(Robert Jonathan, Headline USA) CNN talking head Van Jones has reportedly been forced out of a woke nonprofit organization that he founded.
Two years ago, Amazon boss Jeff Bezos handed Jones a check for $100 million to fund his activism, but that largess evidently did not prevent him from being sidelined at the lofty sounding Dream.org.
And despite all that cash, it apparently did not prevent layoffs at the 501(c)3 organization.
Multiple insiders told the far-left Daily Beast in an article worth reading it its entirely for the full context that “This summer, Jones left the board of one of his principal nonprofits, Dream.org, after tussling with the group’s leadership over its direction…According to a person with direct knowledge of the situation, he did not leave by choice.”
The specific disagreements have not yet surfaced, but his public relations rep nonetheless claimed, in part, that “Van continues to work with Dream.Org in the justice innovation space and beyond.”
CeCe Grant, a former Dream.org employee quoted by name in the article, remarked that “Quite a few people have questions about the fiscal stewardship that Dream.org has had.”
The Dream.org website explains that “From ending mass incarceration, to stopping climate change, to creating new economic opportunities in overlooked communities, the only durable solutions are the ones that lots of people create together.”
The togetherness evidently no longer includes Jones himself.
Both the Jones PR rep and a Dream.org spokesperson “did not deny that he had been ousted from the board,” the news outlet asserted.
As of this writing, Jones, 54, is still listed on the Dream.org website as the founder and board member, however.
Jones, who has a new activist initiative in the works, reportedly gave up the day-to-day management of the umbrella organization in 2019.
One unnamed staffer criticized Jones as someone who “can’t stay at anything for longer than a few years before passing it off.”
Another ex-colleague remarked that Jones tends to jump ship “to the next thing, and possibly not creating the best infrastructure before he leaves.”
Others more favorably inclined toward the CNN commentator maintained that top management, rather than Jones himself, was responsible “for the tumult and zealous spending.”
Internally, Jones also allegedly took some heat, as it were, for trying to come up with a “bipartisan consensus” on environmental issues.
The organization has three subsidiaries: Dream.green, a.k.a. Green For All, Dream.justice., and Dream.tech (the latter which aims to bring diversity to the tech sector).
Green for All received a separate $10 million from Jones-fan Bezos and reportedly went on a hiring spree that triggered a huge increase in overhead.
“The group tore through that money with little to show for it, several ex-employees said…Multiple former staffers said that Green For All’s leaders struggled to form a coherent plan.”
Dream insisted that it is currently financially sound and described Jones as “a valuable resource for us.”
Whether or not the current initiative was mismanaged, it’s unclear how much of Bezos’s big money actually trickled down to Dream.
“In private, Jones appears to have harbored doubts about Dream’s efficacy, former employees said, since he chose not to funnel much of his $100 million award into the organization,” the Daily Beast noted.
Commenting about the Bezos bounty, Jones said that “It felt like winning the lottery, except I never bought a ticket.”
