Jirard never seemed like the type of guy to pull something like this and I really want to see his response but having the money just sit there (and hopefully still there) for years is a really bad look for him. At the very least he was just clueless but that's still damaging taking into account all the lies on the charity streams
I really want to see his response
Muta talks to him during his video, I think. Response is basically "I had no clue" mixed with some vague excuses, including some that clearly contradict what was said before.
And then does the "But I don't know how to fix this, so if you have any idea...", as if, you know, donating the fucking money is such a difficult thing to do. And like Muta says, they don't even detail their operating expenses, so any accountant could have a field day with that.
I was giving him the benefit of the doubt, but after listening to the call, basically he pass the blame on both because they found the issue, to the point of saying that they did it for the views...
After that I knew that something is off, then he replied with something like "what do you want me to do, give all the money away, that will only make me look bad if I do it right now", but that was the goal of the donation.
I mean, I wouldn't see an issue if he was giving money but he didn't and he was claiming to donated to several associations, which didn't get a single dime
Edit: big fingers small cellphone.
I have only EVER heard nice and good things about Jirard, so I'm going to wait for some actual evidence before making any judgements.
Jirard’s Open Hands charity is a nonprofit so you can see their books through their tax filings.
The most likely explanation is that Jirard is incredibly busy running a successful YouTube channel and so he had no idea how the charity is being run.
When being made aware in 2022 he said he stepped in to make sure the money is being donated the way he believed it was. That wasn’t reflected in their 2022 tax filing but it still can be true for 2023, the public will find that out when those filings are made public.
Karl Jobst is a really good content creator but he has a bit of a dramatic flair and tends to call things “illegal” when they actually aren’t and he did in this video again. Still I think that it’s important to make call outs like this. And I think that Jirard will make it right, now that he has been made aware. It’s clear from the filings that they aren’t committing fraud or skimming off the top. They just were sitting on the money probably because the task of running a charity was beyond their capabilities
And on the other hand, Karl Jobst has always been very well researched in his videos, so I'm a big torn here. Definitely going to keep an eye on this and see where it goes before making my own conclusions.
...did you watch the video? You can see their contributions have been $0 year after year with their tax filings, and Jirard admitted they haven't donated anything.
I don't know who this guy is or anything about the situation other than what's written here, but if he's naming specific charities supposedly receiving these donations, it makes zero sense that they'd be "looking for a good charity to donate to." If that were the case there'd be zero reason to name the ones they did.
Easy to check the filings yourself. The research presented in the video is legit. There is no reason to have zero donations to charities since 2014. Zero
What “actual evidence” are you waiting for? The filings are public (you can confirm literally right now) and Jirard admitted to the accusations himself? What else do you need?
At the same time, Mutahar and Karl are very well respected content creators who do their research. They wouldn't drop a bombshell like this if they didn't have good sources.
I too will wait to see how Jirard responds.
He's already caught in a lie. Even if his unbelievable story that he, the director of the charity, was unaware the charity never did anything charitable for as long as it has existed (this already makes him guilty of failing the donators by incompetence), he still lied about knowing where the money went for all those years to the donators and CONTINUED TO DO SO AFTER HE ADMITTED HE KNEW ABOUT IT.
Now he claims that he has been looking for worthy charities for over a year while he could easily just donate the money to the charities he has been talking about for years already.
claiming that they are still searching for the correct charity to partner
Isn't that something you should do before you start a donation drive? Wtf?
No, you don't understand, this is decades long process for most NPOs and charities. Some will wait for a century or more to find the right organization. Doctors without Borders, for instance, has a notoriously difficult time performing their duties as the borders keep changing over time as they wait for the right fit--many of their doctors are, in fact, within borders.
My charity has a pile of gold that a dragon sits on until the dragon has found a CEO and board of trustees who can withstand 20k° of dragonfire. Until then, I'd be a fool not to collect interest, for charity of course.
And if you happen to use this interest and money to fund your company while you search for the right charities to support it's OK. It's all for charity sake after all!
It is standard practise to use part of the donations for expenses and administration after all
Funny enough, I think the most blatant and consequential example of this not being able to be taken in good faith is the use of the quote from the UCSF person on the charity website. A person who was fired for money problems 7 years before the charity existed.
No matter what explanation they can give for why they have a quote from him thanking them for donating to UCSF, I see no way for the explanation to be good.
I see he’s going for the career downfall completion
In all honesty I'm shocked. Jirard is one of the few YouTubers I have (well, had) a tonne of respect for.
Part of me wants to hope there's a rational explanation for why he and his foundation sat on viewer donations for a whole decade whilst knowingly misleading donors that their funds were going to a charitable cause, but I really think this is going to end his career. Just wait until every other YouTuber picks this story up, or when it goes viral on Reddit...
Hint: there is no excuse thats legitimate. Ive busted local charities the same way.
I think some explanations are worse than others.
Either the OHF have been incompetent with filing their annual returns, have been incompetent with actually ensuring the money goes to the right people, or there's some embezzlement going on.
Well, Jirard admitted on the call in the video that he knew almost two years ago that the charity had never donated to anything. So strike those options off your list.
Same with feeling shocked. He always seemed so wholesome and I like his videos. If this is a bad at it seems, then yeah. His channel is going to start hemorrhaging subscribers.
Youtube/twitch is chock full of these people.
If you want to give your money away do it to an established charity where you know where the money is going.
People who give tons of money to twitch or YouTube streamers are goobers/suckers.
I upvoted you because I share the sentiment, but if you spend 2 hours everyday entertained by a single person, then what's bad in giving them money?
Big "I pledged it" energy here.
I watched the video. It's definitely not looking good for Jirard but I'll reserve judgement until he responds. These allegations are really bad.
I haven’t watched this video, but watched the one by No Ordinary Gamer, and he included responses he got from Jirard. It didn’t look great.
I'd say watch both videos, Muta's video is a little more in depth, but it is just odd to hold onto the money for so long. At least they aren't spending it on nonsensical things, but if they get audited, that will be a big problem with how they filled out their taxes. I'm hoping for the best though, I do like Jirard and I can't imagine how it is with your parent/family going through that
It's more than odd, it's deception. He has been talking to his donators as if the money has been going to charities for years. He has named specific charities that haven't received a single dime from them.
Watched it too, fan of both channels so this is strange.
There is a possibility that Jirard just wasn't in the loop and didn't know, but someone was (brother?) But regardless this is very suspect.
As a board member of his own charity, he has to be aware of it at some point. Heck, he even acknowledged to know this since 2021 and still nothing happened.
At best, he didn’t know, which means he really didn’t care enough to even check to make sure the money was going to where it was supposed to be going? Like, the ONE thing a charity does? Even so, in 10 years, he wasn’t suspicious at all about not hearing back from these organizations (like a “Thank You for your donation letter”)? He didn’t give a shit about the charity, and used it to flaunt his own brand and ego. And that’s the BEST case scenario.
Worst case scenario he is knowingly committing charity fraud…by using his own Mother as bait. Fucking deplorable if you ask me.
If it's true. Fuck him
My grandfather is in the earliest stages of dementia and his side of the family dies of alzheimers a lot...
Well, this is incredibly disappointing. I wasn't aware the Completionist had a charity dedicated to dementia, but I've respected his commitment to preserving gaming media and history. Still none of this looks good and I'm struggling to find a good reason as to why you would just sit on donations for nearly a decade without dispersing them.
Since 2014 huh?
Even after he found out it didn’t go anywhere he was still shilling it as it was ALL going to charity. Using his dead mother too. As someone who’s Father died with Alzheimer’s, fuck this guy.
Muta is frothing at the mouth that he might seem like the sane party for once.
Normal Boots seems to have attracted scummy people. Please don't be one of them, PBG!
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