Kanye West is no Ludacris when it comes to running a charity. His foundation, Donda’s House, has been run into the ground. Even worse, it never even was a truly successful charity in the first place. Let me make it clear that this is being written by a massive Kanye West fan and not just a fan of his music. I think Kanye is an example of how to do many things right. He succeeds at many Running a charity, however, is not one of them.
The foundation, named after West’s late mother, was founded by West and Che “Rhymefest” Smith in the early 2000s before West had even released an album, with the intention of giving back to the youth of Chicago. The extent of Kanye’s involvement with the charity has never been clear.
The lack of Kanye’s involvement, however, became very clear last year when Rhymefest took to the internet to air some grievances. Rhymefest claims he made multiple attempts to get Kanye to fund the organization, only for Kanye to respond “F*ck the kids of Chicago”. Kanye’s wife, Kim Kardashian West, vehemently denied these claims and then took multiple stabs at Rhymefest for mismanaging the charity.
It’s hard to tell how the charity got to its current state or who is responsible for the decline. Tax filings from 2015, the most recent available, show revenue only just over $200,000 for the year; not a lot. Kim vowed that she and Kanye would re-assume control of the charity. Though she will have better luck starting from scratch, since this story made headlines, Donda’s House has changed its name to Art of Culture Inc.
Regardless of how the foundation got to this point, it’s disappointing that Kanye has not had more of an effort to support the charity, especially given that it is named for his late mother, whom he revered. Its also just terrible PR. If Kanye West is not interested in running the charity he started in his mothers name, that’s ok, but he should have distanced himself from the organization a long time ago. The saddest part is this story is probably the most media national coverage the charity in the past 10 years.
I do have the cut Kanye some slack because I have no idea what the internal state of Donda’s House has been over the course of all these years. He is an extremely busy man so its understandable that he never was involved in the day to day of the charity. And I think he is doing what he feels he can to give back to the world right now. Despite all of this, its still embarrassing that he let the charity get to such a sad state.
https://pitchfork.com/thepitch/the-state-of-disarray-at-dondas-house-kanye-and-rhymefests-nonprofit/
The Water Drop 