John Tye founded the nonprofit law office Whistleblower Aid to support people who want to expose government and corporate wrongdoing. Tye understands the burden individuals face when taking such a risk: He was a whistle-blower in 2014. While working as section chief for internet freedom in the State Department’s Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights and Labor, he came forward to publicize the government’s electronic surveillance practices. That cost him $13,000 in legal fees.
Tye now represents Signe Swenson, the former development associate at the MIT Media lab who provided information to New Yorker reporter Ronan Farrow for his exposé about the center’s financial ties to convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.
Swenson is the group’s first client exposing wrongdoing at a university or nonprofit institution. But since the MIT story broke, Whistleblower Aid has seen an uptick in inquiries from people with ties to nonprofits who have their own whistle to blow, Tye said in an interview.
“Just because there’s an uptick in inquiries doesn’t mean there’ll be an uptick in our clients,” he said. The firm only takes on cases that have merit. But the unmet demand is enormous, more than Whistleblower Aid’s bare-bones staff can take on, he said. “We’re turning away clients with front-page disclosures.” Because the firm follows the law, he said, “we’re attracting disclosures from senior officials who would never consider leaking to the media or WikiLeaks.”
Helping expose a major controversy in the philanthropic world also raises questions about how this work could compromise the startup nonprofit’s own fundraising.
“One of the storylines here is that there appears to be some unethical things going on in the world of philanthropy,” Tye said. “We want to address that. We want to help with that. It makes our own funding situation kind of complicated, as you might imagine.”
Joi Ito, the former director of the MIT Media Lab, used to sit on the boards of the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur and the John S. and James L. Knight foundations. He resigned from those positions last Saturday. And while Bill Gates’s office denies that a $2 million gift to MIT was linked to Epstein, as claimed in emails published by the New Yorker, Gates and Epstein did meet in 2013 to discuss ways to boost philanthropic giving.
“We’re trying to raise money from some of these very names,” Tye said. “Of course, it occurred to us that this case could affect our own fundraising efforts.”
Right now, the group is raising small amounts of money from foundations and individuals. About 200 donors have made small gifts totaling about $35,000. They’ve had three low five-figure donations.
Fundraising Challenges
Tye spent all of his inheritance to start the organization. His maternal grandparents left him several shares of Berkshire Hathaway stock that they had bought in 1980; he sold that stock to launch Whistleblower Aid at a cost of around $1.5 million, he estimates.
The money bought a custom encrypted client-intake system, secure devices to communicate with clients, and advertising in the D.C. subway system aimed at civil servants and military servicemembers. It also covered administrative costs like insurance, travel, and fundraising. Depending on clients’ needs, Whistleblower Aid also provides services like media consulting, personal security, and counseling. It even paid one client’s rent for a few months after he was fired for speaking out. “We’re trying to lower all of the barriers that prevent more whistle-blowers from coming forward,” Tye wrote in an email.
Tye and lawyer Kyle Gardiner are the only full-time employees at Whistleblower Aid. Tye has been working for free since February 2017. The group pays a few part-time contractors, and several lawyers and the Board of Directors work pro bono.
Whether the Swenson case will hurt or help the group’s fundraising remains an open question, he said. “We went ahead with the case because it was the right thing for the client, and it was the right thing for the organization to do this kind of work. This is why we were set up, to help people like Signe.”
Eden Stiffman reports on nonprofit trends and fundraising for the Chronicle and conducted an interview with Signe Swenson on blowing the whistle on MIT. She also writes a popular weekly fundraising newsletter . Email Eden or follow her on Twitter .
