The Prem Rawat Foundation Is a Fake Charity Note *
In 2001, The Prem Rawat Foundation was registered in California as a charitable Trust. It mainly consisted of an Internet website and sold downloadable excerpts of Prem Rawat's speeches, musical compositions and other grossly over-priced 'art' works. It's Mission Statement is simple though absurdly grandiose: The Mission of TPRF is a simple one: to address the fundamental human needs of food, water and peace so that people can live with dignity, peace & prosperity.
How Can Prem Rawat Address the World's Fundamental Human Needs Of Food, Water and Peace With $554,036.09 Per Annum?
In the years in which financial details have been published the Prem Rawat Foundation received $47,974,861 in donations. TPRF funded charitable enterprises with $11,634,758 only 24% of their revenue. The rest of the disbursed donations - $36,340,103, about 3 times as much - was spent on Prem Rawat, either directly funding his lavish lifestyle or promoting him with phony PR campaigns and programs and the costs of his travel and speechifying. These have two objectives, make it look like he is a successful businessman/investor and inspirational public speaker and secondly attract more people to his cult to donate more money for his luxury lifestyle and to promote those other objectives. It's a vicious circle except for Rawat himself. You won't find this mentioned in any TPRF press release. As all the money spent for charitable purposes are really made to promote Prem Rawat's public image it is probably more accurate to say all the donations are spent on and for Prem Rawat. The average annual aid disbursed by TPRF is $½ million. TPRF twenty two year totals:
Rawat Rips Off 75% of the expenditure for Himself And Scams Phony PR Press Releases lauding his "philanthropy."
The Inspire Electronic Magazine that was published by TPRF in nearly 200 issues over the years 2004 - 2010 and the TPRF Annual Reports and the press releases distributed through PRNewswire provide a complete picture of Prem Rawat, his activities and Knowledge that he wanted to show to the public (though mainly to his followers) during that time.
Examination of the Prem Rawat Foundation annual reports shows that 25% of the funds contributed to the foundation (by Rawat's devotees, not by Rawat personally) were spent on humanitarian or charitable activities. The majority has been spent on Prem Rawat himself and helps fund his travels in his private multi million dollar jets, staying in luxury hotel suites and giving speeches that inspire his followers to donate money that is spent on his travels in his private multi million dollar jets …
Total Revenue for TPRF from 2002 to 2024 is $US47,974,861. Total expenditure on Humanitarian Causes was $US11,634,758. Percentage of revenue donated to humanitarian causes was 24.01%. The rest of the expenditure, $36,340,103 was spent on goods and services directly or indirectly benefiting Prem Rawat himself. Since 2017 TPRF have recorded the cost of the Food For Peace Program and the number of meals provided. The figures are skewed because of problems when COVID stalked the earth but 25 cents a meal is a reasonable estimate. It would be interesting to contrast the cost of Rawat's meals to those of his charitable takeaways though the cost of his luxuruy life is not made public.
Could Prem Rawat's minions and hired guns have created a world record? The most PR spin for the least charitable amounts?
The Inspire electronic newsletter was TPRF's major vehicle for the promotion of Rawat up to 2010. It usually contained a brief story about an Élan Vital Inc. (EVI ceased operations in 2010) event or TPRF charitable or humanitarian activity and a short edited section of one of Rawat's recent speeches which was also available on subscription (after the first 10 issues) as a .pdf file. The stories were reused and published on the web at other sites including Young Peoples' Initiative (This site went off-line in 2015. It was supposedly created by and for young people rather than the majority of Rawat's students who had been initiated in the 1970's and were then in their 50's); Maharaji Blog (http://maharajiblog.net/) which shut down at the end of 2009, The Voice of Maharaji which closed down mid 2009. Only the Young Peoples' Initiative was updated after 2009. Articles about Rawat's public activities were distributed as press releases through PR Newswire though I have never seen one actually used by a newspaper.
I am not saying the Prem Rawat Foundation is acting illegally. Their expenditure on Prem Rawat is accepted by the Charity Commissioners to be "educational" and a public good. That is nonsense, it is good only for Prem Rawat