MADISON, WISCONSIN - JUNE 11: Former NFL player Brett Favre waves as he walks onto the 18th green during the Celebrity Foursome at the second round of the American Family Insurance Championship at University Ridge Golf Club on June 11, 2022 in Madison, Wisconsin. (Photo by Patrick McDermott/Getty Images)
ESPN reports that Brette Favre’s organization is being accused of giving his alma mater, the University of Southern Mississippi (USM), $130,000 that was initially for cancer patients.
Reports state the school received the donations around the same time Favre allegedly unknowingly received welfare funds from the state of MS to also build a volleyball facility at USM, where his daughter also attended school.
Favre 4 Hope’s mission is to provide support “for disadvantaged and disabled children and breast cancer patients” and receives donations from donors to help that cause.
According to tax reports, the former NFL player’s organization donated $60,000 to the USM Athletic Foundation in 2018. But other organizations only received $10,000.
ESPN also say that documents they viewed show Favre 4 Hope donating $46,817 to USM Athletic Foundation in 2019. Special Olympics of Mississippi also received a donation of $11,000.
In 2020, $26,175 was given to USM by Favre 4 Hope, and no other organization received more than $10,000 that year.
ESPN also says that USM received a total of more than 45,000 while his daughter was enrolled between 2011-2017.
Bud Holmes, Favre’s attorney, told ESPN:
He has been very generous to Southern Miss since he played ball there. Those particular things [the donations in question] I don’t know, but I know he has always given back, something most athletes don’t do.
It is unclear whether this is a legal issue, but it may pose a problem ethically.
Laurie Styron, executive director of watchdog group Charity Watch spoke to ESPN, and stated there’s “an ethical obligation to spend funds the way donors intended.”
If the charity told donors it was raising money for breast cancer but then spends the resulting donations on an athletic facility, the people running the organization are not fulfilling their obligations to spend the nonprofit’s donations the way its donors intended, she said.
She continued to say that charities are not “personal piggy banks” and celebrities shouldn’t get a free pass.
Authorities have not charged Favre with committing a crime.
