You Can White Label A Charity If You're An Athlete

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White-labeling a skincare line may land you in Forbes (btw Savannah James just sat down with the outlet to give an update on ReFrame), but white-labeling a family foundation is a legacy builder.

If you’re a professional athlete, having a charitable arm of your brand is a good thing. Obviously.

You’re donating money to causes you care about, but you’re also positioning yourself as a role model. Who doesn’t want that?

Here’s the thing: Launching a 501(c)(3) foundation is a process. It’s a lot of paperwork and takes time.

Rather than deal with the admin that comes with having your own 501(c)(3), many athletes and public figures will hire companies to do all of the work for them, which have their own 501(c)(3) status.

These companies act as umbrella organizations and fiscal sponsors to these public figures and causes.

This is not an uncommon practice and there are a lot of businesses that do this.

Companies like Edward Charles run the family foundations of athletes like Alex Morgan and Chris Paul. The Entertainment Industry Foundation works with Kevin Love, runs the Stand Up To Cancer initiative, and even Charlize Theron’s Africa Outreach Project.

I started digging into these plug-and-play companies for our most recent episode of The Sports Gossip Show, where we discovered that country singer Morgan Wallen runs his foundation through Edward Charles.

I get why these public figures would want to work with a company like Edward Charles or The Entertainment Industry Foundation.

It makes things so easy!

For athletes, in particular, having a charity is very good for their image and helps them potentially get nominated for prestigious awards in their sport, like the NFL’s Walter Payton Man of the Year Award, which “…recognizes an NFL player for his excellence on and off the field.”

Listen: There’s nothing wrong with an athlete having a foundation or working with a company like this to do the grunt work of getting it set up.

These companies exist because there is market demand.

The demand (at least in part) is coming from athletes and public figures who want to boost their image, do good in their communities, and make tax-deductible donations in the process.

I highly recommend reading up on some of the ways these athlete charities have fallen short, like this ESPN piece from 2013 or this one from earlier this year on a certain famous NFL star.

Oh, and listen to our episode that touches on the topic. 🫶🏼

Other Pointless Sports Gossip

• Oh oh: There could be scheduling issues at Penn Station if the New York Knicks make it to the NBA Finals during the World Cup. (via The Gothamist)

• Speaking of the World Cup, New York Gov. Kathy Hochul reduced the round-trip bus fare from $80 to $20 after public outcry. It should be free IMO. (via USA Today)

• Philadelphia 76ers president of basketball operations Daryl Morey was fired. Are we surprised? GO KNICKS. (via ESPN)

• I could write 10,000 words on the absurd press conference from Real Madrid president Florentino Perez that you could not write if you tried. (via The Athletic)

• The U.S. is denying reports that they denied visas for five Iraqi soccer players ahead of the World Cup. (via Front Office Sports)

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