Bryan Mineo may owe me an apology
While he threatened to sue, his non-profit's 2019 tax returns show I'm right
Back in April 2022, Bryan Mineo was quite upset with me.
His divorce attorney, Raj Matani, issued a threatening letter.
Raj issued a similar threat in a voicemail left on the same day: April 26, 2022.
It was all very serious; Raj believed that I had defamed his client, Bryan Mineo.
Given Raj’s years of work as a divorce attorney, I’m sure he knew exactly what he was talking about.
Bryan was still mad in November 2022, when he sat for a deposition.
Except Bryan does draw an exorbitant salary at One With the Ocean (OWO). Here is part of another deposition.
$150,000 seems like an obscene salary, but as Bryan noted, that was only if there were funds available. Raj insisted Bryan only made $89,300.96 in 2021.
Much better, but how much was raised. If $100,000 was raised, that’s still an exorbitant salary. OWO is supposed to be a non-profit, not a way to transfer money from donors to Bryan’s pocket: that’s not very charitable.
We finally have discovered some exact numbers; regrettably, these numbers have been available, and I didn’t find them until now.
OWO’s 2019 tax returns have been on-line. They show that in that year- OWO was started mid-year- the non-profit took in $75,080 and Bryan’s salary was $64,551.
Here is what I said in the original article.
In that deposition, Mineo, who did not respond to a phone call and email for comment, claimed that his salary falls in line with many non-profits of his size, but in fact, his salary falls in line with the salaries of leaders of much bigger non-profits.
It turns out I was right. Taking a $64,000 salary when you’ve raised $75,000 is way more than what is expected from salaries of non-profits.
Small organizations with less than $100,000 in assets might not have any paid employees at all, operating entirely through volunteers. On the other hand, a nonprofit with $30 million in assets may be able to pay the CEO $250,000 a year or more.
In fact, very little is spent on anything related to the non-profit, according to the 2019 tax returns.
This non-profit could run on less than $10,000 in donations. In fact, a similar non-profit does run without donations. Revolution Aquatics: both non-profits provide swimming lessons to kids in the inner city.
Only Bryan takes an exorbitant salary.
That’s why I felt I was owed an apology from Raj.
Raj,
I finally got official tax returns for OWO. In 2019- SMOG INC - Full Filing- Nonprofit Explorer - ProPublica- OWO took in $75,080 and Bryan's salary was $64,551. Now, isn't this exactly what I argued? Nearly all the donations went to his salary. As you may or may not know, Russell Wilson is facing criticism for something similar only in his non profit, it was some of his friends who received exorbitant salaries based on the amount it took in. Russell Wilson's charity responds to report questioning practices (denverpost.com)
Now, don't you owe me an apology?
Even though Raj has threatened to sue me, I think we’re friends now, so I was quite distraught when he did not respond back. This was a special occasion, so I called Bryan’s cell phone also looking for an apology; strangely, he did not respond either.
I don’t understand; I’m from the Vincent Vega school of apologies. You know what I’m talking about.
“Jules, did you ever hear the philosophy that once a man admits that he's wrong that he is immediately forgiven for all wrongdoings?” Vince said to Jules in Pulp Fiction.
Bryan and Raj weren’t willing to apologize, so I’m still mad.
When I interviewed OWO board member, Kari Stoever, she dismissed all my concerns.
In the article, I compared Bryan’s compensation to several non-profits, some of which had raised millions. Bryan suggested that raising approximately $200,000 would net him a salary of $150,000, though he also made several qualifiers. The non-profit has been operating since 2020; he’s referred to it as a “startup” so it seems like his salary is quite high.
Kari did not get into specifics of how the salary was determined, besides saying that the board approved it, and the donors were happy.
Kari is both a donor and board member so I’m sure that’s true. If Kari wants to make sure that Bryan is well compensated, she can just hire him herself and pay him whatever salary she wants, but running his salary through a non-profit is quite different.
The USA Today, also examining publicly available tax returns, recently investigated Russell Wilson’s charity, Why Not You Foundation, and found something similar.
Here is part of a report by Yahoo.
Denver Broncos quarterback Russell Wilson won the Walter Payton NFL Man of the Year award in 2020 partly because of his Why Not You Foundation. But in the two years since then, the organization spent twice as much money on its employees as it contributed to charitable activities, according to a six-month investigation by USA Today.
Wilson's foundation reported that it spent $600,000 on charity and $1.1 million on employee salaries and benefits from 2020 to 2021, according to federal tax records obtained by USA Today. In the simplest of terms, that means the Why Not You Foundation spent 21.3 cents of every dollar on charitable activities in 2020 and 27.2 cents of every dollar on charitable activities in 2021. Over the past eight years, only 39.6 cents of every dollar was spent on charity, per tax documents.
OWO is even worse. Approximately 86% of all donations went to Bryan’s salary in 2019. Less than $10,000 was spent on charitable endeavors, and that’s if you are being charitable- by including rent, gas, and marketing as part of the charitable endeavors.
I still cannot find tax returns for any other years, and Bryan could clear this up by sharing this. At this point, it seems OWO does little besides funnel money from donors to Bryan’s pocket.
Post-Script
Check out the previous articles in this series: Article 1, Article 2, Article 3, Article 4. Article 5, Article 6, Article 7, Article 8, and Article 9.
Check out the new fundraiser to help investigate more non-profits which don’t receive enough scrutiny.