Two nonprofits associated with the “Belonging Fund,” announced by Nashville Mayor Freddie O’Connell in response to a federal immigration enforcement operation in May, received grants from the Foundation to Promote Open Society (FPOS), a private foundation primarily funded by billionaire investor George Soros.
Grants from FPOS to both the Community Foundation of Middle Tennessee (CFMT), which O’Connell announced would operate the fund, and the Tennessee Immigrant and Refugee Rights Coalition (TIRRC), which seeded the “Belonging Fund,” are visible in the grant database made public by the Open Society Foundations (OSF), another entity founded and primarily funded by Soros.
According to the database, in CFMT was awarded a two-year grant for $150,000 by FPOS so that it might “develop and launch a new initiative, the Nashville Economic Empowerment Initiative (NEEI), to redevelop key neighborhoods without displacing the existing low-income families living in public housing.”
It is unclear whether the effort was ultimately successful, as there is no mention of NEEI currently available on the CFMT website.
Similarly, as The Tennessee Star reported as early as 2018, the OSF database shows TIRRC received a 7-month grant for $50,000 from FPOS the previous year.
In the description of the grant, TIRRC said it would use the money for a “multi-pronged community organizing effort” that would “respond to and prevent hate and harassment of immigrants, refugees, and Muslims in Tennessee.”
O’Connell announced the “Belonging Fund” last month as a partnership between Nashville and CFMT, and the mayor’s office said that TIRRC was one of three nonprofits that provided more than $30,000 in seed funding to the fledgling fund.
While the mayor has insisted that no taxpayer dollars were given to the fund, Fox 17 Nashville reported on Tuesday that CFMT received a donation in O’Connell’s name.
Additionally, The Star previously reported that Metro Nashville awarded nearly $3 million to TIRRC in federal taxpayer dollars given to Metro as a result of former President Joe Biden’s American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) of 2021, with TIRRC purportedly using the money to “provide essential services to keep families united and increase access to opportunities, scale TIRRC’s staff and program capacity, promote community education and legal services,” and “invest” in another nonprofit, during the COVID-19 pandemic.
U.S. Representative Andy Ogles (R-TN-05) confirmed last week the start of a congressional investigation into O’Connell’s actions in response to the May immigration enforcement in Nashville, which also included an executive order mandating that Metro employees report interactions with federal immigration officials to his office and the Office of New Americans.
The mayor has maintained that Metro did nothing wrong, but confirmed last week that his office will “respond appropriately to all inquiries.”
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Tom Pappert is the lead reporter for The Tennessee Star, and also reports for The Pennsylvania Daily Star and The Arizona Sun Times. Follow Tom on X/Twitter. Email tips to [email protected].
Photo “George Soros” by World Bank Photo Collection. CC BY-NC-ND 2.0.
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