District 6 candidate Nichole Rogers' nonprofit raised money despite delinquent submissions with AG's Office, Secretary of State, and IRS

When District 6 City Council candidate Nichole Rogers first founded the Welstand Foundation, she dreamed of helping children of color around Albuquerque — particularly those aging out of the foster care system.

In February 2021, the foundation posted a photo on Facebook advertising Welstand Village — “a place where kids of color can thrive” — which was expected to open in summer 2021.

According to a 2021 Journal article highlighting the efforts of three local breweries raising money for the nonprofit, those plans were put on hold. She said the fundraiser would buy furniture for the first Welstand group home, and explained that each room would have a different theme: Wakanda from Black Panther, Harry Potter, Star Wars, etc.

But that home didn’t materialize.

Some voters in the district have questioned the operations of the foundation, which has fallen behind on certain paperwork while still soliciting donations. Rogers said the nonprofit has been defunct for several years.

Rogers said the foundation, which was hit hard by the pandemic, effectively disbanded on June 19, 2021. She said she trusted others to help with the paperwork but had never run a foundation before and lacked knowledge on the paperwork — and didn’t check that all forms had been properly submitted.

“It’s just an unfortunate oversight on my part,” Rogers said.

The foundation has been delinquent in its registration submissions with the New Mexico Office of the Attorney General since 2019, when the lack of a signature rendered the submission invalid. Since then, none have been submitted.

This year, the foundation missed a May 15 deadline to submit paperwork with the New Mexico Secretary of State’s Office, putting the nonprofit “not in good standing.” After speaking with the Journal, Rogers said she submitted paperwork with the office and is deciding whether to restart the nonprofit, which is now again in good standing.

In 2022, the Internal Revenue Service automatically revoked the foundation’s tax-exempt status. Rogers said the wrong forms were submitted to the IRS.

“I thought we had closed everything out,” Rogers said. “When you brought this up, and we looked up everything and saw that the paperwork wasn’t processed, actually now I have to decide, like, ‘Wow, maybe I can continue with my passion work.’ … So this has actually been a blessing in disguise.”

She said she’s working to get all the paperwork up to date, including submissions with the IRS and the NM Attorney General’s office, which she was unaware was required.

Posts on the Welstand Foundation Facebook page, which has since been deleted, showed the foundation was still soliciting donations in 2022. In early 2022, the page showed that several local breweries, which had raised money for the Welstand Foundation the previous year, contributed a portion of their sales to the foundation for Black History Month. Marble Brewery posted it had raised $3,864 for the foundation.

Rogers said when the breweries reached out this year, she told them the foundation wouldn’t be a good fit since it was no longer active.

In November 2022, the foundation’s page added a photo in asking for donations to “help a child in need” for Giving Tuesday, a donation movement that occurs the Tuesday after Thanksgiving.

Rogers said the foundation received no donations from that fundraiser; she added that all money raised after 2021 went to covering the costs of the foundation. Some of the foundation’s projects included outreach to groups typically undercounted in the Census and bringing food boxes to insecure families during the pandemic.

Two years earlier, in 2020, City Council voted to send $1 million in funding reallocated to COVID-19 needs to several organizations, including Rogers’. The foundation received $15,000.

“All of the money went to those projects,” Rogers said. “There was no leftover funding at all, from any of our projects. We had no paid employees, there were no expenses other than WiFi. It was a foundation of one person: me.”

When asked if the solicitation of donations was appropriate for an organization with missing registrations, the NM AG’s office responded, “Thank you for making us aware of the solicitation of donations. We are looking into this issue.”

“Further, the statute allows our office to promulgate rules surrounding charities and the charitable solicitations act — we are hiring a charities attorney who will be tasked with this effort,” an emailed statement from the office read. “In general this statute has not been widely enforced, however Attorney General (Raul) Torrez plans to engage in a more vigorous process regarding charities who are violating the act.”

Rogers, a business consultant and financial adviser, said she didn’t think the foundation fizzling out should disqualify her from seeking a City Council seat. Rather, she said, it was a learning experience.

“You want an expert who has lived experience with these issues, not someone who’s lived a privileged life,” Rogers said. “I am a person who has had successes and has had failures. But I really believe in failing forward. When you know better, you do better — and I’m someone who can teach folks to watch out for these pitfalls.”