MrBeast took money from a Koch-linked organization for a YouTube video (exclusive) 

A nonprofit founded by right-wing billionaire Charles Koch was a “key contributor” to a recent video produced by MrBeast’s charity arm, according to those involved.

The video, titled, “ ">We Schooled Hundreds of Teachers,” was uploaded on April 30 to the YouTuber’s “Beast Philanthropy,” a second channel he uses to showcase charity work. MrBeast, whose real name is Jimmy Donaldson, lists the organization Stand Together as one of the main financial sponsors during the video, which showcases a private nonprofit middle school called the Ron Clark Academy in Atlanta.

Stand Together was founded by Koch in 2003 as the Seminar Network, which the New York Times has described as, “an array of political and advocacy groups” supported by wealthy conservatives. Koch still acts as chairman and co-CEO of the organization. According to a 2018 investigation from The Intercept, Koch’s network was instrumental in guiding the Trump administration’s policy initiatives, particularly its climate agenda.

Stand Together did not respond to a request for comment, but did announce its involvement in the MrBeast video via a series of press releases shortly after it went live on YouTube. In one of those releases, Beast Philanthropy executive director Darren Margolias was quoted as saying, “Stand Together believes exactly the same thing that we do: that when a person believes in themselves, they will accomplish things that they never dreamed that they would be able to.” 

Stand Together describes itself as a “philanthropic community” dedicated to tackling the “country’s biggest problems,” which range from education initiatives to what it calls “freedom-minded solutions.” Josh Cowen, a professor of education policy at Michigan State University and author of the upcoming book, The Privateers: How Billionaires Created a Culture War and Sold School Vouchers, describes Stand Together as an “umbrella organization for the Koch network.”

“I think of the Koch network in general—which Stand Together is a key part of, but not the only part—as almost like a big political party,” Cowen tells Fast Company.

Cowen was careful to stress that there doesn’t have to be anything necessarily underhanded or illegal about Stand Together’s involvement in Donaldson’s video. But both Charles and his brother, David, who died in 2019, have spent decades trying to dismantle public education in America. And working with arguably the biggest content creator in the world on a video about a very successful private school is certainly within the organization’s political interests. 

“Koch money, in general, as it enters the education space, can really be thought of as generally one of two flavors: ‘school choice’—school privatization, or what I would call efforts that undermine labor organizations,” Cowen says.

The Koch network’s interests extend far beyond education. According to a Guardian exposé published last year, Stand Together shifted its focus to the world of pop culture, setting up seemingly apolitical programs like Stand Together Music. As The Guardian points out, many artists that work with Stand Together may not even realize they’re accepting funding from Koch. Which may explain how left-leaning artists including Rage Against The Machine’s Tom Morello and Killer Mike have ended up working with them.

It’s also unclear whether Donaldson’s team knew. Beast Philanthropy did not respond to requests for comment. But the partnership with a Koch-affiliated charity is particularly notable given how much backlash Donaldson’s prior philanthropic projects have already received. 

In early 2023, Donaldson released a video on his main channel titled, “ ">1,000 Blind People See for the First Time,” for which he paid for a thousand patients to receive LASIK eye surgery. It caused a swell of backlash online branded “charity porn,” largely due to the fact that it looked and felt like a normal MrBeast video—complete with hyperactive swishing graphics and Comic Sans subtitles—but was, ostensibly, trying to raise awareness for a serious issue. Then, last November, Donaldson released another video on his main channel titled, “ ">I Built 100 Wells i ">n Africa.” Which, once again, generated backlash, with critics calling it “stunt philanthropy.” 

Following the well video, Donaldson, who has also been attacked in the past for simplifying and depoliticizing climate change for viral traffic, lashed out on social media. “I already know I’m gonna get canceled because I uploaded a video helping people, and to be 100% clear, I don’t care,” he wrote on X (formerly Twitter) at the time. “I’m always going to use my channel to help people and try to inspire my audience to do the same.”

As motivated as Donaldson is to use his massive platform for altruism, little is known about how his corporate structure operates. He currently has more than 240 million subscribers on his main YouTube channel and close to 25 million on the Beast Philanthropy channel. On the Beast Philanthropy website, it lists a nonprofit corporation, MrCharity, Inc., as the organization’s owner. Per its 2022 tax filing, the bulk of MrCharity’s revenue—more than $10 million—came from contributions, and it spent around $8 million in expenses.

Darren Margolias, a former real estate agent, joined Beast Philanthropy as executive director in 2021 and has little in the way of a public profile, aside from a few appearances on various podcasts and ">YouTube channels. (Margolias did not respond to a request for comment.)

Though Donaldson appears in interstitials throughout the Ron Clark Academy video, he, in fact, filmed those segments remotely. Margolias and Beast Philanthropy’s chief content officer, Dan Mace, traveled to the school for the video. 

The school at the center of the video, Ron Clark Academy, is an Atlanta-based nonprofit private school that was founded in 2007 by author, educator, and Survivor contestant Ron Clark. Donaldson’s video describes the school as a “utopia” and focuses on its program for training teachers from other schools. The academy is generally well-regarded among educators.

The MrBeast video was not the school’s first brush with internet virality. In 2018, a student was recorded dancing at his desk before the class went to see the premiere of Marvel’s Black Panther. (That student went viral again this week after graduating from Ron Clark.) And in 2019, it produced ">a music video with the rapper Ludacris.

As for how Donaldson ended up spotlighting the academy in the first place, it was all thanks to some old fashioned networking.

According to Kirk Brown, the academy’s communications director, Donaldson was introduced to Clark at an East Carolina University football game by Rich Balot, the CEO of Victra, an authorized Verizon retailer. Back in 2022, Donaldson partnered with East Carolina University to create an education program based around the creator economy and continues to have close ties with the university.

“MrBeast then had his philanthropy team visit [Ron Clark Academy] to learn more about our work,” Brown tells Fast Company, “at which point, there was interest in featuring our organization on their YouTube channel.”

And Victra, along with Chegg, an education technology company, would end up being the other two main sponsors of Donaldson’s April video about the academy. Brown says Stand Together, Victra, and Chegg raised a combined total of $500,000 for the video.

“The reaction to the video has been tremendous,” Brown says. “To see the video rake up millions of views in a short period of time gave us great joy to have our organization featured on a platform such as [MrBeast’s].”

And it doesn’t seem like Donaldson has any plans to change his current approach to using his platform for fundraising going forward. In early May, he posted on X, “Hey billionaires! I’d love to take some of your unfathomable wealth and use it to complete whatever philanthropic project that matters to you for a video on our Beast Philanthropy channel!”

https://www.fastcompany.com/91135719/mrbeast-charles-koch-youtube?partner=rss&utm_source=rss&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=rss+fastcompany&utm_content=rss