Hollywood Women’s Group Times Up Spent Whopping $2.4 Mil on Compensation in 2019, Just $19K in Grants

Time’s up for Time’s Up. Really.

Last November, the Daily Mail reported that the Hollywood women’s advocacy group spent lavishly on themselves in their first year of operation but did little for other people. The Mail story cited $1.4 million on compensation, among other things. It was outrageous.

But now Time’s Up has posted its financial report for 2019, and it’s worse! Salaries and compensation totaled $2.4 million —  including almost $600,000 to get rid of CEO Lisa Borders, formerly the head of the WNBA, after her son was accused of groping a woman (that’s putting it nicely) during a “healing” session. (He hired Kevin Spacey’s lawyer to defend him, but Borders left with a neatly wrapped exit package.)

Time’s Up now, according to their website, has an all new staff, with Tina Tchen running the show. But I also count a whopping 25 main employees, all with fancy titles, and no doubt six figure salaries.

The list of 2019 salaries staggers the imagination for a start up group dedicated to advocacy work. Currently, Time’s Up is shooting fish in a barrel, attacking the Hollywood Foreign Press Association for not having black members. Duh. They’re acting like this is a revelation.

In 2019, Time’s Up also paid Washington DC law firm Arnold & Porter almost half a million dollars in legal fees —  $454,693. (The only good thing you can say about that was that it was a decrease from 2018’s $719,000.) They also paid a New York recruiter $165,000. Why? It couldn’t have been that hard to find women qualified to come in and make six figures to do nothing. At least in 2019 there’s no listing for a fee to a PR firm. In 2018, Time’s Up paid $112,435 to Rally Public Relations.

And nothing is what all these people did. In the end, after raising $1.7 million (half of what they reported in 2018) they donated just $19,342 to the National Women’s Law Center. That was their sole grant. And it was down from the almost $180,000 they gave away in 2018.

The filed Form 990 is full of more discrepancies than  I usually see on these things. There are plenty of contradictions from one page to the next. And what is the point of creating an advocacy group that helps no one but spends over $400,000 on travel and rent? I must be missing the point.

The group’s payroll taxes– $23,287 — were higher than their one donation to a women’s group.

I don’t get it. I don’t know who’s supporting this group or giving them money, but I’d maybe stop it immediately and give it a food bank. This is ridiculous.