As he runs for Minnesota governor, Kendall Qualls faces questions about his nonprofit's political activity

MINNEAPOLIS - Republican candidate for governor Kendall Qualls is running for Minnesota's highest office while continuing to lead a nonprofit he founded to promote many of the same political and cultural causes that define his campaign.

The overlap has prompted questions from a former adviser and finance experts on whether Qualls has adequately separated his campaign from TakeCharge, the tax-exempt organization he launched in 2020 in opposition to the notion that racism is deeply embedded in American society.

Qualls, the Minnesota GOP-endorsed candidate for governor, promoted his campaign and conducted campaign work from the nonprofit's office, according to a former adviser and a Minnesota Star Tribune review of campaign videos posted online.

Nonprofit law experts said some of those activities raise questions under federal rules barring tax-exempt charities from participating in political campaigns.

Federal tax filings show that TakeCharge paid Qualls and his wife, Sheila Qualls, just over $1 million between 2021 and 2024. That total accounted for nearly 32% of Take Charge's spending during that period.

The nonprofit's largest apparent donor has also contributed to Qualls' political campaigns.

"He is using (his office) as a staging platform," said David Osmek, a former state senator and adviser to Qualls who left the campaign last December.

Osmek said he filed a complaint on Wednesday with the Minnesota Campaign Finance and Disclosure board alleging Qualls violated state campaign finance laws by running his gubernatorial campaign from TakeCharge's office.

Qualls' campaign said the nonprofit has not supported his run for governor.

"TakeCharge is not affiliated in any manner with Kendall Qualls' campaign for governor," a campaign spokesman said. "Everything he is doing is perfectly legal."

Qualls is far from the first politician to work at a nonprofit and face the challenge of walling off his political activities. And the federal ban on election activities by tax-exempt nonprofits is rarely enforced.

Qualls is running in the Aug. 11 Republican primary against Minnesota House Speaker Lisa Demuth and MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell, with the winner facing the Democratic candidate, Sen. Amy Klobuchar, in November. Although he won the backing of Republican delegates in June, Qualls raised less money than Demuth and Lindell through May, according to campaign finance reports.

Qualls continues to operate TakeCharge, but the campaign said he stopped taking a salary last year. That's a departure from 2022, when he stepped down as TakeCharge's president shortly before announcing his first run for governor. He resumed his leadership role after failing to win the party endorsement in May 2022.

"He stepped down in 2021 because the nonprofit was so new," Qualls' campaign spokesman said. "Right now, a few years later, it is a lot more established."

‘Qualls' mission'

Qualls' rags-to-riches story is a cornerstone for TakeCharge and his gubernatorial campaign.

He grew up in a New York City housing project and a trailer park in Oklahoma before serving in the U.S. Army and earning a bachelor's degree and an MBA.

Qualls, 62, worked for 30 years as a healthcare industry executive, including at Medtronic and Johnson & Johnson. In a recent state campaign filing, Qualls says he is "self-employed/semi-retired."

His main vocation in recent years besides running for office has been leading TakeCharge, which was founded in September 2020. Four months earlier, a Minneapolis police officer had murdered George Floyd, a killing that launched a nationwide debate over racism and power.

While many Black leaders called for institutions to refocus diversity, equity and inclusion efforts in response to Floyd's death, Qualls advocated against those initiatives.

On its website, TakeCharge calls itself "a Christ-centered organization" committed to the idea that "America works for everyone regardless of race or social station."

It calls on Black Americans to "take charge" of their lives, particularly through education and family life. Central to the nonprofit's mission: Combating critical race theory, the idea that racism is entrenched in American society and its power structure.

In TakeCharge's view, current racial disparities stem from the "destruction" of Black families by government welfare programs created in the 1960s.

TakeCharge has produced two movies to promote its views, including "I Am A Victor," which rejects the notion of black victimhood and features Kendall Qualls. The nonprofit also publishes a magazine, "The Washington Perspective," which includes columns from Kendall and Sheila Qualls.

The couple have hosted video podcasts on the conservative website Alpha News. And TakeCharge founded a private Minnesota school, Washington Academy, which serves kindergarten through second grade. Sheila Qualls is its executive director.

TakeCharge's school and its magazine are named after Booker T. Washington, a turn-of-the-20th century orator and educator who Qualls sees as a role model.

TakeCharge "is Qualls' mission, and he's passionate about it," said Alfrieda Baldwin, TakeCharge's chairwoman, an unpaid position. "Yes, he is running for governor, and he has the right to do that, but TakeCharge is separate."

TakeCharge tallied $1.17 million in revenue and had a $169,120 net surplus in 2024, the last year for which its annual federal tax filing is available. Its primary employees that year were Kendall and Sheila Qualls.

TakeCharge paid Kendall Qualls $206,667 in 2024 for 50-hour workweeks, plus $42,432 in nonwage compensation, the tax filing shows. Sheila Qualls, as the nonprofit's executive director, made $60,000 for an average workweek of 25 hours.

In 2024, the median salary for a leader heading a Minnesota nonprofit the size of TakeCharge was $118,650, according to the Minnesota Council of Nonprofits.

Qualls' compensation "feels high," said Kate Barr, a Minnesota-based nonprofit finance and governance expert. "But it's not outrageously out of line."

Kendall Qualls stopped taking a paycheck from TakeCharge in the first quarter of 2025, said representatives of his campaign and TakeCharge. "He felt it was in the best interests of the organization not to take a salary at that time," Baldwin said.

Overlap with campaign

A tax-exempt 501(c)(3) group like TakeCharge can advocate for cultural and economic views that are also inherently politically tinged, but federal rules prohibit them from supporting or opposing political candidates.

TakeCharge's website and Facebook page make no mention of Qualls' candidacy. The two entities also have different addresses: the campaign's address is in Stillwater, state filings show, while the nonprofit's office is in Minnetonka.

That separation is crucial. Candidates working for tax-exempt nonprofits can't use a charity's resources to further their campaign, said Jon Pratt, former head of the Minnesota Council on Nonprofits.

"Any campaign activity has to be outside of their employment time and outside of the organization's property. It's kind of a zero-tolerance policy."

Yet Qualls has recorded several campaign videos from TakeCharge's office. At least seven videos promoting Qualls' 2026 candidacy - all shot in the same office - were posted to Qualls' campaign account on X.

A Newsmax interview with Qualls this spring - shot in the same office - was posted to Qualls' X account, too. Introduced as a Minnesota gubernatorial candidate, Qualls was highly critical of Gov. Tim Walz's performance, saying his own administration would "clean out" St. Paul.

"We have had eight years of unaccountability, eight years of the worst leadership, I would say, in the country," Qualls told Newsmax. "My friends, Minnesota is the darkest state in the country."

Qualls' campaign spokesman confirmed the videos were shot in TakeCharge's office.

Osmek, Qualls' former campaign adviser, said Qualls has done other political work in the nonprofit's office

"In his office, he gave me campaign literature, bumper stickers, and we talked campaign strategy," said Osmek, who left Qualls' campaign in December because he was disillusioned with the candidate's spending on consultants and other decisions.

In his complaint to Minnesota campaign regulators, Osmek claims Qualls' use of TakeCharge's office constitutes a prohibited and unreported in-kind contribution to his gubernatorial campaign.

The Qualls campaign declined to specifically comment on Osmek's campaign finance complaint.

But Qualls' campaign spokesman said Osmek is a "career politician" whose "feelings were hurt because Kendall did not ask him to be lieutenant governor."

The spokesman also said "there have been no violations of IRS rules" with Qualls' use of TakeCharge's office.

Lloyd Hitoshi Mayer, a law professor specializing in nonprofits at the University of Notre Dame, said Qualls "crosses the line" by using his charity's office to promote his campaign.

"He can't use his office for any campaign activities without violating the charity's tax-exempt status," he said.

Samuel Brunson, a professor at Loyola University Chicago's law school who specializes in nonprofit law, said that while Qualls' political use of TakeCharge's office is "not ideal," there is not a "slam dunk" case against him.

"The value of those resources seems de minimis; it's not a significant expenditure of funds," he said.

Brunson said the federal prohibition on election activities by tax-exempt nonprofits "is a grossly underdeveloped part of law because the IRS never enforces it."

Ties to donors

As is typical with tax-exempt groups, TakeCharge runs primarily on donations. Some are from major GOP donors.

Its largest contributor in 2024 appears to have been Minnetrista-based K.A.H.R. Foundation, operated by Jeannine Rivet, a retired UnitedHealth Group executive vice president, and her husband, Warren Herreid III.

K.A.H.R. contributed $201,000 in 2024, comprising nearly a fifth of TakeCharge's total revenue that year. In previous years, the foundation donated about $370,000 to TakeCharge, IRS filings show.

Rivet and Herreid have contributed more than $1 million to Republican candidates and groups since 2009, and they have backed Qualls' campaigns for Congress and governor.

TakeCharge has ties to other major Republican figures, including former Minnesota Republican Party Chair Ron Eibensteiner. He served as a TakeCharge director and its secretary-treasurer – an unpaid position – from 2022 through 2024. Eibensteiner, who could not be reached for comment, also served as treasurer for Qualls' 2022 gubernatorial campaign.

Eibensteiner, a longtime chairman of the conservative think tank Center of the American Experiment, left his positions with TakeCharge in March 2025, said Qualls' campaign spokesman.

Eibensteiner was also listed as TakeCharge's president in the nonprofit's application for tax-exempt status in 2020. Qualls' spokesman said Qualls' name was added to subsequent documents.

"This is Kendall Qualls' baby," the spokesman said, "and he has been here since day one."

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(Star Tribune staff writer Walker Orenstein contributed to this story.)

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This story was originally published July 10, 2026 at 9:54 AM.