SantaCon, which returns to New York City on Saturday, boasts on its website about raising “over $1.1 million for charitable causes” like City Harvest. Organizers of the daylong bar crawl, during which tens of thousands of revelers in Santa costumes crowd bars and sidewalks across the city, have long defended against public pushback by saying that the event is a charity fundraiser. A Gothamist analysis shows that the organization raised $1.4 million through SantaCon programming from late 2014 through the end of 2022, and that less than a fifth of that money has gone to registered nonprofits. More than a third of the organization’s total giving during that period went to groups or individuals who appear connected to Burning Man, the annual weeklong festival in Nevada, including organizations devoted to hula hooping, dance parades, free costumes and more. Gothamist’s analysis of tax documents was reviewed by three outside experts in nonprofit accounting, governance, and law. “To the extent that they’re doing something charitable, it’s not what people think it is,” said Brian Mittendorf, the H.P. Wolfe chair in accounting at Ohio State University. “The money going to their targeted charities is minuscule as a percentage of their budget.” The organization’s biggest named recipient was a for-profit outfit: $66,340 to Spectaculum Productions, LLC, maker of the documentary film “At Your Cervix,” an exposé about pelvic exams performed by medical students on unconscious and non-consenting patients. In 2018, it lost $17,498 worth of investments it made in cryptocurrencies – equal to about a third of its charitable giving that year. More than $832,000 of the money raised from SantaCon programming – or 59% – went to the nonprofit’s expenses, not including its charitable grants. That may seem expensive for an organization that does not list any full-time employees and whose most well-known activity is a one-day event. Stefan Pildes, founder and director of the group that runs SantaCon, said that the bills add up: temporary staff, venue contracts, permitting for street closures, sound, video, DJs, vehicles, plus overhead costs like office space, accounting, and banking fees. “It’s not a small undertaking,” Pildes said. Participatory Safety, Inc. SantaCon NYC is the work of a registered 501 (c)( 3) called Participatory Safety, Inc., which holds the SantaCon trademark and received tax-exempt status effective October 2014. Its mission statement is “to bring art to underserved communities” and its biggest source of money is the annual SantaCon, according to the organization’s tax records. While anyone can participate in SantaCon by simply donning red and joining the fray, there is an official starting point and route, with special perks that can only be accessed by purchasing a $15 “Santa Badge” from SantaCon’s website. The site claims that the $15 goes “directly to Santa’s charity drive” and will be split between various charities like City Harvest and HeadCount. Pildes confirmed that money the organization labels as charitable grants, as well as money it labels as business expenses, has gone to multiple Burning Man-related art projects and expenses. In 2018, for example, Participatory Safety, Inc. spent $60,000 to reserve four floors of a downtown event space for “Decom 2018,” a post-Burning Man party. Some “Burners,” as revelers at the festival are known, take the idea that Burning Man is a paradise — and that re-entering society requires “decompression” — very seriously. Pildes says the money was a zero-interest loan and promptly repaid. “Our mission is to bring more art out into the world,” Pildes said. “I want to continue to see more creative outlets and opportunities and more people in costume and more cheer being spread.” None of the publicly available information about Participatory Safety, Inc. points to fraudulent or illegal activity, according to Lloyd Mayer, a Notre Dame University Law School professor who specializes in nonprofit regulation. “Charities play fast and loose with how they account these things all the time,” Mayer said. The Cacophony Society SantaCon and Burning Man go way back. In the 1980s, a San Francisco-based group called the Cacophony Society began organizing elaborate public pranks and culture-jamming experiments, such as picnicking on the Golden Gate Bridge. In 1990, cacophonist John Law organized the first Nevada Burning Man. “Camps,” where like-minded attendees gather and sleep, are at the heart of the Burning Man community, according to its website. Burning Man’s first themed camp was a Christmas camp, with attendees at the desert festival decked out in Christmas gear. From there, the idea of a Santa-themed flash mob returned to San Francisco, where the first SantaCon took place in 1994. The event arrived in New York a few years later. Pildes, who grew up in the East Village, was part of the crew that organized the New York installment. “It was a much smaller event, and there was no social media,” Pildes said. The organizers soon combined a canned food and toy drive with their flash mob. “We all wanted to feel like we had done some charitable giving before we went and had our holiday celebration,” Pildes said. “And then the event grew beyond our social circle and grew to include people that weren’t as interested in the creative element of it.” Pildes says that around 2014, when SantaCon had grown into the event we know today, the NYPD asked organizers to rein it in, which they did by starting Participatory Safety, Inc. “We thought the best way to rein it in was to turn it into a charity,” Pildes said. When asked later for more specifics about what led to this change, Pildes did not respond before publication. The nonprofit industry has key benchmarks to grade how effectively an organization fulfills its purpose. One of those is its “fundraising efficiency ratio” – or, effectively, the amount it costs an organization to raise a dollar. In most years, Participatory Safety, Inc. attributed none of its spending to fundraising expenses. This has the effect of making it look as though more of its spending goes toward charitable purposes. “Regardless of what they want to label it, throwing the party is not a charitable activity,” said Mayer. “It’s great to go to this party, right? But don’t pat yourself on the back that you’re helping out the Girl Scouts.” Helping Hearts Early in the pandemic, Participatory Safety, Inc. partnered with a bar and grill in Ridgewood, Queens called The Deep End, which had been raising money on GoFundMe in order to deliver meals to frontline workers. The bar called its initiative Helping Hearts. Donations for Helping Hearts flowed into Participatory Safety, Inc., so that donors could receive a charitable tax deduction, and were paid directly through to the bar, according to Pildes and Jonathan Gneezy, co-owner of The Deep End. Gothamist’s analysis to determine the financial picture related to typical SantaCon programming removed the accounting related to Helping Hearts. This reduced Participatory Safety Inc.’s total giving by 60%. How did this bar and this nonprofit get connected to begin with? The Deep End is the d/b/a, or “doing business as” name, of Jungo Road, LLC. Jungo Road is an 80-mile dirt lane in the northwest Nevada desert. It ends at Burning Man.
SantaCon raises money for charity. They’ve spent a lot on crypto and Burning Man.
