The conservative student group Turning Point USA continues to grow, and its high-profile leader, Charlie Kirk, is now making a healthy six-figure salary.
That’s according to the nonprofit group’s latest tax forms filed with the Internal Revenue Service, which The Chronicle requested and obtained from Turning Point USA.
Turning Point USA and its high-profile leader have prospered during the Trump presidency.
Founded in 2012, Turning Point has seen its influence rise during the Trump era. Kirk has more than 1.7-million Twitter followers, is a frequent guest on Fox News, and enjoys close relationships with President Trump and Trump’s family members.
Some of Turning Point’s tactics are controversial — such a “Professor Watchlist” dedicated to “unmasking radical professors.” Critics have called the list a threat to academic freedom.
In 2017, The Chronicle reported that Turning Point secretly funneled thousands of dollars to student-government campaigns at colleges across the country, in an apparent attempt to get young conservatives elected student body president. The contributions often violated student campaign-finance rules.
While negative headlines have sometimes put Turning Point’s leadership on the defensive, those same headlines have also raised its public profile. And the nonprofit’s fundraising continues to grow.
Kirk’s salary, too, is getting bigger.
Tax records from the 2016 fiscal year show that, in that year, Turning Point had total revenues of $4.3 million. Kirk earned $27,231 in the 2015 calendar year.
By the 2018 fiscal year, revenues had increased to $10.8 million, and Kirk’s total compensation in calendar 2017 had grown to $95,516.
In the latest IRS filings, for the 2019 fiscal year, revenues more than doubled to $28.5 million. Kirk’s new compensation: $292,423.
When determining salaries for Kirk and other employees, the nonprofit told the IRS, “Turning Point maintains a wage and salary scale that is reviewed and approved by the finance committee. A comparative market analysis is completed on a periodic basis based upon information provided by reputable outside sources.”
Other notable disclosures in Turning Point’s latest tax filings:
- Turning Point says it hosted nine regional and national events in the 2019 fiscal year, with a total of 6,791 attendees.
- Turning Point’s “Field Program,” an outreach effort aimed at college and high-school campuses, “reached 67,287 students in the spring semester of 2019 alone.” The program also “organized 220 new campus chapters to facilitate these on-campus educational efforts.”
- Turning Point paid $19,250 for first-class travel expenses.
- Turning Point listed “security” expenses of $221,809. Some of the nonprofit’s on-campus events have attracted student protests.
The full 990 tax filing can be viewed here.
Dan Bauman, the Chronicle’s data reporter, contributed to this report.
