The Open Hand Foundation charity, which YouTuber The Completionist has an "active" role in, has been accused of keeping public donations despite claiming the money is being spent on dementia research.
YouTubers Karl Jobst and SomeOrdinaryGamers uploaded videos of their investigation into Jirard Khalil, better known online as The Completionist, and his charity Open Hand Foundation.
The pair allege the Open Hand Foundation, which was founded by The Completionist's father Charles Khalil in memory of his wife Kaaren, and in which the YouTuber and his four siblings play an "active" role according to its website, currently has more than $600,000 in donations untouched in a bank account and has no evidence of paying that money forward to organisations working against dementia.
This comes despite The Completionist, who boasts 1.63 million subscribers on YouTube, running yearly fundraising events called IndieLand in which online personalities and celebrities come together to raise money directly for the Open Hand Foundation. "IndieLand is a celebration of indie games with a mission to raise money for this charity over a 30-hour span with tons of developers, influencers, and pop culture icons dropping in for the cause," the website reads. "All proceeds earned during the event go to The Open Hand Foundation."
The Completionist has said during these streams the money raised goes to "organisations all over the world" such as the University of California San Francisco, the Alzheimer's Association, and "so many more". The Open Hand Foundation isn't listed as a partner or donor on the Alzheimer's Association website and, while the University of California San Francisco doesn't keep a list of donors, nothing on its website suggests a connection to the Open Hand Foundation.
According to Karl Jobst and SomeOrdinaryGamers, publicly available tax filings show the charity has raised $655,520 since its inception but has donated none of it despite recording tens of thousands of dollars in administrative expenses. Only four years of tax filings were available when IGN attempted to verify these details on the United States Internal Revenue Service website: 2016, 2017, 2018, and 2020.
When asked for an explanation by Karl Jobst, The Completionist's brother Jacque Khalil said the Open Hand Foundation was taking a "vigilant approach" to selecting who should receive the money and has "been evaluating potential beneficiaries who align with our vision" since its forming. While the Open Hand Foundation claims to have been operating since 2003, it was registered as a non-profit organisation in 2014.
"Prior to our official registration as a foundation, we donated body parts for research, and made financial contributions to an institution that, in our view, made insufficient progress in the fight against these debilitating conditions. This prior experience has taught us the importance of careful consideration in our partnerships and is the reason why we continue to search for a proper partner and recipient of our donations."
The Open Hand Foundation is therefore claiming it hasn't donated any of the raised funds because it has spent the past nine years searching for a worthy partner to receive that money. This comes despite The Completionist's claims during IndieLand streams that it had actively supported charities and, for example, is one of the "main funding support partners" of The University of California San Francisco.
As part of a larger response to Karl Jobst, Jacque Khalil denied any wrongdoing: "While we understand the necessity of due diligence in charitable engagements, the insinuation of wrongdoing on the part of the Open Hand Foundation is both unwarranted and unfounded," he said.
"We conduct our operations within the bounds of legal and ethical standards, and any implication to the contrary is baseless. Our foundation has always acted in good faith, and we take any suggestion of impropriety very seriously. We stand firm on our record and integrity."
Karl Jobst and SomeOrdinaryGamers also provided audio of what they claimed to be a call with The Completionist himself.
"I knew [the money] was sitting there at a certain point and that's what made me proactively go about it," the speaker, allegedly The Completionist, said. "I was made aware in 2021 that the money hadn't moved yet, and that's what made me go, 'that's not f**king cool' and that's when I got personally involved to move it and... not 2021, last year, 2022."
The speaker added: "I assumed that it was all going to a charity and I assumed incorrectly." Despite this, The Completionist said again in a 2023 stream that the Open Hand Foundation was contributing to various organisations, which is after Karl Jobst and SomeOrdinaryGamers allege he knew otherwise.
IGN has reached out to The Completionist, The University of California San Francisco, and the Alzheimer's Association for comment.
Image Credit: P. Lehman/Future Publishing via Getty Image
Ryan Dinsdale is an IGN freelance reporter. He'll talk about The Witcher all day.
