Cancer Initiative Started By Joe Biden In 2017 Spent Millions On Salaries — Little On Research
Several media organizations confirmed that a cancer charity initiated by Joe Biden spent most of the contributions it collected on salaries instead of research as it was intended.
The New York Post was the latest to report that based on tax filings, Biden’s charity “spent millions on salaries [and] zero on research.”
“The Biden Cancer Initiative was founded in 2017 by the former vice president and his wife Jill Biden to ‘develop and drive implementation of solutions to accelerate progress in cancer prevention, detection, diagnosis, research and care and to reduce disparities in cancer outcomes,’” the publication said citing the initiative’s IRS mission statement.
It noted, however, that it “gave out no grants in its first two years, and spent millions on the salaries of former Washington DC aides it hired.”
The Biden Cancer Initiative reportedly gathered US$4,809,619 in contributions from 2017-2018. It spent a staggering US$3,070,301 just on salaries in those two years.
The non-profit also recorded US$56,738 in expenses for conferences and another US$59,356 in travel. The year after, travel expenses ballooned to US$97,149 as the charity released US$742,953 on conferences, according to the New York Post report.
The charity’s president Gregory Simon alone — a former Pfizer executive who headed up the cancer task force of the Obama administration — was paid US$429,850 in fiscal 2018 (from July 1, 2018 to June 30, 2019), according to the report, which was based on the organization’s most recent federal tax filing.
Under “grants distributed,” however, the Biden Cancer Initiative listed “zero” which meant no amount was spent for this purpose.
Simon was only one of the several highly-paid executives of the Biden Cancer Initiative.
Meanwhile, The Washington Free Beacon via Breitbart News broke the same report in June.
“The cancer research non-profit that former Vice President Joe Biden created after leaving the Obama administration in 2017 spent two thirds of its money on staff, with top executives getting as much as six-figures, before shuttering,” the earlier report said.
The Washington Free Beacon said the Biden Cancer Initiative directed 65% of its total expenditures to staff compensation between 2017 and 2018.
“That is well above the 25% charity watchdogs recommend nonprofits spend on administrative overhead and fundraising costs combined,” it added, further emphasizing that the charity started by Biden “did not cut a single grant to any other group or foundation during its two-year run.”
The Biden Cancer Initiative was put in place to continue the work of the Obama-led Cancer Moonshot Task Force which Biden led together with Gregory Simon shortly after the death of his son, Beau Biden from brain cancer.
At the end of the Obama-Biden administration, the charity that the former VP built continued to operate to provide “urgent” solutions to treating cancer.
The Biden Cancer Initiative reportedly shuttered its operations after Biden and his wife, Jill Biden, stepped down to prepare for the former VP’s presidential bid.