Tl;DR: Funds raised during IndieLand were claimed to be going to charities, which is contradicted by Open Hand’s tax filings showing the money never went anywhere.
So brazen and obvious, and the excuses were barely anything.
Karl Jobst being a real one. And SOG too
I think this is less corruption and more vanity. There are a lot of charitable organisations out there who will routinely donate over a million dollars. They’ll get a hospital wing or entrance or statue or something named after them. I think compared to those charities, open hand is incredibly small.
My guess is their strategy was to do a bulk donation to get some kind of recognition for their mum. They were probably hoping they’d have much larger sums in a shorter time, and then time just kept on going.
The problem is, that would have been fine if it was their money they were doing this with, but they’re doing these shenanigans with other people’s money, and now open hand is probably done for as a charity.
I don’t doubt the guy had good intentions at first, my theory is that greed got to him as the money started to pour in. What would have been the end goal if nobody ever notices? Can you even hide this kind of money from authorities as a charity organization?
However, I think he still can salvage the situation and his some of his reputation if he owns up to his mistakes and donates all of the money now.
Sounds Like fraud to me. The Missing Link is the Publicity and Sponsoring for Girard (His Brother) and His Events.
They seem to kind of wanted to dodge this bullet by Not mishandling the Money directly, but the Publicity for the Streamer himself Kind of pays for the Event as well as mishandling the sponsored equipment.
Attention equals money on YouTube
No reaction or Statement whatsover also seems like getting legally ready for the fight to come.
If we apply Occam’s razor, yeah he was defrauding donors.
