How the SPLC’s Biased ‘Hate Map’ Has Quietly Influenced Billions of Dollars in Corporate Giving

The Southern Poverty Law Center, which was recently indicted on federal charges for quietly paying more than $3 million to informants with several extremist groups, has been discreetly influencing corporate giving at more than 200 Fortune 1000 companies, according to a corporate watchdog.

While the SPLC’s legal problems are only just beginning, conservatives have been sounding the alarm about the group’s left-wing bias and undue influence for a long time. The SPLC was founded in 1971 and got its start investigating white supremacist groups like the Ku Klux Klan, but has since expanded its focus to conservative and Christian organizations, which it has included on its lists of hate groups and labeled as “extremists.”

These designations — which have impacted conservative groups including Turning Point USA and the Family Research Council — have had real-life consequences. An armed attacker who targeted the FRC in 2012 explicitly cited the SPLC’s website as his reason for targeting the conservative group.

The FBI announced last year that it would end its longstanding relationship with the law center because of its smearing of conservative groups. FBI Director Kash Patel accused the SPLC of inspiring violence against Americans with its “hate map.” The change came after the assassination of conservative activist Charlie Kirk; a 2024 report from the SPLC called Kirk’s group, Turning Point USA, a “case study of the hard right.” (The SPLC’s tracking of extremism does not include any leftist organizations.)

But the group has also had a lesser-known influence on billions of dollars in corporate giving, thanks to its biased “hate map,” according to the 1792 Exchange, a nonprofit dedicated to preserving freedom and bringing ideological balance back to public corporations. An investigation by the 1792 Exchange found that Benevity, a major corporate charitable giving platform, has relied on the SPLC’s hate map to help steer donations toward left-wing organizations and away from conservative and faith-based organizations that the SPLC has flagged as “hateful.”

The SPLC did not respond to a request for comment regarding alleged bias in the methodology behind its “Hate Map.”

Benevity, which processes billions of dollars in employee donations and corporate matching gifts annually, has implemented a filter for companies using their platform that relies on the SPLC’s discredited “Hate Map” and “Hate List” to unfairly disqualify mainstream religious, conservative, pro-life, and family advocacy groups.

“This ongoing reliance allows SPLC to dictate corporate philanthropy, silencing mainstream religious, conservative, pro-life, and family advocacy groups while permitting ideologically aligned organizations to receive support,” the 1792 Exchange warns.

Benevity’s then-CEO Kelly Schmitt gave a presentation in 2021 bragging that the platform had “vetted” almost “2 million nonprofits” and acknowledged the use of the SPLC’s hate list as part of that vetting process, according to an archived copy of the slideshow first shared by the Daily Signal.

The 1792 Exchange also found that the filter is built into Benevity’s software as the default, but can be turned off — though Benevity disputes that the filter is a default setting.

“Benevity is not directly affiliated with the SPLC and clients retain discretion over their nonprofit eligibility criteria,” a company spokesperson said. “Benevity clients have the option to use various third-party data sets, including the SPLC’s annual Hate Map, to determine nonprofit eligibility within their programs. Our current model is designed so this option is not a default setting and is at the sole discretion of clients.”

The companies that 1792 Exchange has spoken to that use Benevity were unaware of the filter, 1792 Exchange CEO Douglas Napier said.

“How many millions of dollars have been redirected to left-leaning organizations while worthwhile organizations have been deprived of those matching funds?” Napier asked.

The 1792 Exchange has identified major companies from a variety of sectors that use Benevity, and may therefore rely on the SPLC filter to determine their charitable giving, including Adobe, Amazon, Alphabet, Apple, Best Buy, BlackRock, Blackstone, Costco, Coca Cola, Citigroup, Cisco Systems, Dell, Discover, Fox Corporation, HP, IBM, Lowe’s, Mastercard, McDonald’s, Netflix, News Corp, Nike, Oracle, PayPal, Pfizer, Starbucks, UPS, Visa, and Zoom.

“We’ve always known [the SPLC] to be biased and very, very left-of-center and progressive with their approach and therefore they pick winners and losers based on primarily political ideology, rather than real facts,” Napier told NR.

The 1792 Exchange has called on at least 225 major companies that are using the Benevity platform to either disassociate themselves with the platform or ensure that Benevity is no longer using the SPLC-based filter. The group has also called on Benevity to disavow the SPLC and pledge that they will no longer rely on the group for its filtering system, though it has not received a response.

“Every company that has any connection with the SPLC ought to be reviewing their charitable giving programs to make sure that the SPLC is not influencing or otherwise dictating where those charitable dollars go to,” Napier said.
”I think there are a lot of companies, as we’ve talked to them directly, many are unaware. Now they have no excuse. It is front and center. 
They need to take action to make sure that they are not relying upon the discredited organization’s hate map filter.”

Acting U.S. Attorney Todd Blanche announced charges against the SPLC last week, alleging it had defrauded donors by using their money to secretly pay informants inside extremist organizations.

Blanche says the SPLC was “doing the exact opposite of what it told its donors it was doing — not dismantling extremism, but funding it.” He also accused the group of “manufacturing racism to justify its existence.”

The Charlottesville “Unite the Right” rally became an inciting incident for a massive rush of support for the SPLC — and prosecutors now say the group paid more than $270,000 to an informant who was a member of the leadership group that planned the event.

One “field source” for the SPLC “was a member of the online leadership chat group that planned the 2017 ‘Unite the Right’ event in Charlottesville, Virginia, and attended the event at the direction of the S.P.L.C,” according to prosecutors. The antisemitic rally had hundreds of participants and saw a protester drive his car into a group of counterprotesters, killing one woman and leaving at least 19 others injured. The rally was held amid controversy over the removal of Confederate monuments, which local governments opted to take down in the wake of the Charleston church shooting. In 2015, a white supremacist shot and killed nine people at Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church.

The SPLC informant, whose salary from the group was paid out between 2015 and 2023, “made racist postings under the supervision of the S.P.L.C. and helped coordinate transportation to the event for several attendees,” prosecutors said.

The SPLC’s revenue increased by roughly $80 million in the wake of the rally, from $51 million in October 2016 to $133 million in October 2017, according to Fox News.

And there’s been no shortage of direct corporate donations to the SPLC, particularly in the wake of Charlottesville. Apple announced a $1 million donation to the group in 2017, along with an employee match of two-to-one. At that time, JPMorgan Chase also pledged $500,000 to the SPLC to support “tracking and fighting hate groups.”

Cisco, meanwhile, donated $1.6 million to help the SPLC launch their tolerance.org website, which hosts the infamous hate map.

Meanwhile, Amazon, Google, and then-Twitter partnered with the SPLC to help identify and address “hate speech” on their platforms.

Prosecutors say SPLC also paid another informant with a neo-Nazi group more than $1 million over the course of nine years. In 2014, that informant stole 25 boxes of documents from an unidentified violent extremist group — documents that SPLC later used to create a report about the group.

Now, the group faces charges of wire fraud, false statements to a bank, and conspiracy to commit money laundering.

Bryan Fair, SPLC’s interim chief executive, dismissed the charges as “false allegations.” He said the indictment “will not shake our resolve to fight for justice and ensure the promise of the civil rights movement becomes a reality for all.”

He also defended the SPLC’s practice of working with paid informants, though he said the group no longer does so. He said informants in the past had “risked their lives to infiltrate and inform on the activities of our nation’s most radical and violent extremist groups” and in doing so had helped save lives.