- Joined
- Jun 17, 2021
- Highlight
- #1
Part 1: Our Protagonist
Jirard Khalil is your typical 2010s Let's Player clinging to relevancy, most well known for his channel TheCompletionist (formerly ThatOneVideoGamer), where he posts videos autistically combing through the games he plays for every achievement and unlockable, along with other IRL "completionist" works.
As years have gone by and the creator space was replaced by fresher faces and vtuber avatars, however, his content has mostly devolved into algorithmic pandering sprinkled with the typical consoomerism that's to be expected of a man pushing 40 that got emotionally invested in the Mario Movie.
That's not to say Mister Khalil has contributed nothing to society, though! After all, the man did spend $22,791 to buy every game released on the WiiU and 3DS eshops in a groundbreaking win for video game preservation.
His more valuable contributions, however, came in 2018, where Jirard started the IndieLand charity event. Here, Jirard and his mates would livestream indie games to their audience while also encouraging them to donate money to the Open Hand Foundation, a charity organization founded by Jirard's father, Charles Khalil, following his wife's diagnosis of Frontotemporal Dementia in 2003.
Through the Indieland charity's existence, Jirard and the Open Hand Foundation managed to raise $600,000 over the 5 years that the Indieland fundraiser began, which was donated to Benefactors such as UCSF's Memory and Aging Center. And with an origin story that tugs at the heartstrings, it received widespread media coverage and accolades from basically everyone in the gaming scene, further snowballing the success.
Part 2: The Fraud
Earlier this month, an pair of expose videos were released by the Ozzy Speedrunner Karl Jobst and Canadian Arch Linux addict Mutahar "SomeOrdinaryGamers" Anas.
Karl's video:
Mutahar's video:
Important disclaimer: There are multiple charities that operate under the name "Open Hand", one of which is associated with and endorsed by UCSF Hospital called Project Open Hand, completely unrelated to Jirard's fuckup.
In these videos, the duo go over the tax filings of the Open Hand Foundation, revealing that despite raising over $600,000 for charity over the past 5 years, the Open Hand Foundation paid out nothing to its listed beneficiary, UCSF. In fact, for several years now the money seems to have been sitting in the bank account doing nothing, sans $74,266 of expenses spent over the course of 5 years.
Upon being confronted by Mutahar and Karl, Jirard floundered out the following response to this:
Most people that aren't scumbags would have immediately spoken out about such gross mismanagement, but not Jirard. Despite learning at some point in 2022 of the misappropriation of funds, Jirard continued on with operating both the 2022 and 2023 Indieland Charity events just as he had for the past few events.
And much like Jirard, that's what made me go "That's not fucking cool."
Part 3: How much money is left, J Compleezy?
According to Jirard, the funds raised by Indieland are all sitting in the foundation's bank account, minus those mysterious expenses. So that would mean somewhere around $530,000 is sitting in the bank, right? No, because there's a bit more shady behavior that predates the foundation of Indieland, dating back a decade.| Year | Funds raised | Expenses (Not donated) | Gross funds |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2014 | $33,756 | $0 | $0 |
| 2015 | $60,595 | $28,236 | $32,359 |
| 2016 | $40,300 | $11,599 | $28,701 |
| 2017 | $31,800 | $11,294 | $20,506 |
| 2018 (Indieland begins) | $113,850 | $14,144 | $99,706 |
| 2019 | $126,813 | $13,029 | $110,787 |
| 2020 | $122,856 | $6,140 | $116,716 |
| 2021 | $136,695 | $29,906 | $106,789 |
| 2022 | $117,247 | $11,047 | $106,200 |
Total sum | $783,915 | $125,395 | $658,520 |
This is a Google Drive link. Keep in mind that your access may be logged if you are signed into Google.
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While over a hundred thousand dollars of this money was unrelated to Indieland, it bears stating that Jirard himself has been a director of this charity for a decade now. The idea that he would be unaware of where the money was going given his position is frankly ludicrous.
Unfortunately, we likely will not have a full understanding of how much money the organization truly had left over until the IRS getting involved, which will likely happen within the near future thanks to the awareness being raised by Muta and Karl.
Part 4: The lies
Below are a number of lies spouted by Jirard and other members of the Khalil family through the Open Hand Foundation. By no means is this a comprehensive list, but the important highlights are here.The fact that the money was going to charity.
As we've discovered, in the most charitable scenario there's $655k sitting in a bank somewhere. In the least charitable scenario, the Khalil family has drained the funds completely. In spite of this, Jirard has claimed numerous times that the money was being actively donating the money to dementia research organizations, even after allegedly learning that Open Hand hasn't donated a penny in the decade of its existence as a 501 (c) (3)."These organizations only care about big donations."
According to Jirard, most research organizations and hospitals only really cared about donations once they break the 8-figure range. I dunno about any of you Kiwibros, but when I check the website for UCSF or other similar orgs, I'm greeted with a menu ranging from $50 to $2,500, with an "other" box allowing you to choose your own amount as low as $25. So the options are either Jirard made this excuse up on the spot to justify their inaction, or the Khalil family was waiting to save up enough money to get UCSF to name the MAC ward after them."Prior to our official registration as a foundation, we donated body parts for research..."
I gotta be real, I've got no idea what the fuck they're talking about here. I done some independent research into this, but outside of blood, the mom volunteering for experimental treatment, or donating the mom's body to science I can't find any relevant biological donations that the Khalils could make that would be of any value to dementia research. And in those cases I can't find any justification for the dodginess Jirard's brother had with the subject."... and made financial contributions, to an institution that, in our view, made insufficient progress in the fight against these debilitating conditions."
Dementia, alzheimer's, and other neurological degradation diseases are some of the most complex and poorly understood conditions that the human body hcan develop, in part due to the fact that the brain is the most complex and poorly understood part of the human body. If the Khalil family actually expected their donations to immediately lead to breakthroughs in dementia research, they're either delusional, have a really poor grasp on how charity works, or both. In either case, the family shouldn't be in charge of a charity foundation.Part 5: Barbara 'Who' Effect? AKA, why you don't file a takedown request on an expose video.
On November 15th, Karl Jobst reported that he received a privacy complaint from the Open Hand Foundation for his reporting on the charity fraud. Fortunately the complaint was rejected, however Jirard and his family have shown their willingness to shut down the public criticism in order to save face.
Tweet Link
As a reminder to the Khalil family, all of the documentation discussed in Karl and Mutahar's videos is in the public record and being discussed for the benefit of those who believed their donations would actually see research organizations.
Part 6: The Tard Guard
Although the response to the recent expose has been generally positive, there is a small detachment of associates of Jirard that are sticking their head in the sand.Noted Sailor Moon cosplayer Jared "ProJared" Knabenbauer immediately jumped to the defense of Jirard, in the process confirming he hadn't watched the videos, which presented both a decade of tax filings and a confrontation with Jirard over discord.
Gaijin Goombah steps up to bat for Jirard, completely disregarding the fact that being friendly and being a coniving fraud are not in fact mutually exclusive. Link (archive)
From the Talking Anime NFT collection, we have MissFushi, reminding the world that it's impossible to take someone seriously whilst they hide behind an Anime PFP. Link (archive)
And of course, we have James Ronald of EpicGameMusic, apparently missing the fact that this charity has been failing to uphold its promises for the entirety of its existence. Link (archive)
Sparknotes Summary for the class
In conclusion, Jirard Khalil is an excellent example for prospective charity organizers of a few things:- Youtubers are charlatans that cannot be trusted, don't leave them in charge of managing charity funds intended to support medical research.
- Transparency goes a long way. Jirard obviously was going to face serious fallout no matter when or how this news broke. However, it would have gone much smoother and with less damage to Jirard's reputation had he broken it himself.
- No matter how smart you think you are, all it takes is a handful of autists digging through your tax filings to find out you've been withholding donations.
- The more attention your charity gets, the more scrutiny your organization will be under. Don't be an idiot, just donate the money like you said you would.
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