Lady Gaga's Born This Way Foundation: Bogus?

Christina Drill
March 13, 2014

Oof, this is definitely not Lady Gaga's year.

The Born This Way Foundation, which lists Lady Gaga's mom Cynthia Germanotta as president and CEO, is under fire for spending more money on consulting, social media, and salaries than on, you know, helping people.

Let's break this down for you so that you have a better understanding of what is going on and why it is so whack: the charity claimed net assets of $2.1 million, with donations coming out to $2.6 million. Expenses that had nothing to do with helping anyone included:

- $300,000 on strategic consulting (i.e. online marketing)

- $62,836 on stage productions

- $50,000 on social media

- $406,552 on legal

- $150,000 on philanthropic consulting

- $60,000 on research

- $59,000 on publicity

- $800,000 on "other" (?!)

- $5,000 on grants to organizations and individuals

PAUSE. Only $5,000 on actually helping people out? Surely this must have been embarrassing for the BTW Foundation to have to admit. If you aren't familiar with the Born This Way Foundation, its mission statement promotes "a safe community that helps connect young people with the skills and opportunities they need to build a kinder, braver world." The foundation believes that "everyone has the right to feel safe, to feel empowered and to make a difference in the world."

Nobody ever wants bad press, but this does come as a real blow to Gaga this year, whose long-awaited album "ARTPOP" was a verifiable dud.

I have no allegiance to Gaga but to be fair, this is the second year the Born This Way foundation has been in existence, so it's only natural that most of the money is going to set-up and outreach. If the expenses are the same in 2014, then we'll have a problem.