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- Travis Kelce won the Walter Payton NFL Man of the Year Charity Challenge, earning a $35,000 donation for Operation Breakthrough.
- Kelce’s own nonprofit, Eighty-Seven and Running, has faced scrutiny for its spending and governance practices.
- The foundation’s business manager stated that incorrect tax filings miscategorized expenses and that corrections are being made.
Kansas City Chiefs tight end Travis Kelce won the Walter Payton NFL Man of the Year Charity Challenge presented by Nationwide, a popularity contest on social media, for the third time on Wednesday, Jan. 7, earning $35,000 for his charity of choice.
The donation will go directly to Operation Breakthrough, a partner nonprofit in Kansas City, rather than to Kelce’s Eighty-Seven and Running Foundation, which received the money the previous two times he won the contest in 2020 and 2024.
Kelce’s fiancée, pop star Taylor Swift, also recently donated $250,000 to Operation Breakthrough, which aims to “provide a safe, loving and educational environment for children in poverty and to empower their families through advocacy, emergency aid and education.”
“As for Kelce’s decision to donate his contest winnings to an established charity, in the short term this was the right call,” said Laurie Styron, the CEO and executive director of CharityWatch, an independent charity watchdog group. “The people operating the foundation need time to get their accounting, governance, and legal house in order. It was the responsible move under the circumstances.”
Operation Breakthrough’s Ignition Lab, a workforce development program for teens, has received funding from Eighty-Seven and Running for years. But Kelce’s nonprofit, which was founded in 2015, has recently received scrutiny for its governance and charitable spending, following a review by The Arizona Republic of federal tax records filed by nonprofits created by Walter Payton award nominees.
The Eighty-Seven and Running Foundation told the IRS it spent 41 cents of every dollar on charitable activities over the last three years for which federal tax records are available, and paid hundreds of thousands of dollars to A&A Management Group, which was co-founded by Kelce’s longtime business managers, brothers Aaron and André Eanes.
Aaron Eanes told The Republic the nonprofit mistakenly submitted incorrect breakdowns of its expenses to the IRS for nearly a decade and committed to correcting the issues moving forward. He is the executive director of the nonprofit, which has no official president, secretary or treasurer and just two board members, below the minimum of three required to ensure good governance.
“It appears to function more as an extension of the management company versus as an independent public charity,” Styron told The Republic, after she reviewed the nonprofit’s tax filings.
“That’s not how charities work. It’s wrong.”
Walter Payton award winners receive more than $1.5 million in donations from NFL Foundation and Nationwide
The Walter Payton NFL Man of the Year award winner and nominees, one from each team, collectively receive more than $1.5 million in annual donations from the NFL Foundation and Nationwide to give to the charities of their choice, often ones the players founded.
The winner is announced at NFL Honors the week of the Super Bowl and receives $250,000, while the other 31 nominees each receive $40,000.
The Republic has repeatedly exposed widespread waste and mismanagement among these nonprofits, some of which spend less than 50 cents of every dollar on actual charity, often because players and their families lack sufficient nonprofit guidance and education.
Many are directed by agents and marketing professionals to work with sports charity management companies geared toward profit and optics over impact.
The NFL changed its rules for the Walter Payton NFL Man of the Year award in 2025, based on The Republic’s reporting, to require that players’ designated nonprofits adhere to state and federal nonprofit laws.
Dion Dawkins of the Buffalo Bills and Jordan Mailata of the Philadelphia Eagles finished second and third in voting for the 2025 Charity Challenge, respectively, and will receive $10,000 and $5,000 donations for the charities of their choice.
Dawkins’ nonprofit, Dion’s Dreamers, is not an independent entity but a fiscally sponsored project of the Edward Charles Foundation, a collective that spends 94 cents of every dollar on charitable activities, according to tax records.
Mailata partners directly with established nonprofits, including the Philadelphia Children’s Alliance, American Association for Cancer Research and Eagles Autism Foundation, which experts said is the safest, easiest and most efficient way to give back.
Travis Kelce’s business manager dedicated to ‘highest standards’
Kelce’s Eighty-Seven and Running Foundation reported it raised $1.5 million and spent $1.1 million from 2022-24, with $469,000 going to management, $446,000 going to charity and $182,000 going to fundraising.
But Aaron Eanes said the nonprofit’s tax filings were filled out incorrectly for nearly a decade.
“Our previous approach to categorizing expenses on our 990 filings did not accurately reflect actual fund usage,” Eanes told The Republic in a written statement.
Operational costs for charitable efforts since 2015 were “mistakenly reported under management rather than allocated adequately to program services,” Eanes told The Republic, so public records do not provide an “indication of where the resources were truly directed.”
“We have since corrected this: management fees decreased significantly in 2024 and dropped to zero in 2025,” Eanes said.
“Looking ahead, we are expanding our board of directors, bringing on advisors with nonprofit expertise, and restructuring our reporting processes to better reflect our actual program work. We are dedicated to ensuring this foundation operates at the highest standards.”
How do charity watchdog groups judge a nonprofit’s efficiency?
Charity Navigator, a nonprofit watchdog group, expects efficient nonprofits to spend at least 70 cents of every dollar on charity.
CharityWatch considers a nonprofit highly efficient when it spends at least 75 cents of every dollar on charity. Its rating system gives nonprofits that spent fewer than 50 cents per dollar on charity a grade of D or F.
The amount of each dollar spent on charity is determined by dividing a nonprofit’s annual expenses for program services by its total expenses, which are reported on federal tax forms.
Zooming out over the past decade, since Kelce’s nonprofit was created in 2015, it has reported $3.4 million in revenue and $2.7 million in expenses, with nearly $900,000 going to management and $1.5 million going to charity.
That’s about 56 cents of every dollar spent.
“The (management) costs covered the necessary operational infrastructure for the foundation to operate effectively,” Eanes said, “including coordinating fundraising events like Kelce Car Jam, maintaining ongoing relationships with partner organizations such as Operation Breakthrough and the University of Cincinnati, overseeing donor communications and the foundation’s website, and ensuring the capacity to quickly mobilize resources when community needs arise.”
Operation Breakthrough is highly efficient, tax records show
Operation Breakthrough is highly efficient, according to its most recent tax records.
The nonprofit, which was founded in 1971, reported it received $54.2 million in total revenue over the last three years for which public records are available, with $51.3 million in total expenses.
About $42.8 million was spent on charitable activities, or about 83 cents of every dollar.
The nonprofit reports it has 19 voting members in its governing body, all of them independent.
Operation Breakthrough congratulated Kelce for winning the 2025 Walter Payton NFL Man of the Year Charity Challenge on social media.
“We’re so proud and grateful for his decade-long support and lasting impact on our KC families,” it said.
The Chiefs website reported that “Kelce has contributed nearly $2 million to the organization over the years through a combination of personal donations and various directed funds.”
Kelce has worked with Operation Breakthrough since 2015, his rookie year with the Chiefs.
“To be chosen as the team’s Walter Payton NFL Man of the Year is such a great honor,” Kelce said when nominees were announced Dec. 4. “I have so much love for Kansas City and the Chiefs organization, and to be selected once again means everything to me. The opportunity to be involved and help kids through Eighty-Seven and Running and working with Operation Breakthrough, as well as Ignition Lab, has been such a tremendous experience.
“Coming from Cleveland Heights and having a strong support system has taught me the importance of having the right people around, that show up for you and want to see you succeed. Being able to give back to Kansas City and to my hometown, places that have done so much for me, has been a dream come true, and I’ll never take that for granted.
“Representing the team, the Hunt family, our fans, and my foundation is incredibly special and I’m very grateful.”
Tips or story ideas? Email sports features and investigative reporter Jason Wolf at [email protected]. Follow him on X, formerly Twitter, at @JasonWolf.
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