'Anonymous' sent 23 donations at the behest of Mayor Bass in under 2 weeks

Transparency reports can leave some surprisingly basic questions unanswered: Who actually gave the money? What business did the donor have before City Hall? What exactly did Bass or her staff do to solicit the payment? If the money reached a nonprofit, what was it actually spent on?

Bass has not responded to multiple requests from The Center Square for comment.

Filings show the anonymous payments totaled $240,563 and were routed through the Pledgeling Foundation during a 12-day span in January 2025. Bass directed the funds to the nonprofit California Community Foundation (CCF) in support of fire relief and recovery efforts.

The Pledgeling Foundation (Pledge) describes itself as a 501(c)(3) donor-advised fund and charitable clearinghouse. Companies or individuals who want to donate money can use donor-advised funds like the Pledgeling Foundation to hide their identities and often earn generous tax deductions. 

Gregory Yorke, the chief financial officer and vice president of business operations for Pledge, declined an interview request but provided "some possibilities" via email.

"The City could be pulling donations that display as 'anonymous' on sites like this one (set up by CCF), which just means that the donor did not want their name made public," Yorke wrote. "Some people will choose to donate via a donor-advised fund precisely to stay anonymous. They are not anonymous to us, but they can opt to be shown as anonymous to the organization we regrant to, like CCF."

According to state regulations, elected officials have a duty to identify the underlying donors of behested payments to the California Fair Political Practices Commission (FPPC) with as much specificity as they know or can determine by asking the sponsoring organization. If the sponsoring organization will not identify the donor, FPPC rules allow politicians to disclose the payment without publicly revealing the name of the person or company behind the money.

According to Pledge, Bass likely did not request underlying donor information.

"I am not aware of any requests to share donor info with the Mayor’s office or ANY other 3rd party, whether related to CCF or any other charity – and I am sure that any such ask would have been run by me," Yorke wrote in an email. "We would never share donor info with any 3rd party, the Mayor’s office or whomever, unless we had the original donor’s permission."

California tightened its rules surrounding donor-advised funds in 2021 due to transparency concerns surrounding anonymous donors.

When a donor conceals his or her identity, the public cannot determine whether the donation was ethically appropriate, according to public transparency watchdog groups like California Common Cause. The public cannot check whether anonymous donors had a city contract, employed lobbyists or had another proceeding that was pending before Los Angeles at the time of donation.

"It speaks volumes," said Sean McMorris, who manages the transparency and ethics program for California Common Cause. "The less they share, the more the public is going to assume... The public sees these things. They're not stupid. They can connect the dots."

McMorris has referred to the system as “ripe for abuse.”

"All of these accountability laws? Most of them have loopholes because money always finds a way,” McMorris said. “This entire system is based on trust without verification. It's inherently flawed... and policymakers are very apprehensive to amend laws that regulate themselves.”

CCF has received more than $4.2 million from donors at the mayor’s behest. Bass does not serve on the CCF board, but the organization has become a partner “working alongside Mayor Karen Bass” on initiatives such as LA4LA, an affordable-housing partnership. 

Gilien Silsby, a spokeswoman for CCF, did not respond to a request for comment. 

Most nonprofits are required to make their tax returns public, revealing broad categories of revenue and expenses. Federal law does not require the release of donors’ names or addresses, and the filings do not provide a receipt-by-receipt accounting of expenses comparable to a government checkbook that would be public under the California Public Records Act.

While disclosure forms are intended to show the charitable purpose of a donation, the reasons listed are filled out by the middleman politician requesting the money. Nonprofit recipients are not necessarily legally bound by those descriptions. 

Minimizing the mayor’s involvement

The Mayor’s Office has not explained how Bass was capable of soliciting money from anonymous donors. 

The answer may be that Bass does not personally speak with most donors.

Bass has had “minimal to no involvement” in fundraising for the Mayor’s Fund for Los Angeles, according to the nonprofit’s president and chief executive officer Conway Collis. He made the comment to local news outlet L.A. Material in a story posted earlier this month. Nevertheless, Collis said Bass reports all gifts to the Mayor’s Fund as a behested payment via FPPC Form 803.

The statements from Collis have raised questions about whether Bass has been taking credit for donations in which she played no role. If a donation truly had no connection to Bass or her staff, the law would not require it to be reported as a behested payment in the first place.

The Form 803 is not an informal press release. Elected officials file them with the FPPC under penalty of perjury. A behested payment is, by definition, a payment connected in some way to an elected official’s request, suggestion or direction. According to the FPPC, politicians are legally required to disclose payments because of the elected official’s role in the transaction.  

Bass serves as an "advisor" to the Mayor's Fund but does not sit on the board. Despite the Mayor's Fund CEO describing Bass as having "minimal to no involvement" in fundraising, her efforts have been described differently by others depending on the context. The Mayor's Office has repeatedly credited Bass for helping raise or secure philanthropic dollars. The nonprofit's public-facing materials show Bass writing public letters to thank donors and emphasize to readers that their support is critical.

Melanie Mendoza, a spokeswoman for the Mayor’s Fund, spoke briefly with The Center Square by telephone but ultimately did not answer questions and stopped responding to requests for comment.

The Center Square has not found any anonymous donations to the Mayor’s Fund at Bass’ behest. 

“It’s the connecting of dots that's the problem. Just getting the dots can be difficult for most people, but linking them up, I think, is the hard part,” said Richard Briffault, a Columbia University law professor and campaign finance expert. “These are not (money) trails. These are webs. It’s like following the air molecules. It’s the water in which the fish swims.”