State charity regulators enter the final stretch of 2026 with an enforcement docket that looks less like routine registry housekeeping and more like a coordinated campaign. In the past six months, attorneys general in New York, California and Alaska have filed actions touching everything from a 30-acre “veterans retreat” in western New York to the largest online fundraising platforms in the country. Federal prosecutors, meanwhile, have brought charges in a case involving more than $23 million in public homelessness funds. And the Treasury Department has signaled that the Form 990 itself — the disclosure document that underpins nearly all public scrutiny of the sector — is due for an overhaul.
Here is what the filings and court records show this week.
New York sues purported veterans’ charity over Airbnb proceeds
New York Attorney General Letitia James filed suit on August 12 against Healing for Heroes – A Disabled Veteran’s Retreat and Wooded Oasis, Inc., alleging the Chautauqua County organization solicited donations for disabled-veteran retreats that it largely did not provide. According to the petition announced by the attorney general’s office, the organization has hosted four retreats since its 2024 founding, all of them attended exclusively by board members and their families and friends.
The dollar figures in the filing are small by enforcement standards but instructive. The office alleges that board president Thomas Nelsen and board secretary-treasurer Jennifer Milchanoski-Nelsen, who own the property, listed it on Airbnb on at least 32 occasions during 2024 and 2025 while representing that proceeds would go to the charity, and instead retained $33,312.16 in rental income. Of roughly $100,000 in donations the organization took in, filings indicate nearly half went to property maintenance and improvements — a bathroom renovation and a new deck among them — plus meals, shopping, vehicle repair and fuel for board members.
The structural failures alleged are the ones charity regulators cite most often: no functioning board, no conflict-of-interest policy, undocumented in-kind donations including multiple ATVs and an SUV, and cash and Venmo contributions deposited into personal rather than organizational accounts. The office also alleges the organization began soliciting in 2024 before registering as a charity in New York. James is asking the court to dissolve the organization, bar the Nelsens from charity leadership statewide, and impose penalties of $1,000 per charities-law violation and $5,000 per violation of the FAIR Business Practices Act. These are allegations in a pending civil action; the defendants have not filed a response on the public docket, and no findings have been entered.
Dark money network on pace for record cycle
An analysis published August 11 by Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington found that thirteen 501(c)(4) organizations the group identifies as a connected network have contributed more than $33.1 million to 31 federal super PACs this cycle. That figure exceeds the roughly $14.6 million the same network directed to super PACs in 2024 and the more than $22 million it moved in the 2022 midterms, according to Federal Election Commission records the group cites.
The single largest concentration was Kentucky’s Republican Senate primary, where CREW traces more than $14.5 million from five network nonprofits. Keep America Great PAC, which backed Rep. Andy Barr, reported raising more than $16 million through June 30, with $10.64 million of it coming from three network entities — American Jobs and Growth Fund, Conservative Agenda for America and Defend US, Inc. A second super PAC that ran ads against primary opponent Daniel Cameron drew $3.85 million from a fourth, Coalition for American Prosperity & Growth.
The 990 filings themselves are where the pattern becomes legible. American Jobs and Security’s most recent return, available through ProPublica’s Nonprofit Explorer, reports more than $9.8 million raised and spent in 2024, of which roughly $600,000 went to federal super PACs, nearly $2 million to issue advocacy, and more than $4.6 million in grants to other nonprofits in the same network. The organization reports no website and no employees, and its sole board member is listed as devoting two hours a week. Filings indicate the same accountant prepared returns for every network nonprofit that has contributed to a federal super PAC this cycle.
None of this is unlawful on its face. Social welfare organizations may engage in political activity so long as it is not their primary purpose, and they are under no obligation to disclose donors. The reporting is worth noting precisely because the disclosure regime works as designed: the money is visible, the sources are not.
Treasury signals Form 990 overhaul
On April 23, the Treasury Department announced that the IRS intends to revise the Form 990 to require clearer reporting on government contracts, government grants and fiscal sponsorship arrangements by 501(c)(3) organizations. “Public money and tax-exempt status demand public accountability,” Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said in the announcement. Assistant Secretary and Acting IRS Chief Counsel Ken Kies added that “tax-exempt status is not immunity from scrutiny.”
Fiscal sponsorship — the arrangement under which an established exempt organization houses a project that lacks its own exempt status — is the most consequential target. The structure is longstanding and lawful, but Treasury’s release notes congressional concern that some arrangements obscure who operates a project and who controls its funds. Practitioners should note the timeline: Treasury says proposed regulations and a public comment period will precede any change, and tax advisers who have reviewed the announcement generally expect implementation to take years rather than months. Nothing has changed for the current filing season.
Alaska takes on the fundraising platforms
Alaska Attorney General Stephen Cox sued six crowdfunding and charity platforms in March — GoFundMe, PayPal, Charity Navigator, JustGiving, Pledgeto and Network for Good — alleging they built donation pages for nonprofits without consent. The state’s filing asserts that GoFundMe created 1.4 million functional charity pages in the fall of 2025, potentially including as many as 5,000 Alaska organizations, most without their knowledge.
The legal theory is narrow and, for that reason, potentially portable. Alaska’s Charitable Solicitations Act has required registration and consent since 1993. The suits seek removal of unauthorized pages and civil penalties per violation. New York’s office made a parallel transparency demand of GoFundMe in March. The platforms have not conceded the claims, and the cases remain pending.
California: enforcement and infrastructure
California Attorney General Rob Bonta sued six individuals and three sham charities in March over concession-stand fundraising at Petco Park and Snapdragon Stadium. The programs let charities staff concessions with unpaid volunteers in exchange for 10 to 12 percent of sales. The complaint alleges that between 2014 and 2023, defendants Martin J. Rebollo and Noly H. Ilarde ran entities called C V Fast Patch, Chula Vista Fast Patch Inc and Chula Vista Fast Pitch that conducted no charitable activity, paid volunteers $50 to $120 a day in violation of program terms, and diverted at least $3.8 million. By 2023 the operation was running 10 to 20 stands daily, taking in as much as $80,000 a week per venue, according to the filing. The matter is pending in San Diego County Superior Court.
Separately, California’s Registry of Charities and Fundraisers has been rolling out a new online filing service in late August, with the prior early-release system offline from August 20 to 24, per the registry’s notice. Registrants should watch for mailed instructions and verify their address on file.
Federal case: $23 million in homelessness funds
In the Central District of California, prosecutors charged Alexander Soofer, executive director of the Hyde Park–based charity Abundant Blessings, with wire fraud in January. The affidavit alleges Soofer obtained more than $23 million between 2018 and 2025 in homeless-housing funding — more than $5 million directly from the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority and more than $17 million through the nonprofit Special Service for Groups Inc. — and diverted at least $10 million to personal use, including a $7 million Westwood home and a $475,000 payment toward a property in Greece.
Two details deserve the attention of anyone who reviews grantee filings. Investigators reported that when asked whether the charity’s board knew how funds were being spent, Soofer said yes; the board, according to the affidavit, was fictitious — some listed members did not exist, others had never heard of the organization. Site visits by city and county investigators found participants served ramen noodles, canned beans and breakfast bars against a contractual three-meals-a-day commitment. A complaint contains allegations only, and Soofer is presumed innocent unless proven guilty.
The counterweight
Not every charity-bureau action is adversarial. James announced on August 19 that roughly $4 million from the estate of Herman Price, a Bronx resident who died in 2017 leaving approximately $7.9 million to a “Price Foundation” that did not exist, will reach Bronx nonprofits. Nine organizations — among them Bronx Works, Morris Heights Health Center, the New York Botanical Garden and Part of the Solution — will receive $300,000 each, with about $1.3 million going to the Price Family Foundation for regranting. Price’s next of kin will receive $3.5 million under the settlement. It is a reminder that the same bureau that dissolves sham charities also functions as the backstop for donor intent.
What warrants a closer look
Three threads merit continued reporting. First, the disregarded-entity structure: network nonprofits reported controlling roughly 30 such subsidiaries on their most recent returns, an arrangement that is lawful but materially reduces what a 990 reveals. Second, pass-through grant relationships of the kind at issue in the Abundant Blessings matter, where public funds moved through an intermediary nonprofit before reaching the subrecipient — a structure that diffuses oversight responsibility. Third, executive compensation. TIJ reviewed the available filings for the organizations named above and found no verified compensation figures suitable for comparison against sector benchmarks; the entities at the center of this week’s enforcement actions largely report no employees at all. That absence is itself the finding, and it is the gap Treasury’s proposed revisions appear aimed at.
TIJ sought comment from the organizations named in pending matters where contact information was publicly available. No responses had been received at publication. This report is based entirely on public records; all pending allegations are identified as such.