American professional gridiron football player Brett Favre, who broke all the major National Football League (NFL) career passing records as quarterback of the Green Bay Packers, pledges more than $130,000.
Brett Favre’s charitable foundation, From 2018-2020 Favre 4 Hope, which has a stated mission to support disadvantaged children and cancer patients, donated more than $130,000 to the University of Southern Mississippi Athletic Foundation during the same years that Favre was working to finance a new volleyball center at the school.
Favre, a Southern Mississippi alumnus, is embroiled in a welfare scandal — extensively reported by nonprofit watchdog Mississippi Today — in which millions of dollars earmarked for people in need were misappropriated. Favre received $1.1 million for speeches he did not make, according to a state auditor report and court documents, and was instrumental in moving more than $5 million in welfare dollars toward the building of the volleyball facility while his daughter was a player on the USM volleyball team. He is among dozens of individuals and organizations being sued by the state. Favre paid back the $1.1 million, though the state says he still owes $228,000 in interest. He has not been charged with wrongdoing and posted on social media that he did not know where the funding for the volleyball facility came from, according to The Athletic.
Favre was soliciting money to build the volleyball facility, his charitable foundation, which received public donations, significantly increased its contributions to USM’s athletic fundraising arm. Tax records show that Favre 4 Hope gave the USM Athletic Foundation $60,000 in 2018, when no other charity received more than $10,000. The next year, it gave $46,817; the next highest gift, to the Special Olympics of Mississippi, was $11,000. In 2020, Favre 4 Hope sent USM’s Athletic Foundation $26,175; no other organization received more than $10,000.
According to the Tax records in 2015, when Favre’s daughter was a volleyball player at Oak Grove High in Hattiesburg, the Favre 4 Hope foundation donated $60,000 to that school’s booster club, the largest grant made by Favre 4 Hope that year. The Oak Grove Booster Club subsequently granted $60,349 to the high school with the stated purpose being: “assist to build athletic facilities.”
While the tax documents don’t disclose any potential conditions Favre 4 Hope may have placed on the grants to the USM Athletic Foundation or the Oak Grove Booster Club, experts were skeptical that those donations aligned with Favre 4 Hope’s stated mission to support “charitable organizations whose focus is to provide support for disadvantaged children” and “nonprofits that provide assistance to breast cancer patients.”
“You can’t say you’re raising money for one purpose and then spend it on something totally different. Charities have an ethical obligation, and in some cases a legal obligation, to fulfill the intentions of its donors in the way funds are spent,” said Laurie Styron, executive director of CharityWatch.
“There’s the letter of the law, there’s the spirit of the law and it’s something where it would probably be tough to make a legal case but it still doesn’t look good,” said Rick Cohen, Chief Operating Officer of the National Council of Nonprofits. “It isn’t unheard of for a nonprofit to expand its mission or change its mission over time if they find they need to redirect. That does not seem to be the case here.”
Favre’s attorney declined to comment as did Favre’s NFL agent, Bus Cook, who is listed as one of Favre 4 Hope’s directors on tax documents. The Athletic attempted to contact six others listed as directors on Favre 4 Hope tax filings. Those individuals either declined to comment or didn’t respond to interview requests.
Favre and his wife, Deanna, started Favre 4 Hope — initially called the Brett L. Favre Foundation — in 1995, his fourth season as Green Bay’s starting quarterback. The Favres directed the foundation’s money to charities such as the Boys and Girls Clubs of Green Bay and Gulfport, Miss., and Gaits To Success, an equine therapy program in Favre’s hometown of Kiln, Miss.
They raised money by hosting annual events: golf tournaments, dinners and auctions in Green Bay and a celebrity softball game, which drew a crowd of 8,500 fans in Appleton, Wis. in 2005. In the foundation’s first decade, it donated small amounts to a long list of charities. Forty-four organizations received grants in 2007, including 19 for $5,000 or less. Starting in 2009, the list of charities never topped 14 and the size of the donations grew.
Deanna Favre was diagnosed with breast cancer in 2004. A year later, she launched her own charity, the Deanna Favre Hope Foundation. That year, the Appleton Post-Crescent reported she sold 210,000 pink Packers “G” logo baseball hats to raise over $1 million for breast cancer research.
On Jan.1, 2010, the Favres merged their two charities, creating Favre 4 Hope. Deanna’s foundation, which focused on helping underprivileged or uninsured women get preventative breast cancer screenings, added $632,713 to the collective pot, pushing Favre 4 Hope’s revenue to $1,767,864 in 2010. The mission statement of the joint foundation was amended to add Deanna’s cause, breast cancer patients, and to include Minnesota as an area of focus as Favre played his final two NFL seasons (2009-10) for the Vikings.
From 2001 (the first year that the foundation’s tax forms are publicly available) to 2020, Favre 4 Hope gave $5,492,721 in grants, averaging $274,636 in donations per year.
“One of the things I am most proud of about all the things I have been able to achieve is being able to give away so much money and help so many people with Favre 4 Hope,” Favre told the Associated Press in 2020. “Special Olympics, Cystic Fibrosis, Make-A-Wish Foundation, a big chunk of money to the Children’s Hospital in Minneapolis, to St. Jude and to Ronald McDonald House.”
By 2019, when Favre 4 Hope donated $46,817 to the USM Athletics Foundation, Favre was also working his contacts at Prevacus, a biotech company in which he was reportedly an early investor, to help advance his construction aim.
“I’ve asked Brett not to do the things he’s doing to seek funding from state agencies and the legislature for the volleyball facility,” Bennett wrote to Bryant in January 2020, according to court filings. “I will see for the ‘umpteenth time’ if we can get him to stand down.
“The bottom line is he personally guaranteed the project, and on his word and handshake we proceeded. It’s time for him to pay up — it really is just that simple.”
“That’s was my thoughts (sic),” Bryant responded. “Maybe he wants the State to pay off his promises. Like all of us I like Brett. He is a legend but he has to understand what a pledge means. I have tried many time(s) to explain that to him.”
Sources: The Athletic
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