PORTLAND Ore. (KPTV) – Flipcause is a California based startup, responsible for collecting and distributing donation payments to nonprofits they partner with. At least, that’s what they are supposed to do.
The company filed for bankruptcy last year, leaving thousands of nonprofits across the country out millions of dollars in donations.
Garden of Peace is one of those nonprofits. The Portland local organization has supported the trans, queer, and BIPOC community through a diverse set of offerings for 13 years, operating on a shoestring budget.
Michael Battle is the founder and director of the nonprofit, and says they depend heavily on donations for their funding. So, when Flipcause reached out to him, offering help, Michael was interested.
“Flipcause reached out to us and said that they were working with grassroots organizations,” says Battle. “They were specifically looking for these small organizations that only had a couple of staff members.”
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Though skeptical at first, Flipcause had already worked with a list of respectable nonprofits. Ultimately Battle was persuaded by the promise of instant fund transfers for a low service fee; something he says felt almost too good to be true.
They started working together in July of 2024, and their partnership was going well at first. But in December, the red flags started to rise. He says the company would make excuses as to why the transfers were no longer instant but would instead take over 10 days for only a fraction of the donations to be transferred.
“Time would go by and I realized like, oh, it’s been a month and I haven’t heard anything.”
After filing for bankruptcy in December of last year, the bankruptcy filings revealed the company owed almost $30 million to 3,200 nonprofits across the country. Additionally, the filings showed one of the founders of the company, Emerson Rayn, paid himself and his companies more than $3 million in the year leading up to declaring bankruptcy.
“For the CEO, for the administration at flip cause to say this was our money to do what we want, we absolutely know that’s not the truth,” says Battle.
Battle is the only staff member at Garden of Peace, and has not been able to pay himself because of the lack of donor funds. They have also had to shut down their studio space because they couldn’t pay the rent. In total, they are out over $3,000.
“Three thousand doesn’t sound terrible, right? But for us being a black, trans, queer art organization, there are such demands from the community for housing, for food, for transportation, basic everyday necessities that we were not able to fulfill during this time.”
Battle says they have been through rough times before, and he has hope for Garden of Peace’s future.
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