Candie's Foundation Pays Bristol Palin $260K, Gives Little To Actual Initiatives

The Candie’s Foundation’s stated mission is “to educate America’s youth about the devastating consequences of teen pregnancy through celebrity PSA campaigns and initiatives.” But a close look at their 2009 tax forms shows that there’s far more “celebrity” than “initiatives” involved. That year, the foundation paid Bristol Palin $262,500. And how much went to anti-teen pregnancy initiatives?

A paltry $35,000 in total, out of $2,217,768 in assets at the end of the year.

The foundation, which we’ve criticized in the past for its contradictory messages of sexed-up ads and telling girls not to have sex, paid $25,000 to the Mount Sinai Adolescent Health Center, and $10,000 to the National Campaign To Prevent Teen Pregnancy. That’s just over a tenth of what went to Palin. Even more unusual is the stipulation, entered on page 23, that “The organization has no procedures in place for monitoring the use of grant funds.”

Most years, the foundation also spends a big chunk of money on a celebrity-studded gala called Event to Prevent. In 2009 this was a Town Hall meeting that cost $770,240. The foundation asked the IRS for an extension this year on reporting further details, but the 2007 filing shows that that year, the event generated a loss of $334,761.

We were first alerted to the form by a nonprofit and philanthropy consultant who, for professional purposes, had called the director of the foundation to ask for the 990 filing, which by law must be made available to anyone who asks for it. She said she was told by director Christine Clark that the form wasn’t available yet — except that it could already be obtained on Guidestar, a nonprofit auditing site. The consultant says that when she confronted Clark about various inconsistencies, “she accused me of misrepresenting myself and my intentions, stating–-and I quote–-‘You must be one of those bitches from jezebel.com!'”

For the record, this person has and has had no affiliation with the site. Apart from alerting these bitches to the publicly available facts, that is. We’ve contacted the foundation’s representative to get their side of the story; in the meantime, the full filing is here.