Jirard is a YouTuber who runs a channel known as the Completionist, where he plays games to 100% completion and reviews them based on how enjoyable the experience was.

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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[–] Clbull@lemmy.world 31 points 1 year ago (2 children)

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...

[–] code@lemmy.zip 15 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Hint: there is no excuse thats legitimate. Ive busted local charities the same way.

[–] Clbull@lemmy.world 10 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I think some explanations are worse than others.

Either the OHF have been incompetent with filing their annual returns, have been incompetent with actually ensuring the money goes to the right people, or there's some embezzlement going on.

[–] Silverseren@kbin.social 10 points 1 year ago

Well, Jirard admitted on the call in the video that he knew almost two years ago that the charity had never donated to anything. So strike those options off your list.

[–] stopthatgirl7@kbin.social 7 points 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.