Photo: Rob Kim/Getty
According to The Athletic, Favre’s charity, Favre 4 Hope, used their funds to give the university’s athletic foundation $60,000 in 2018, more than $46,800 in 2019, and more than $26,100 in 2020.
Over those same years, no other charitable organization received more than $10,000 to $11,000 from Favre 4 Hope, the outlet reported.
Funding for the stadium is now being investigated as part of the largest public fraud case in Mississippi history, per ESPN. PEOPLE reached out to a rep for Favre on Thursday afternoon.
Tim Gangloff/CSM/Shutterstock
Experts who spoke to the Athletic and ESPN questioned why a charity such as Favre 4 Hope — one with a mission statement to help “underserved and disabled children and breast cancer patients” — would donate large sums of money to college athletics.
“If the charity told donors it was raising money for breast cancer but then spends the resulting donations on an athletic facility, the people running the organization are not fulfilling their obligations to spend the nonprofit’s donations the way its donors intended,” CharityWatch executive director Laurie Styron said.
Rick Cohen, Chief Operating Officer of the National Council of Nonprofits, said while some charities can change their focus over time, he doesn’t suspect that is the case with Favre 4 Hope.
“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,” he told the Athletic. “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 reportedly repaid the speaking fees, but not an additional $228,000 in interest the Mississippi state auditor requested.
source: people.com
