Overview
The People’s Welfare Association is a Madison, Wisconsin-based 501(c)(4) organization that operates primarily by receiving contributions and distributing those funds as grants outside the United States. Across the six fiscal years ending April 2020 through April 2025, PWA reported $102.7 million in contributions and $102 million in grants paid outside the United States.
Public 990 filings reveal that the People’s Welfare Association is a recipient in a network of nonprofit organizations, with about 82 percent of its total revenue originating from charitable contributions from two organizations: the Justice and Education Fund and the People’s Support Foundation.
Current and former PWA officers also have roles at far-left media, political-education and research organizations. Eugene Puryear, PWA’s treasurer, is an anchor and producer for BreakThrough News, a nonprofit media and educational organization. Puryear is also listed as an instructor at The People’s Forum, a New York political-education and cultural center. Mariana Miranda de Paula Assis served as PWA’s secretary from 2020 through November 2022. She was also listed as a director in fiscal years 2020 through 2023 of Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research, an international institute that says it is guided by popular movements and anchored in national liberation Marxism.
Tax classification — 501(c)(4)
Location — Madison, WI
Founded — 2019
Annual revenue — $12,038,800 (FY 2025)
EIN — 83-4705654
Notable connections — Eugene Puryear, Treasurer; Mariana Miranda de Paula Assis, Secretary (2020-2023)
Activities
In its Form 990 filings, PWA says its mission is to support education, advocacy, and journalism intended to empower marginalized communities, primarily outside the United States. PWA describes its “principal activity” as promoting “social welfare” through “strategic and financial support” to local, mission-aligned organizations.
In practice, the organization’s primary activity is issuing grants outside of the United States. From fiscal year 2020 to fiscal year 2025, PWA issued grants amounting to over $100 million to South and Central America, sub-Saharan Africa, Europe and the Caribbean. Form 990 filers are not required to publicly disclose the identities of foreign grant recipients on Schedule F, so PWA’s public filings do not provide a comprehensive list of its grant recipients outside the United States.
Related Organizations and Affiliations
Related Organizations
Across the six fiscal years ending April 2020 through April 2025, PWA reported no related organizations under the IRS’s Schedule R definition.
Affiliations
Public reporting has placed PWA within a broader group of nonprofit, media and educational organizations linked to Neville Roy Singham. Form 990 filings and organizational records document specific funding and personnel ties within the group, but do not establish formal affiliation or coordination among every organization. The group includes the People’s Support Foundation, the Justice and Education Fund, United Community Fund, The People’s Forum, Tricontinental, BreakThrough News, CODEPINK and PWA.
The People’s Support Foundation and the Justice and Education Fund were PWA’s two largest documented funders from 2019 through 2024. Together, their filings report $83,967,279 in grants to PWA: $66,476,279 from the People’s Support Foundation and $17,491,000 from the Justice and Education Fund. The filings also show both organizations making grants to others in the group. United Community Fund both received grants from these funders and made grants to other organizations.
PWA’s filings also demonstrate personnel links to other network organizations. Mariana Miranda de Paula Assis served as PWA’s Secretary through November 2022 and was listed as a director in Tricontinental’s 2019 through 2023 tax filings.PWA treasurer Eugene Puryear helped found BreakThrough News, according to its website, and was listed as an instructor at The People’s Forum.
Controversies
In 2022, New Lines Magazine published an investigation revealing that “almost $65 million has filtered through various entities connected with people who have defended the Chinese government and downplayed or denied documented human rights violations committed by Beijing against the Uyghur and Turkic Muslim minorities.” New Lines reports that the “funding has moved through a complex series of mostly tax-deductible investment funds and charities, all linked by virtue of their governance structures to one man…Neville Roy Singham.” New Lines noted that the Justice and Education Fund, another nonprofit in this network, had “contributed $876,000 to a new group registered in Madison, Wisconsin, called People’s Welfare Association.” And “one of the directors of that organization, until September 2019,” was Daniel Tirado Behrens, “an employee at Shanghai Luoweixing” – a Chinese consultancy company in which Singham has invested.
Finances
PWA’s six publicly available Form 990 filings cover fiscal years 2020 through 2025. For the fiscal year ending April 30, 2025, PWA reported $12,038,800 in revenue and $12,830,220 in expenses, down sharply compared to $19,887,919 in revenue and $19,646,799 in expenses in the prior fiscal year. PWA reported $324,050 in total assets at the end of fiscal year 2025.
Across the six filings, PWA reported $102.8 million in total revenue, nearly all from grants and contributions. Donor-side filings show that the Justice and Education Fund and People’s Support Foundation reported providing PWA with a combined $84 million—about 82 percent of PWA’s total reported revenue.
Over the same period, PWA reported approximately $102 million in grants and other assistance outside the United States, across South and Central America, sub-Saharan Africa, Europe and the Caribbean. Annual totals ranged from $12.6 million to $19.5 million. The fiscal year 2025 filing reported $12.74 million.
Compensation
All of PWA’s 990 filings indicate zero employees, and zero dollars issued as compensation to its Board of Directors.
Board of Directors
PWA’s current and former officers and directors listed in its Form 990 filings include:
Kristine Teresa Krouth, president and director (FY2020–FY2025)
Eugene Puryear, treasurer and director (FY2024–FY2025)
Baruch Gottlieb, secretary and director (FY2023–FY2025)
Ivan Orosa Paleo, treasurer and director (FY2020–FY2024)
Mariana Miranda de Paula Assis, secretary and director (FY2020–FY2023)
Daniel Tirado Behrens, secretary and director (FY2020)
Revenue and expenses
Assets and liabilities
Founded in 2026, the Civil Defense Institute is a nonpartisan investigative research organization. We research people, organizations and networks whose conduct undermines civil society and Americans’ freedom to participate in public life. Our work examines extremist and conspiracy-driven campaigns, foreign influence, organized harassment and the institutions that enable them.