that money for stuff related to Jamie or donated it to a local non-political cause, not to bankroll political advocacy activities outside of what the charity‘s mission is.
This is a very touchy area, as Fred is dealing with the loss of his daughter in his own way. You can’t criticize that, as he experienced something none of us ever hope to. Hopefully going forward the issues at the charity are ironed out. This is NOT meant as an attack on Fred personally, as everything here (documents/connections) is fact.