Navigating the grantLOVE website and trying to decipher what portion of the profits will benefit a charity in question, or whether they will benefit them at all, is challenging. There are so many contradictions that it becomes impossible to know for certain if your funds will truly benefit the charity mentioned. This post is all about pointing out some of the instances where this is the case.
Lets examine items for sale at grantLOVE x OCMA pop-up shop. When you go to the page where they have all the listed items that will benefit the pop-up shop you see a banner where this is stated:
"Profits from the grantLOVE x OCMA pop-up shop will go towards the grantLOVE x OCMA Fund for Artists"
These are the listed items:
- LOVE tie dye hoodie
- LOVE tie dye t-shirt
- Pink grantLOVE hoodie (with black)
- Black grantLOVE hoodie (with white)
- Black grantLOVE hoodie (with gold)
- grantLOVE x Devon Tsuno beach towels (blue & pink)
- LOVE, 2020 print
- grantLOVE ODLR prints (amber, aquamarine, coral, light pink & set of 4)
- grantLOVE x Jesse Parrot print 2018
- grantLOVE x Cynthia Navarro print 2018
- LOVE, 2019 prints
- Small LOVE neon (black on white)
- Medium LOVE neon (black on pink)
- Love Trucker Cap
- Love necklace (gold)
- Love necklace (silver)
- Love necklace (diamond micro pavé)
Keeping in mind that the profits from these items are meant to go to the grantLOVE x OCMA fund, lets take a closer look at the various items, starting with the pink hoodie.
You will notice that in the description there is a statement that says that 100% of the profits support grantLOVE Projects, not the grantLOVE x OCMA fund. This is misleading. One could assume that what is meant by this is that 100% of the profits will benefit that fund, but that is not necessarily true.
The grantLOVE x OCMA fund is one many grantLOVE beneficiaries. Therefore, it could also mean that part of the profits will go to that fund and the rest will go towards other grantLOVE beneficiaries. It is unclear where all the profits will go.
Now, looking at a different item, the micro pavé diamond necklace, we notice that it mentions that the profits will go to the grantLOVE x OCMA fund, as expected.
Except that when we compare it to the other two necklaces listed they state something different...
The gold and silver necklace clearly state that only a portion of the profits will go to charity. Why the discrepancy between these necklaces and the diamond one?
If you take a look at the listing for jewelry on the grantLOVE website you will deduce that there was an omission on the diamond necklace listing. All of the necklaces are displayed and above them is a statement saying that ONLY A PORTION OF THE PROFITS from the sale of ALL JEWELRY will be donated to charity. Therefore that must also be the case with the diamond necklace, right?? It seems they made a mistake with the diamond necklace listing.
Given all of this, one must conclude that when grantLOVE Project states that profits from the sale of certain items will go to a specific charity they DO NOT MEAN THAT ALL OF THE PROFITS WILL GO TO THAT SPECIFIC CHARITY.
I will simplify it this way. Their statement said that profits from the sale of the listed items above would benefit the OCMA Fund. But, only a portion of the profits from the necklaces go to charity, even though they are among the listed items that are supposed to benefit the Fund. Therefore...
PROFITS GO TO ≠ ALL PROFITS GO TO
Now onto the LOVE, 2020 print...
One line says it will
benefit HOLA and the next implies it's the grantLOVE x OCMA Fund. Which is it?
Or maybe it's both?? Maybe they are dividing the profits between the two beneficiaries?? Hmm...
Confused yet? Let me help take that confusion level a step further.
On some of the items listed as benefiting the OCMA Fund (not all) there is a clickable grantLOVE x OCMA link that takes you to page that explains the pop-up shop and the fund. When the pop-up shop was moved to online only (due to covid) this disclaimer was added to that page, and only that page.
I have so many questions regarding this disclaimer! Let's analyze this.
"All sales of Oscar de la Renta prints will benefit the grantLOVE x OCMA Fund for Artists, both online and in the pop-up shop."
This implies that, at some point, only the purchases made physically at the pop-up shop qualified as benefiting the fund. Any online purchases that were made, did not. Now, due to the Covid closure, they've changed this and all of the Oscar de la Renta prints purchased will now benefit the fund, regardless of where they were purchased from.
What bothers me about this is the fact that nowhere on the website was this stated while the physical pop-up shop was active (before closure). Which means that anyone around the world purchasing any designated pop-up shop items online during that period, expecting them to benefit the grantLOVE x OCMA fund, would have been duped, misled, deceived, scammed!! This is shocking to me!!
"In addition, any purchases made at www.grantlove.com shipping to or coming from Orange County will also go towards the fund."
Now they are stating that only orders placed and delivered within Orange County will go towards the fund?! The website sells all around the world and they are narrowing down who can AUTOMATICALLY contribute to the fund to a very small geographical area? This is absurd!! This is unethical!! And, to add further insult to injury...
"(If you would like your purchase made from outside of Orange County to support the grantLOVE x OCMA Fund for Artists, please add a note to your online order.)"
Add a note? You've got to be joking?! At this point, I am not going to mince words, I find this appalling!
There is NO INTEGRITY HERE! I would think that the majority of the consumers who purchased these items have no idea that this is what is happening here. They don't even say where the funds will be diverted to!!
There is an obligation with Charitable Trustees that the funds raised for certain purposes be used for those purposes and those purposes only. They are completely disregarding this. There is nothing honorable in what they are doing. It's shameful. It's also illegal.
Conclusion:
When grantLOVE Project states that profits from the sale of certain items will benefit specific charities, IT IS MEANINGLESS. The very sad truth is that there is no way to know exactly what they are doing with those funds. THEY ARE NOT REGISTERED. They've done NO FILINGS. They have not been held accountable for any of the funds they have raised for the past 12 years. As such, they are operating outside the confines of the law and, as such, they are completely ignoring the rules meant to protect both the consumers and the beneficiaries.
My recommendation:
Find another charitable organization to support. This one is UNWORTHY OF YOUR TRUST.
** VERY IMPORTANT -- READ ON **
The disclaimer that they've added is very hard to find and I believe that was the intent. Case in point, this is the entire grantLOVE x OCMA fund and pop-up shop write-up currently on the grantLOVE website (below).
https://www.grantlove.com/blogs/news/grantlove-x-orange-county-museum-of-art-fund-pop-up-shop.
Like I mentioned before, the only way to navigate to it is to find a mention of the fund that has been made into a clickable link, and these are not present with every listed item that are designated as benefiting the fund. Locating it on the website is challenging and not intuitive.
But you can actually find the same write-up on Alexandra Grant's personal website (below). It has the top billing on her home page. You can't miss it. Except, there is one very noticeable difference in that write-up... the disclaimer is ABSENT (see below).
https://alexandragrant.com/portfolio/grantlove-x-ocma-fund-for-artists-and-pop-up-shop/
If you had any lingering doubts about whether or not Alexandra Grant and grantLOVE Project are trying to obscure the fact that they are diverting charitable funds, I believe that you can now put that to rest.
Alexandra Grant omiting putting that disclaimer on the identical write-up on her personal website is a deliberate attempt at hiding the truth about those funds being diverted from their intended beneficiaries.
One last thing I want to point out before I close this post, the author of that write-up is Adriana "Addy" Rabinovitch, an X Artists' Books employee (this was mentioned in my Mission Statement Analysis post). Clearly she does not work ONLY for X Artists' Books, but is also working for both grantLOVE Project and Alexandra Grant's personal business as an artist (separate from grantLOVE Project)
Her write-up for the grantLOVE x OCMA pop-up shop appears on both the grantLOVE Project website and Alexandra Grant's personal website. Those are two separate businesses.
Her write-up for the new tote bags is on the grantLOVE website but she advertises herself on Linked in as an employee of X Artists' Books only. There is no mention of also working for grantLOVE or Alexandra Grant at all.
https://www.linkedin.com/in/adriana-rabinovitch-22b34968
THERE IS A HUGE CONFLICT OF INTEREST HERE!!
The fact that there is one employee (seemingly hired by one particular business only - X Aritists' Books) doing work for all three businesses is evidence that resources are being shared between these three businesses. Given that one of these businesses - grantLOVE Project - is a charitable entity, and sharing assets (employees are assets) is forbidden for these, this is a big problem.
I had suspected that assets and funds had intermingled between all of Alexandra Grant's entities, and now we have proof. You see, if it happens once, it is very unlikely that it is or will be the only time it happens. It quickly becomes a pattern. An unethical business pattern.
RED FLAGS EVERYWHERE!!
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