The NBC Bay Area Investigative Unit combed through The Key WorldWide Foundation’s (KWF) 990 IRS forms and found red flags related to the foundation's donations. Some of the donation descriptions appeared to be copied and pasted year after year and contained multiple misspellings.
In 2014 and 2015, KWF reported donating $18,486 and $4,809 to a program that was supposed to help teach at-risk youth to be entrepreneurs through the Better LA program. But the program director told NBC Bay Area that event only happened once, in 2013, and added KWF actually charged their nonprofit more than $1,200 for parking fees.
In 2016, KWF reported paying $1.9 million to various causes including a tutoring program for students in Oakland who were "underserved" by their districts.
When NBC Bay Area contacted the Oakland Unified School District, an official said the district had "never heard of the tutoring program and has no relationship with the Key Foundation."
KWF also claimed it helped fund dental work for Cambodian children. A dentist with the office that runs that program told us he's never heard of anything funded by KWF.
So what is the IRS going to do about all of this?
The agency wouldn't comment on whether it is looking into what the NBC Bay Area Investigative Unit found. But an online search shows KWF still has its tax exempt status as a charity.
