YouTuber Jirard (a.k.a. The Completionist) has been accused of keeping and hoarding charity donations

Submitted ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago⁩ by ⁨Clbull@lemmy.world⁩ to ⁨games@lemmy.world⁩

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rb0dMF1zHyA

Karl Jobst and SomeOrdinaryGamers (separate video linked here) have accused Jirard Khalil of lying to viewers about his charity.

The Open Hand Foundation, which was co-founded by Jirard in 2014, was set up to raise money for dementia charities after his dementia-stricken mother passed away. However, their yearly filings with the IRS suggest that none of this money has been donated to charity.

Jacque (Jirard’s brother) responded to Karl’s emails to the Open Hand Foundation claiming that they are still searching for the correct charity to partner with and disburse these funds, whereas Jirard claimed that he was only aware that none of the funds had gone out last year, yet is still openly promoting Open Hand on stream and claiming they support the UCSF, Alzheimer’s Association, the AFTD and many other charities.

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Brunbrun6766@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
I have only EVER heard nice and good things about Jirard, so I’m going to wait for some actual evidence before making any judgements.

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- TORFdot0@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
  Jirard’s Open Hands charity is a nonprofit so you can see their books through their tax filings.
  
  The most likely explanation is that Jirard is incredibly busy running a successful YouTube channel and so he had no idea how the charity is being run.
  
  When being made aware in 2022 he said he stepped in to make sure the money is being donated the way he believed it was. That wasn’t reflected in their 2022 tax filing but it still can be true for 2023, the public will find that out when those filings are made public.
  
  Karl Jobst is a really good content creator but he has a bit of a dramatic flair and tends to call things “illegal” when they actually aren’t and he did in this video again. Still I think that it’s important to make call outs like this. And I think that Jirard will make it right, now that he has been made aware. It’s clear from the filings that they aren’t committing fraud or skimming off the top. They just were sitting on the money probably because the task of running a charity was beyond their capabilities
  
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  - olmec@lemm.ee ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
    I feel like your comment is the most reasonable explanation. The charity sounds like it isn’t actively being run. It is probably a misunderstanding. I can see the charity paying for a group to run the charity, but because their income is very small, they want the charity ran frugally, and are paying the minimum required for management. The management is running the account, making sure taxes are filed, etc, but Jirard thought they were dispersing the funds too. They don’t talk much, other than a quick review at tax season, and the issue is never addressed, because both sides don’t interact enough to see the difference.
    
    This video really frustrated me, because Jobst is claiming things “Fraud” when the evidence he provided looks nothing like that. It isn’t great PR, but nothing so far looks remotely illegal, or even unethical. The internet just loves ragging on a “bad guy,” and are eager to get mad at the bad guy of the day.
    
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  - Cethin@lemmy.zip ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
    I’m certain he’s very busy. He’s busy with his channel, and he was also one of the cast of G4 for the short time it returned, and they were being overworked I think there, and he was still running his channel. This is why you hire people to handle these things though. It’s bad that it wasn’t handled properly, but not necessarily malicious. I’ll forgive a mistake, but if it turns out it was a scam that’s unforgivable.
    
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- naticus@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
  And on the other hand, Karl Jobst has always been very well researched in his videos, so I’m a big torn here. Definitely going to keep an eye on this and see where it goes before making my own conclusions.
  
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  - echo64@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
    He’s also someone who hangs around with nazis which is wild. He backed away from them when it all came out but then got chummy again so I got the fuck away from his content. Which is decidedly in the outrage bait genre these days.
    
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- andyMFK@reddthat.com ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
  …did you watch the video? You can see their contributions have been $0 year after year with their tax filings, and Girard admitted they haven’t donated anything.
  
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  - CmdrShepard@lemmy.one ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
    I don’t know who this guy is or anything about the situation other than what’s written here, but if he’s naming specific charities supposedly receiving these donations, it makes zero sense that they’d be “looking for a good charity to donate to.” If that were the case there’d be zero reason to name the ones they did.
    
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- code@lemmy.zip ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
  Easy to check the filings yourself. The research presented in the video is legit. There is no reason to have zero donations to charities since 2014. Zero
  
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- underwire212@lemm.ee ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
  What “actual evidence” are you waiting for? The filings are public (you can confirm literally right now) and Jirard admitted to the accusations himself? What else do you need?
  
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  - buddascrayon@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
    Welcome to the cult of personality. You could show them the guy’s fingerprints on the bloody knife at a murder scene and they would still ask for more conclusive evidence. 🙄
    
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- Clbull@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
  At the same time, Mutahar and Karl are very well respected content creators who do their research. They wouldn’t drop a bombshell like this if they didn’t have good sources.
  
  I too will wait to see how Jirard responds.
  
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  - dangblingus@lemmy.dbzer0.com ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
    Muta is…not very well respected. His reputation is more of an SEO opportunist.
    
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  - echo64@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
    Karl Jobst hangs out with nazis tho imgur.com/a/X7qLRXa how much respect do you get from that
    
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- blue_zephyr@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
  He’s already caught in a lie. Even if his unbelievable story that he, the director of the charity, was unaware the charity never did anything charitable for as long as it has existed, he still lied about knowing where the money went for all those years to the donators and CONTINUED TO DO SO AFTER HE ADMITTED HE KNEW ABOUT IT.
  
  Now he claims that he has been looking for worthy charities for over a year while he could easily just donate the money to the charities he has been talking about for years already.
  
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- Pseudonaut@lemmy.today ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
  The literal IRS tax filing isn’t enough evidence for you?
  
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  - frezik@midwest.social ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
    It points to something hinky, but it’s not complete proof. If it’s correct, then the money is just sitting in an account. It’s not going into anybody’s pockets (although the interest might?). The open question is if the IRS form is accurate to the amount of money just sitting there. If not, then this starts to look like criminal tax fraud.
    
    This could still come down to incompetence rather than malice. That said, the quote from the UCSF guy who was fired years before the charity existed does lean more towards malice.
    
    One other thing to note is that while Karl Jobst does have a legal background, it’s in Australia. The US is also a common law system, but there are enough differences that Karl might not realize what is and isn’t illegal.
    
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- toasteecup@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
  Considering the last time Jobst had a big report about someone’s “misdoings” we may be waiting for quite a while.
  
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  - toasteecup@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
    Dislike the comment all you want, it doesn’t make his way game heritage auctions insider trader exposé any less of a speculation piece.
    
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- PsychedSy@sh.itjust.works ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
  I kinda figure he’ll show the receipts, donate the cash and this will end up being nothing in the end.
  
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GenBlob@lemm.ee ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
Jirard never seemed like the type of guy to pull something like this and I really want to see his response but having the money just sit there (and hopefully still there) for years is a really bad look for him. At the very least he was just clueless but that’s still damaging taking into account all the lies on the charity streams

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- Carighan@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
  
  I really want to see his response
  
  Muta talks to him during his video, I think. Response is basically “I had no clue” mixed with some vague excuses, including some that clearly contradict what was said before.
  
  And then does the “But I don’t know how to fix this, so if you have any idea…”, as if, you know, donating the fucking money is such a difficult thing to do. And like Muta says, they don’t even detail their operating expenses, so any accountant could have a field day with that.
  
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- badaboomxx@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
  I was giving him the benefit of the doubt, but after listening to the call, basically he pass the bamlame on both because they found the issue, to the point of a ating that they did it for the views…
  
  After that I knew that something is off, then he replied with something like “what do you want me to do, give all the money away, that will only make me look bad if I do it right now”, but that was the goal of the donation.
  
  I mean, I wouldn’t see an issue if he was giving money but he didn’t and he was claiming to donated to several associations, which didn’t get a single dime.
  
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  - SendMeBakedBeans@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
    
    bamlame
    
    Woooah, Black Betty
    
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GrayBackgroundMusic@lemm.ee ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

claiming that they are still searching for the correct charity to partner

Isn’t that something you should do before you start a donation drive? Wtf?

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- Inmate@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
  No, you don’t understand, this is decades long process for most NPOs and charities. Some will wait for a century or more to find the right organization. Doctors without Borders, for instance, has a notoriously difficult time performing their duties as the borders keep changing over time as they wait for the right fit–many of their doctors are, in fact, within borders.
  
  My charity has a pile of gold that a dragon sits on until the dragon has found a CEO and board of trustees who can withstand 20k° of dragonfire. Until then, I’d be a fool not to collect interest, for charity of course.
  
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  - Strobelt@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
    And if you happen to use this interest and money to fund your company while you search for the right charities to support it’s OK. It’s all for charity sake after all!
    
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Chickenstalker@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
Why give money to 3rd parties? Simply donate directly to the orgs that you wish to support.

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- Carighan@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
  Yeah, unless it’s a specific fundraiser (as in, “We match all external donations up to X”), there’s no reason not to donate directly, in particular for cases where it’s easy enough to find a charity to directly support that isn’t someone’s personal tax deduction scheme.
  
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- frezik@midwest.social ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
  Usually because it’s part of a fundraiser like this one.
  
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- Pseudonaut@lemmy.today ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
  Because sometimes it’s nice to feel like you’re a part of a community. I get it.
  
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Silverseren@kbin.social ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
Funny enough, I think the most blatant and consequential example of this not being able to be taken in good faith is the use of the quote from the UCSF person on the charity website. A person who was fired for money problems 7 years before the charity existed.

No matter what explanation they can give for why they have a quote from him thanking them for donating to UCSF, I see no way for the explanation to be good.

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- BustinJiber@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
  Well, since they did not donate anything they couldn’t get a quote from anybody they donated to, that would be legitimate.
  
  I don’t know what was their endgame? It’s been going on since 2014, how could they not think this would have come out eventually.
  
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- stopthatgirl7@kbin.social ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
  Yeah, that was the part that got me. That makes it seem really scummy even of there is some kind of genuine explanation for this.
  
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  - 108@kbin.social ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
    Wonder what happened to all the interest it had built up
    
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Coreidan@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
Youtube/twitch is chock full of these people.

If you want to give your money away do it to an established charity where you know where the money is going.

People who give tons of money to twitch or YouTube streamers are goobers/suckers.

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- kilgore_trout@feddit.it ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
  I upvoted you because I share the sentiment, but if you spend 2 hours everyday entertained by a single person, then what’s bad in giving them money?
  
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  - zero_spelled_with_an_ecks@programming.dev ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
    If you want to give money to them, nothing. If you are giving them money to give to a charity and they don’t, that’s fraud. It’s the fraud that’s bad.
    
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CluckN@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
I see he’s going for the career downfall completion

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- Clbull@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
  In all honesty I’m shocked. Jirard is one of the few YouTubers I have (well, had) a tonne of respect for.
  
  Part of me wants to hope there’s a rational explanation for why he and his foundation sat on viewer donations for a whole decade whilst knowingly misleading donors that their funds were going to a charitable cause, but I really think this is going to end his career. Just wait until every other YouTuber picks this story up, or when it goes viral on Reddit…
  
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  - code@lemmy.zip ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
    Hint: there is no excuse thats legitimate. Ive busted local charities the same way.
    
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  - stopthatgirl7@kbin.social ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
    Same with feeling shocked. He always seemed so wholesome and I like his videos. If this is a bad at it seems, then yeah. His channel is going to start hemorrhaging subscribers.
    
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freebdsm@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
I watched the video. It’s definitely not looking good for Jirard but I’ll reserve judgement until he responds. These allegations are really bad.

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- stopthatgirl7@kbin.social ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
  I haven’t watched this video, but watched the one by No Ordinary Gamer, and he included responses he got from Jirard. It didn’t look great.
  
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HonorIsDead@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
Big “I pledged it” energy here.

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108@kbin.social ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
Even after he found out it didn’t go anywhere he was still shilling it as it was ALL going to charity. Using his dead mother too. As someone who’s Father died with Alzheimer’s, fuck this guy.

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GreenMario@lemm.ee ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
Watched it too, fan of both channels so this is strange.

There is a possibility that Jirard just wasn’t in the loop and didn’t know, but someone was (brother?) But regardless this is very suspect.

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- woelkchen@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
  As a board member of his own charity, he has to be aware of it at some point. Heck, he even acknowledged to know this since 2021 and still nothing happened.
  
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  - Lord_ToRA@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
    He quickly corrected himself and said 2022.
    
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- underwire212@lemm.ee ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
  At best, he didn’t know, which means he really didn’t care enough to even check to make sure the money was going to where it was supposed to be going? Like, the ONE thing a charity does? Even so, in 10 years, he wasn’t suspicious at all about not hearing back from these organizations (like a “Thank You for your donation letter”)? He didn’t give a shit about the charity, and used it to flaunt his own brand and ego. And that’s the BEST case scenario.
  
  Worst case scenario he is committing charity fraud…by using his own Mother as bait. Fucking deplorable if you ask me.
  
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  - 108@kbin.social ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
    He admitted to taking money out for reimbursement, how the hell did he not know?
    
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- badaboomxx@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
  Not sure, he told that he was aware on 2022, but in 2022 he said that rhey donated ro several associations.
  
  Everything is really weird.
  
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- Silverseren@kbin.social ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
  I don't see how there's any good explanation though for having a website quote thanking them for donating from someone who was fired for money issues 7 years prior.
  
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- Coreidan@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
  How in the fuck could he not be aware? It’s his channel isn’t it?
  
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  - blargerer@kbin.social ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
    It seems like his brother was running things at the charity. Its plausible he just asked his brother where the money was going and trusted him.
    
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HawlSera@lemm.ee ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
If it’s true. Fuck him

My grandfather is in the earliest stages of dementia and his side of the family dies of alzheimers a lot…

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chairman@feddit.nl ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
Since 2014 huh?

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Computerchairgeneral@kbin.social ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
Well, this is incredibly disappointing. I wasn't aware the Completionist had a charity dedicated to dementia, but I've respected his commitment to preserving gaming media and history. Still none of this looks good and I'm struggling to find a good reason as to why you would just sit on donations for nearly a decade without dispersing them.

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samus12345@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
Normal Boots seems to have attracted scummy people. Please don’t be one of them, PBG!

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dangblingus@lemmy.dbzer0.com ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
Muta is frothing at the mouth that he might seem like the sane party for once.

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spudwart@spudwart.com ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
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- ladytaters@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
  What did Dan do? I hadn’t heard about any controversy with him, but I’m not entirely surprised there is.
  
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  - spudwart@spudwart.com ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
    He did some really suspicious things regarding interacting with minors and waiting until they were 18 and then meeting them.
    
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zero_spelled_with_an_ecks@programming.dev ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
I wonder if Greg has any thoughts on this.

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