WE Charity Foundation: the legacy continues
WE Charity’s international legacy will continue through WE Charity Foundation (WCF). WCF’s directors and senior staff have long-time involvement with WE Charity. From the sale proceeds of its Toronto real estate for $29.2 million in August 2021, WE Charity transferred $10 million to WE Charity Foundation.
WE Charity Foundation was registered as a Canadian charity in January 2019. Its original directors, WE Charity’s senior management, Dalal Al-Waheidi, Victor Li, and Scott Baker, have stepped aside for new directors.
WE Charity Foundation is now co-chaired by long-time director Gerry Connelly, who has served as a WE Charity (Canada) director since 2013. The other co-chair is Dr. Steve Omenge Johnson Mainda, EBS. Mainda is also a long-serving director of WE Charity’s Kenyan charity, Free the Children Kenya, with Scott Baker and Victor Li.
WE Charity Foundation’s seven directors also include Josh Kahiga Mwangi, Marion Steward, Paul Hughes, Shelmis Wangui Wamweya and Tony Hauser.
WE Charity Foundation’s executive team will also be led by WE Charity long-timers, Robin Wiszowaty and Justus Mwendwa. Mwendwa is also a shareholder on record of WE Education Ltd. Inc., a private company in Kenya. Marc Kielburger is one of two directors of WE Education Ltd. Inc.
Free the Children Kenya’s charity assets were transferred to WE Education Ltd. Inc. in August 2017.
WE Education Ltd. Inc. (Kenya) is not to be confused with WE Education Ltd., a UK WE social enterprise, nor confused with WE Education Inc., a New York registered business that received some of Craig Kielburgers’ speaker fees.
Former WE Charity US’s director, Tawfiq Rangwala, a New York litigator and high school classmate of Marc Kielburger, reports that WE Education Inc. was the personal company of Craig and Marc Kielburger. From Rangwala's book, What WE Lost, we learn more about WE Education Inc., the old New York registered private company.
“WE Charity explained to the CBC that WE Education Inc. (New York) was renamed Global Impact Fund Inc. in 2017. Its name was changed when Free the Children became WE Charity to avoid any confusion. Global Impact Fund was founded in 2003 as Kiel Projects Inc. and is personally owned by Craig and Marc Kielburger. It is unrelated to WE Charity, ME to WE, or any charitable or business activities of either entity.
Global Impact Fund receives revenues earned through the Kielburger’s consulting work, their compensation for serving on boards of directors, and their non-WE-related speaking engagements.
This private entity paid for some expenses related to Craig Kielburger’s wedding. WE Education Inc. is unrelated to WE Education for Children Ltd. in Kenya.”
Learn more at WE Charity Foundation
More Charity Intelligence articles:
WE Charity Closing - the details, June 2022
Report on WE Charity Canada, updated June 2022
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