Forget It Jake, It's Baltimore

Hana Scott

 Balmer Sun, Taxpayer-funded nonprofit tied to mayor’s wife closed. Where did its money go?

A nonprofit that received roughly $300,000 in taxpayer-backed funding and employed Baltimore Mayor Brandon Scott’s wife shut down last year, but its latest public tax filing showed more than $224,000 in net assets — and there is not yet a final filing showing what happened to the organization’s resources. 

Bmore Empowered ended operations in September 2025, after years of receiving public funding, mostly through the Baltimore Children and Youth Fund. Its director of operations was Hana Scott, the mayor’s wife, who was paid $51,000 through the organization from August 2024 to September 2025, according to documents obtained by Spotlight on Maryland.

Now, nonprofit watchdogs say Bmore Empowered’s closure raises an accountability question: Where did its remaining money go? 

Nazaahah Amin

The organization’s most recent publicly available tax return, covering fiscal year 2024 and filed nearly a year late, reported $224,144 in net assets or fund balances. Its fiscal year 2025 return was due in May but has not been filed, according to the IRS and charity databases. Charities can get an extension to November.

Bmore Empowered’s cofounders, Nazaahah Amin and Kieta Iriarte-Amin, did not respond to questions about whether they have plans to submit documentation on how the nonprofit’s remaining funds will be spent.

Laurie Styron, CEO of Charity Watch, a nonprofit watchdog that advocates for financial transparency, said organizations that dissolve are legally required to file a final tax return detailing what happened to their remaining assets. She said nonprofits are supposed to return unspent grant money and donate extra funds to other charities.

Kieta Iriarte-Amin

“Money doesn’t disappear into thin air,” she told Spotlight on Maryland. “It goes somewhere. And you need to make sure that you understand where it’s going in a timely manner so that if it doesn’t go where it’s supposed to, you can hold people accountable.”

Styron said she worries that Bmore Empowered’s history of late tax filings gives reason to believe they’ll never disclose where the remaining money went.

“Past behavior is often a good predictor of future behavior, and this charity doesn’t have a great track record of being incredibly transparent and accountable,” she told Spotlight on Maryland. “I’ve seen many, many instances in my 25-year career of charities simply not filing that form and the IRS not following up on it. Hopefully, that won’t be the case here.”

By the standards of Democrat grift $300 k isn't a lot of money, barely enough to hire lawyers if split 3 ways, but it would be nice to find out what happened to it.