Corporate Giving Giant Silently Cuts Off SPLC While Retaining Filter Based on Its ‘Hate’ List

The corporate charitable giving platform Benevity has reportedly made the Southern Poverty Law Center ineligible for charitable giving, even while still offering a tool by which its corporate clients can screen out organizations the SPLC brands “hate groups.”

Critics say the SPLC, which gained its reputation by suing the Ku Klux Klan into bankruptcy, now smears mainstream conservatives by putting them on a “hate map” with Klan chapters. Separately, the SPLC faces federal fraud and conspiracy charges for allegedly funding Klan activities through its paid-informant program. Donor-advised fund managers such as Fidelity Charitable paused the SPLC’s ability to receive funds following the indictment earlier this year.

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 announce the change to the SPLC’s eligibility. Instead, the news came when 1792 Exchange’s director of research, Dustin DeVito, wrote in a Washington Post op-ed that the SPLC could receive charitable gifts through the platform.

On Thursday, the Washington Post changed the article and added a correction: “A previous version incorrectly stated that the Southern Poverty Law Center was currently eligible for charitable donations through the Benevity platform.”

It remains unclear when Benevity rendered the SPLC ineligible. The SPLC’s profile on Benevity has a note reading “This profile is currently deactivated.” The note appeared at some point after April 21. The SPLC did not respond to the Daily Signal’s request for comment about when the profile was deactivated.

Jake Wood, CEO of the corporate benevolence platform Groundswell (a competitor to Benevity), may have given a hint on July 28.

“A major corporate giving platform recently removed the Southern Poverty Law Center from its nonprofit database following its federal indictment,” Wood stated in a LinkedIn post. “Groundswell is not taking the same action.”

Wood noted that he was not endorsing the SPLC or making a judgment about the federal case, insisting that his company’s decision rested on “a more fundamental belief about how corporate giving programs should work.”

“Technology vendors should not make discretionary policy decisions on behalf of every company they serve,” he wrote. While some companies may block employee gifts to the SPLC in light of the indictment, others may not.

“Both are legitimate policy choices,” Wood added. “But they should be the company’s choices.”

Groundswell previously told the Daily Signal that it had once used the SPLC accusations in eligibility screening, but that it no longer does so. The company declined to clarify to which platform Wood had been referring.

Bonterra, which operates the platforms Deed and CyberGrants, told the Daily Signal that customers control which nonprofits are eligible and whether to use the SPLC for screening.

In previous comments to the Daily Signal, Benevity insisted that companies’ use of the SPLC as a filter is “not a default setting.” 1792 Exchange has contested this claim.

Some companies have directed their corporate generosity platforms to stop using the SPLC to screen eligible nonprofits. DoorDash directed Deed to stop using the SPLC for this purpose. According to Bowyer Research and previous reporting, somoe companies that use Benevity have opted out of using the SPLC, including American Express, AT&T, Mastercard, McDonald’s, Microsoft, Nvidia, and Salesforce. Verizon directed CyberGrants to stop using the SPLC for its employee giving.

The Daily Signal asked Benevity when and why it deactivated the SPLC’s profile, despite continuing to offer companies the ability to use the SPLC’s “hate” accusations as a screening tool. Benevity did not respond to repeated requests for comment.

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