Hoffman isn’t just a conflict entrepreneur. He’s an entrepreneur

Idaho Freedom Foundation President Wayne Hoffman cares more about his bottom line than the party line.

That’s what University of Idaho President Scott Green may have been getting at when he described Hoffman’s modus operandi as that of a “conflict entrepreneur.”

All of which opens a tantalizing new strategy for Green and others who are battling the Freedom Foundation’s assault on their institutions: Buy them off. Their silence has a price.

Tired of Hoffman’s erroneous assertion that the public schools are engaged in teaching critical race theory?

Worn down by his attack on public education as “the most virulent form of socialism (and indoctrination thereto) in America today”?

Anxious over his depiction of Idaho schools as “grotesque” and his efforts to replace public education with a voucher system?

Then, Idaho Education Association, Idaho School Boards Association and concerned parents, reach for your wallets.

How about the people Green serves?

Have you had enough of the Freedom Foundation’s “false narrative” about treating minorities and women with favoritism?

Are you concerned that Hoffman will follow up his successful $2.5 million raid on the higher education budget last year by fulfilling his threat to “cut $20 million from the college and university budget? Did you hear that number? Twenty million dollars. And we’re going to make sure they do it”?

Then, graduates of the UI, Boise State University, Idaho State University and Lewis-Clark State College — not to mention the families of students now attending those schools — get out your checkbooks.

And how about the Freedom Foundation’s alliance with COVID-19? If you don’t like the way Hoffman flouted stay-at-home orders when the pandemic began, minimized the lethality of the virus or challenged mitigation efforts, then it’s time to send him a donation, Idaho Medical Association and Idaho Hospital Association.

Because here’s what we’ve learned about Hoffman and the IFF — they’ll take money from anyone. And they will not bite the hand that feeds them.

All of this we know thanks to Lewiston Tribune columnist Marc Johnson.

Johnson pored over the annual statement IFF, like all nonprofits, must file with the Internal Revenue Service. He focused on the $129,883 in federal Paycheck Protection Program money Hoffman collected in 2020.

The IFF rails against the government. It advocates libertarian principles. And Hoffman has likened the source of that government money — taxation — as “armed robbery.”

Yet Johnson’s review eviscerates two of Hoffman’s rationalizations:

• He needed the money: “The government shut down Idaho’s economy, Idaho businesses, and therefore the donors who we depend on to generously support our work.”
  
  
  
  It turns out Hoffman raised more money in 2020 than in any of the preceding four years (IRS Form 990, Schedule A, Page 2, Line 1).
  
  
  
  Add the federal bailout to what IFF raised from sources it refuses to disclose and the charity case brought in $1.14 million (Form 990, Page 9, Line 12).
  
  
  
  
• Hoffman said it was not a bailout. “The Paycheck Protection Program is a loan, not a ‘handout.’ IFF applied for the loans knowing fully well that the loans have to be repaid.” But IFF kept the money (Form 990, Page 9, Line 11a).
  
  
  
  IFF actually banked a lot of cash in 2020. By the end of the year, it declared a gain of $393,819 over its expenses (Form 990, Page 12, Line 3).
  
  
  
  That brought its cash reserves up to $180,012 and its savings and investments up to $831,211 (Form 990, Page 11, Lines 1 and 2).

Not counting the PPP check, IFF reported $967,232 in contributions (Form 990, Page 9, Line 1h). It spent $ $317,007 on programs (Form 990, Page 10, Line 25, Column B).

So it turns out that in 2020 for every dollar contributed to the IFF, only 33 cents went toward what you’d expect — promoting the libertarian agenda. The rest is allocated toward reserves, fundraising efforts and management (Form 990, Page 10, Line 25).

Standards the Better Business Bureau sets for a charity spells out it should “spend at least 65% of its total expenses on program activities.”

Who this bothers — if anyone — is a matter of conjecture. Hoffman has never disclosed where his money comes from, although various efforts have spotlighted likely right-wing contributors such as the Donors Trust, the Kochs, former Education Secretary Betsy DeVos and her family, and a foundation formed by John Birch Society founder Edgar Price.

But Hoffman is an ambitious fundraiser. When the PPP became available, he went to the government. And once he got that money, did anyone ever hear him mouth one critical word about the PPP program?

Let that serve as a template to any group that wants to buy Hoffman’s loyalty — or at least neutralize him.

What’s more, they’ll get much better than a 33% return on investment.

Just leave the cash on the nightstand. — M.T.