tw panic at the disco, brendon urie

the highest hopes foundation: a informational thread

recently i've seen a lot of discourse abt this foundation on the tl, so this is just a thread where i'll put down all the info that's publicly available, and hopefully clear up some questions.

first of all: the foundation was created in 2018. panic's official website says it was "created to support the efforts of non-profit organizations that lead, develop, and advocate support for human rights." that's rather vague.

speaking as someone who was a fan in 2018, i think the overall good-seeming intentions made people not doubt the foundation's mission. however, it's been two years, and we haven't actually seen any results, except a lot of money raised.

the foundation's official instagram page has never posted anything along the lines of "we put money into this, hey look at what happened." the closest we got to this was earlier in the year when they repost brendon saying he's redirecting the funds to anti-racist organizations.

this is a rather weird though, not just because we never got a follow-up on this, but also because the high hopes foundation's mission statement is, well, already that.

tagging those other organizations in the post is also the only time the foundation has actively promoted another charity.

when you look up 'highest hopes foundation' you'll most likely see a lot of articles talking about the money the foundation has raised. this is pretty much the only updates the foundation gives.

also worth noting: in panic's most recent post, they went back on their original message and did not mention any of the anti-racist organizations.

now, onto some more boring stuff: taxes. specifically, how charities benefit the already rich.

the charitable deduction is another one of those complex tax rules that appears well-meaning but is ultimately sinister. to quote Vox: "In the United States, if you donate money to charity, you can 'deduct' it on your taxes."

at first this seems like a good way to incentivize donating to charity. however, given that the rich will always have more to donate, this is an easy tax loophole to exploit. especially when you consider that a millionaire donating to their own charity counts as a deduction.

the ways brendon has encouraged people donate to the charity have all, or at least most, been through him. buying pftw tickets. buying prints. he's the middle man, who can then write off everything as a deductible. there's a reason you can only donate via the panic website.

final two points:

a hallmark of a legit charity is having a way of contacting them. the high hopes foundation does not have this.

outside of the blm post, the high hopes foundation has never listed another organization it supports.

this is all a long winded way of saying that whether the foundation is 'real' or not, if you donate, you will never know where that money went. and you're most likely helping brendon urie make money in the process.

end of thread!!