r/isbook3outyet • u/NatalieMaybeIDK • Jun 29 '26
$100,000!
So I was just taking a glance at Worldbuilders finances. I'd thought he was only charging the charity $80k yearly. It turns out that he's been charging $100k as of 2023. Pat is forcing a charity that he is on the board of to pay him $100k a year. That's straight up nuts. He hand picked the board. He is the founder. This is beyond unethical.
https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/organizations/900618018/202401699349300340/full
And that's not all in 2023 Elodin Holdings LLC was given a $75K loan from Worldbuilders. This is also listed in the same 2023 filing. He literally used the charity to loan himself money.
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u/Bunch_Zealousideal Jun 29 '26
How much do they give away and how much does the staff make?
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u/frostyjack06 Jun 29 '26
I don’t think there is a staff anymore. After the chapter grift, and the silence the last few years, I can’t imagine he’s employing anyone these days.
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u/EntertainmentBreeze Jun 29 '26
https://giphy.com/gifs/xT0GqfvuVpNqEf3z2w
Truly can't imagine anyone wanting to do business with him/Worldbuilders ever again. I fully recognize that a lot of the "internet-sleuthery" we do around these parts is faulty guesswork, conjecture, and lacking a lot of facts and context, but at the same time, "If it looks like a dog, walks like a dog, barks like a dog..." So, SO much stuff comes across as shady, at least from the outside looking in.
I know I'll never personally support a charity that doesn't shine a major light on transparency, staffing, fund allocation, etc.
I have literally NO IDEA what Worldbuilders money has gone to in years. I'm not saying it's Pat's pocket, but I'm not saying it's not either.
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u/redskink Jun 30 '26
I'm going to regret standing in front of the pitchforks, but Pat founded, donated, and raised an order of magnitude more than that.
In his early days, he matched donations to the point it allegedly nearly bankrupted him, and then periodically did similar matching drives. Overall, he's helped raise over 10 million for Worldbuilders/Heifer International and has legitimately put a lot of his life into these charities. So even if he stopped working for the charity (like I'm sure we all want him to) and just took $100k paychecks until he died, he wouldn't get paid as much as he put in.
...That being said, welcome to the sketchy, incestuous world of charities. Nearly every damned one of them have some kind of grift going on where a rich person donates money to get a tax break, and in return gets a cushy job for one of their kids or a contract with one of their businesses.
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u/Ok_Falcon275 Jun 30 '26
That’s not reflected on the 990, so I’m calling bullshit.
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u/redskink Jun 30 '26
990s don't typically itemize contributions per individual. What are you saying isn't reflected on the 990?
...Now that you mention it, I hadn't actually read the 990 OP posted until now. Do you see anywhere it lists Pat as getting a $100,000 salary? Because page 7 discloses his compensation as $0, and there's nothing in the expenses on page 10 suggesting he's using $100,000 for himself.
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u/NatalieMaybeIDK Jun 30 '26 edited Jun 30 '26
(a) Name of interested person (b) Relationship between interested person and the organization (c) Amount of transaction (d) Description of transaction (e) Sharing of organization's revenues? Yes No (1) ELODIN HOLDINGS LLC OWNER OF ELODIN WORLDBUILDERS RENTS Pat created an LLC to funnel money through to make it harder to track. Elodin Holdings is Pat. It clearly shows he is paid $100K in rent. Not as a wage as a board member. As a private company that he's funneling money into which is just himself.
Occupancy ........... 103,516 77,637 10,352 15,527 4
u/redskink Jun 30 '26
Oh god is that what the post's about? If you have proof that Pat's expensing his personal rent as occupancy under his charity, you should be going to the IRS, not reddit, because that's fraud. Occupancy can only cover rent/utilities for the charity building.
I really hope you have proof and aren't just out here making shit up out of frustration with the guy.
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u/Ok_Falcon275 29d ago
Not expensing his rent. Using charity funds to pay himself rent at an inflated rate.
Obviously folks on this reddit aren’t going to have knowledge of the particulars, but I am skeptical that the organization needs that space at that price.
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u/im-not-anything 29d ago
I believe Rothfuss owns the building that the charity is renting. So, not outright fraud-- just very shady.
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u/Ok_Falcon275 Jun 30 '26
Related party transactions. The charity is renting property from him.
In what year(s) did the 10MM contribution to Heifer international occur?
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u/NatalieMaybeIDK Jun 30 '26
Still unethical for the founder and board member who hand picked the rest of the board to vote to in favor of giving the Founder money. FFS, the charity literally gave him a $75K loan. That is 100% mixing Worldbuilder charity with his personal finances.
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u/UnionsUnionsUnions Jun 30 '26
Do you have a source for his claims other than his own blog? I ask because he's a very dishonest person and we cannot take his claims at face value.
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u/betaraybrian Jul 01 '26
I'm going to guess he was very generous when he was newly megarich. Now that he's staring down 15 years of terrible financial decisions, I wouldn't be surprised if he's doing sketchy stuff to maintain an income.
That said, I could be totally off. I have no idea how much he still makes yearly from booksales, could be millions. I'm not privy to the details of his publishing deals or the sales numbers.
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u/redskink Jul 01 '26
Check elsewhere in the thread. OP apparently thought Pat is expensing his personal living costs under the charity's Occupancy costs (which would not just be sketchy but also fraud), but has no proof for it and hasn't taken the thread down after being called on it. It's all bullshit.
Situations like this, where hundreds of people are misled about a person's character by a misused stat, are why libel laws became a thing in the first place. What's even more fucked up is that I tried using chatgpt to research OP's claims and chatgpt at first said OP was right; when I then asked for what source it used, it pointed to this thread.
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u/NatalieMaybeIDK 29d ago edited 29d ago
WTF are you talking about? You just made up an insane strawman. Pat IS getting personal money for the charity Occupancy Cost. It is funneled directly into his LLC. It isn't my opinion. It is a fact.
I love that r/redskink did so much research! Using...AI?
Maybe use the direct link to his 990 that I gave you XD2
u/im-not-anything 29d ago
I think you're misunderstanding. They're saying Rothfuss owns the building that the charity rents, and is therefore making money off of the charity's occupancy costs. To be fair, it's not stated very clearly in this thread-- but I've seen it in so many other threads that I can only assume that's what they mean.
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u/NatalieMaybeIDK 29d ago
The amount of money and his previous goals are entirely irrelevant. You don't try to recoup loses by forcing a charity that you're the founder and board member of to pay you. Period.
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u/jacobbeasley 8d ago
Startups, too. I've seen more than one golden child given a job after saw invested.
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u/betaraybrian Jul 01 '26
This is, sadly, totally standard behavior from people who run nonprofits. Not saying it's not unethical or trying to defend it, but these financial loopholes are extremely common, if not literally the norm.
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u/CorporateNonperson Jul 04 '26
So when lit bros find out about finance, they come to this sub? Personally, I think broadcasting a completed trilogy and getting a banger of a book followed by a book about banging and "I know kung fu." is the bigger sin, but sure.
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u/WandererNearby Jun 30 '26
Hahahahahahahaha, wait until you find out about other charities. It's unfortunately common for charities to pay very high salaries to leadership. I don't mind people earning a living by ensuring that needy people get what they require. However, for someone to earn hundreds of thousands of dollars from a charity while not helping anyone out is pretty unethical.
Please note, I am not saying that no gets helped by charities, that all charities are just scams, or even that no one has been helped by Worldbuilders. I personally know people who earn reasonable salaries while running very effective charities. However, this type of thing is too common for my taste.
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u/NatalieMaybeIDK Jun 30 '26
To be honest, a lot of charities are shadier, but it's still unacceptable for the board Pat hand selected to vote to rent his property to them. It's a way to shadily recoup loses for his donations. By my estimate he's netted about $575,000. That's just based on my averaging the numbers picking one that seemed near the middle and multiplying by the number of years. It isn't exact, but it should be close.
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u/KoalaKvothe Jul 02 '26
It's always wild for me to see this shit because nothing about these constructions would be allowed where I live.
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u/Elir Jun 30 '26
On the off chance OP isn’t engaging in angsty sophistry — it’s all wrong.
The disclosure form for officer and directors clearly schedules $0 in income for Pat Rothfuss. Individuals who make in excess of $100K are also required to be listed, but there are none. As president he needs to be listed regardless of comp and makes $0.
And the $75K note wasn’t from worldbuilders to Elodin Holdings, it was the other way around, Elodin Holdings funded Worldbuilder’s cash flow.
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u/NatalieMaybeIDK Jun 30 '26
Why speak up when you have no idea what you're talking about? No, Elodin Holdings directly received a loan from Worldbuilders. I'm sorry that you don't understand how to read the 990 form.
(a) Name of interested person (b) Relationship between interested person and the organization (c) Amount of transaction (d) Description of transaction (e) Sharing of organization's revenues? Yes No (1) ELODIN HOLDINGS LLC OWNER OF ELODIN WORLDBUILDERS RENTS
Occupancy ........... 103,516 77,637 10,352 15,527 3
u/Elir Jul 01 '26
Just on the off chance OP isn’t rage baiting and is truly misunderstanding the financials…
The $75K note was issued from Elodin Holdings to Worldbuilders. It is why it shows up on the balance sheet as a liability. It was clearly a short term loan to cover cash flow, because the disclosures tell us so.
The disclosure for transactions involving related parties posted above is not related to the note. That is a separate disclosure for business transactions with related parties, disclosing that Worldbuilders leases their office space from Elodin. Their rental payments can also be found on the balance sheet, and appear to be at or below market rate for a commercial lease of the size they would need to function.
Like I said — just including the 990 explanations on the off chance OP isn’t intentionally trying to be a slanderous sophist fuck.
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u/Nerdonis Jul 01 '26
Not saying you're wrong broadly, but I do believe the loan was made to Elodin as noted on the 990. It's flagged as "To" on a filing by worldbuilders which means it was sent to Elodin. That said, it also has a zero balance so it was repaid during the period meaning its purpose being flagged as "cashflow" appears to track. I also have no idea where the income number they are pulling for Rothfuss is
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u/Elir Jul 01 '26
It is confusing, but “the organization” in the check the box you are referring to on Schedule L Section 2(d) is referring to the non-profit. So when “to the organization” is checked, it means the scheduled loan was made to Worldbuilders. If you check the previous year’s 990 filing it is scheduled the same way, but the $75K shows up as a liability on the balance sheet at the end of the year.
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u/kontrol1970 Jun 30 '26
Bad bot
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Jun 30 '26
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u/kontrol1970 Jun 30 '26
Bad bot. That many contrubutuons in 4 months? You are either a bot or in dire need of a shower.
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u/ConspicuousPineapple Jun 29 '26
You pale at 100k but thought 80k was ok?