#MeToo | Times Up Charities For Victims Spent Millions On Salaries & Luxury Conferences (Report)

Time’s Up, the organization set up to fight sexual harassment in the work place in the wake of the #MeToo movement, spent the bulk of its donations of executive salaries and only a fraction on legal costs to help victims in its first year, records show.

Tax filings show that the organization, which was founded by Hollywood celebrities and is made up from the Time’s Up Foundation and Time’s Up Now Inc., raised $3,670,219 in 2018 in its first year of operation. However, less than 10% was spent on helping those women who have experienced sexual harassment.

• Filings show $312,001 was spent on the legal defense fund while $1,407,032 was spent on salaries
• And more than $157,000 was spent on conferences at luxury resorts, and a further $58,395 was spent on travel

The organization brought in Hollywood heavyweights during the early days of its operation with Reese Witherspoon, Amy Schumer and Brie Larson holding positions on its board.

The tax filings detail the mission of Time’s Up Now as being:

To promote safe, fair and dignified work for women of all kinds. We work to make sure that women are free from harassment and other forms of discrimination on the job, have equal opportunity for economic security and can achieve the highest positions of power wherever they work.

But according to the Post, huge amounts were spent on executive salaries instead of legal support.

Salaries & Compensation

Lisa Borders was recruited to head Time’s Up but only spent four months at the organization after her 36-year-old son was accused of sexual misconduct. Nevertheless, the CEO managed to pull in $342,308 for her salary.

The Chief Marketing Officer, Rachel Terrace, drew a salary of $295,000 for her efforts during the organization’s first year. And treasurer Rebecca Goldman  Sdrew a salary of $255,327.

Tax filings detail how ‘3,000 individuals’ were helped by the Time’s Up Legal Defense Fund between January and June 2018 at a cost of $1,747,635.

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But most of the defense fund money came from grants that had been made to the Women’s Law Center, according to the New York Post.

Only a small proportion came from the Time’s Up organizations with the Time’s Up Foundation donating $132,575 to the fund and Time’s Up Now, the lobbying end of the charity, handing over $179,426.

Aside from executive compensation, tax filings show that Time’s Up Now, which is the lobbying arm of the organization, was noted to have spent $157,155 on conferences ‘designed to build community and spark critical conversations about gender equity’, according to the Post.

The conferences included a retreat at a luxury resort and spa in Ojai in June 2018 where a room for the night costs upwards of $400-a-night.

Despite having been in existence six months, those at the conference struggled to  decide what the organization’s mission statement should be, according to one attendee who spoke to the New York Post.

It later changed from ‘Let’s clean up Hollywood’ to ‘We’re going to help all workers.’

Aside from the pricey conferences at country retreats the organization details in its tax filings how it spent $288,007 on advertising, and $940,328 on legal costs. A huge chunk of that – $719,522 – went to Arnold & Porter Kaye Scholer, a law firm  that frequently lobbies on Capitol Hill.

A total of $112,435 was given to Rally, a public relations company, according to the tax filings.

Times Up Response

Times Up has responded to DailyMail.com and provided a lengthy statement regarding the allegations from Amanda Harrington, Vice President of Communications of TIME’S UP Now and the TIME’S UP Foundation.

TIME’S UP emerged in 2018 from an international moment of reckoning when women across industries and geographies came together and decided to turn their pain about workplace abuse into action to address systemic inequality. Our first and largest initiative was the TIME’S UP Legal Defense Fund, a groundbreaking legal advocacy program. The statement reads as follows:

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TIME’S UP Now raised millions of dollars for the TIME’S UP Legal Defense Fund by directing people to a GoFundMe page and to make significant pledges in 2018, all of which went directly to the program, which has been housed and administered at the National Women’s Law Center (NWLC) Fund LLC from the beginning in order to jumpstart direct support for survivors in need as quickly as possible.

Already, the TIME’S UP Legal Defense Fund has provided legal resources about sex harassment at work to over 5,000 people, three-quarters of whom identify as low-paid workers. In addition, the TIME’S UP Legal Defense Fund has committed $11 million dollars in direct legal and public relations support for survivors. While most of the TIME’S UP Legal Defense Fund-backed cases are ongoing, 86 percent of the cases that have been resolved have been resolved in favor of the workers the TIME’S UP Legal Defense Fund supported.

Recognizing that abuses of power like sex harassment are only possible in workplaces that are fundamentally unequal, we also formed the nonprofit organizations TIME’S UP Now and TIME’S UP Foundation to advocate for systemic change across all industries. 

Because 2018 was a start-up year for these organizations, it follows that our 2018 expenses were mostly related to our start-up costs, such as legal costs, and recruiting staff that would establish initiatives that would be launched in 2019, such as TIME’S UP Now’s successful push for the TIME’S UP Safety Agenda in New York, TIME’S UP Foundation’s research and policy division, the TIME’S UP Impact Lab, and our Who’s in the Room mentorship program, among others.

The nonprofit sector, like many women-dominated fields, has long-grappled with under-compensation of professional employees and staff. Our compensation and benefits structures are competitive, both to reflect our commitment to the values of fair and equal pay and to attract and retain the very best talent to work to address some of the toughest, most entrenched barriers to gender equity.

About Times Up

Time’s Up, which is based in California, was formed in the wake of the Harvey Weinstein scandal in 2017, which saw famous names including Oprah Winfrey speak out alongside journalist and activist Gloria Steinem and actresses Jessica Chastain, Rosanna Arquette and Mira Sorvino.

Sorvino who now sits on Time’s Up ‘global leadership board’ detailed how Weinstein sexually harassed her in a hotel room in 1995.

She helped spark the Me Too Movement, along with actress Alyssa Milano who tweeted and urged women to speak up if they had been sexually assaulted.

Meanwhile, Oprah’s rallying cry at the Golden Globes in January 2018 saw her make an impassioned speech from which the Time’s Up name was conjured.

‘For too long, women have not been heard or believed if they dared to speak their truth to the power of those men. But, their time is up. Their time is up. Their time is up.’

It led to thousands of women sharing details of the times they had been sexually assaulted.

Times Up has responded to DailyMail.com and provided a lengthy statement regarding the allegations over how money was spent in its first year of operation. It quoted:

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TIME’S UP emerged in 2018 from an international moment of reckoning when women across industries and geographies came together and decided to turn their pain about workplace abuse into action to address systemic inequality. Our first and largest initiative was the TIME’S UP Legal Defense Fund, a groundbreaking legal advocacy program.

TIME’S UP Now raised millions of dollars for the TIME’S UP Legal Defense Fund by directing people to a GoFundMe page and to make significant pledges in 2018, all of which went directly to the program, which has been housed and administered at the National Women’s Law Center (NWLC) Fund LLC from the beginning in order to jumpstart direct support for survivors in need as quickly as possible.

Already, the TIME’S UP Legal Defense Fund has provided legal resources about sex harassment at work to over 5,000 people, three-quarters of whom identify as low-paid workers. In addition, the TIME’S UP Legal Defense Fund has committed $11 million dollars in direct legal and public relations support for survivors. While most of the TIME’S UP Legal Defense Fund-backed cases are ongoing, 86 percent of the cases that have been resolved have been resolved in favor of the workers the TIME’S UP Legal Defense Fund supported.

Recognizing that abuses of power like sex harassment are only possible in workplaces that are fundamentally unequal, we also formed the nonprofit organizations TIME’S UP Now and TIME’S UP Foundation to advocate for systemic change across all industries. 

Because 2018 was a start-up year for these organizations, it follows that our 2018 expenses were mostly related to our start-up costs, such as legal costs, and recruiting staff that would establish initiatives that would be launched in 2019, such as TIME’S UP Now’s successful push for the TIME’S UP Safety Agenda in New York, TIME’S UP Foundation’s research and policy division, the TIME’S UP Impact Lab, and our Who’s in the Room mentorship program, among others.

The nonprofit sector, like many women-dominated fields, has long-grappled with under-compensation of professional employees and staff. Our compensation and benefits structures are competitive, both to reflect our commitment to the values of fair and equal pay and to attract and retain the very best talent to work to address some of the toughest, most entrenched barriers to gender equity.

Note: The above article has been republished from Dailymail.co.uk without edits. We have only changed the headline and sub titles in the same.

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