Since 2020, Target has donated at least $1.4 million to the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation
The Congressional Black Caucus is boosting a boycott effort against retail giant Target for ending its DEI initiatives, a rollback that included the termination of a corporate sponsorship program that has been lucrative for the caucus’s nonprofit arm.
Since 2020, Target has donated at least $1.4 million to the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation, a think tank that works hand in hand with the 62-member caucus. Target pledged $1 million over five years to the foundation through its Racial Equity Action and Change (REACH) initiative to “advance social justice and racial equity for Black individuals” in the wake of the death of George Floyd. The retail giant donated $200,000 to the foundation for “meeting expenses” in December to honor several caucus members, according to lobbying records.
But Target shut off the cash spigot for all of its DEI programs in January in response to President Donald Trump’s executive action on DEI. The company announced it will wind down REACH and reevaluate “corporate partnerships to ensure they are directly connected to our roadmap for growth,” seemingly putting funding for the CBC Foundation on the chopping block.
Now, the Congressional Black Caucus is making thinly veiled threats to endorse boycotting Target if it does not reinstate “diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives that were eliminated or rolled back,” according to a statement the caucus released after a meeting with Target CEO Brian Cornell and other executives last week. CBC members “warned that efforts to restore consumer and public trust without genuine action and accountability would risk inflicting lasting damage to the company’s brand and credibility,” according to a statement from the caucus.
The statement also indicated that the caucus is marching in lockstep with the activists leading the boycott.
“Like many of the coalition leaders and partner organizations that have chosen to boycott their stores across the country, we found that the explanations offered by the leadership of the Target Corporation fell woefully short of what our communities deserve and of the values of inclusion that Target once touted,” the caucus said after the meeting.
The timing of the CBC’s pressure on Target raises questions for the caucus, which has faced scrutiny before over its interlocking relationship with the CBC Foundation and its corporate sponsors.
“The Congressional Black Caucus threat of a boycott after Target ended financial support has all the earmarks of a shakedown,” said Peter Flaherty, the executive director of the National Legal and Policy Center, a conservative watchdog group. “CEO Brian Cornell has always been an easy mark for racial activists,” added Flaherty, who noted the Target leader met earlier this year with MSNBC host and activist Al Sharpton regarding a potential boycott.
In 2010, the New York Times published an exposé of the “unusual” relationship between CBC and the foundation, noting that medical devices companies DaVita and Amgen had given $1.5 million to the CBC Foundation and that CBC members were the companies’ “strongest allies in a bid to win broader federal reimbursements.” CBC members were some of the biggest backers of the Internet poker industry, which donated heavily to the CBC Foundation. Politico reported in 2011 that AT&T gave $480,000 to the CBC Foundation as part of a lobbying blitz to land support for its merger with T-Mobile.
Liberal groups have also scrutinized CBC and the foundation’s corporate relationships. Color of Change and Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington have accused CBC members of supporting policies favorable to telecom companies like AT&T and Comcast on merger and net neutrality issues.
The CBC and the foundation are technically two separate organizations, but they have worked in such tandem that they are often considered to be two sides of the same coin. The New York Times wrote that the CBC and the CBC Foundation “are so deeply connected it is sometimes hard to tell where one ends and the other begins.”
Rep. Yvette Clarke (D., N.Y.), who took part in the meeting with Target last week, serves as chair of the CBC and is a member of the CBC Foundation board. She was accompanied in the meeting with three other caucus members, including two—Reps. Troy Carter (D., La.) and Steven Horsford (D., Nev.)—who are on the foundation board.
The foundation touts its close relationship to CBC members in its fundraising materials. In a fundraising pitch this year, the foundation lists one of the “Benefits of Corporate Sponsorship” as fostering “engagement with CBFC stakeholders, including Congressional Black Caucus (CBC) members and program participants.” Former CBC Foundation chief executive Elsie Scott has acknowledged its corporate donors were buying influence, telling the New York Times in 2010 that firms “are trying to get the attention of the C.B.C. members.”
While activist groups have long used boycott threats to pressure companies into making favorable changes, some organizers have used them as a negotiating tactic to line their own pockets. Sharpton, the MSNBC host, has been repeatedly accused of dangling boycott threats against companies, only to cancel them at the last minute after striking a deal with the boycott target. Sharpton threatened to boycott PepsiCo in 1998 over its lack of black executives, but called off the dogs after the company hired him as a well-paid consultant to its diversity advisory board. Sharpton has not joined the boycott against Target, but he launched one against PepsiCo in April over the company’s rollback of its DEI programs.
The Congressional Black Caucus, Congressional Black Caucus Foundation, and Target did not respond to requests for comment.
While the Congressional Black Caucus calls Target’s DEI rollback “unconscionable,” it has shown a willingness to take the company’s money. According to campaign finance records, the Congressional Black Caucus took $5,000 on Feb. 21 from TargetCitizens PAC, a super PAC funded by top Target executives.
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