How much did TPUSA spend each year before Charlie’s death
Executive summary
Public reporting does not provide a year‑by‑year audited table of Turning Point USA’s expenditures immediately before Charlie Kirk’s death, but available tax filings and investigative reporting give clear snapshots: TPUSA reported roughly $8.3 million in expenses in the 2016–17 year, and by the fiscal year ending in 2024 the organisation reported about $81 million in spending, with revenues of roughly $85 million; other outlets and analyses describe annual fundraising in the roughly $80–85 million range in the early 2020s [1] [2] [3] [4].
1. The early snapshot: modest nine‑figure growth from single digits to millions
Turning Point USA’s publicly reported finances show rapid expansion from its early years: in the 2016–17 financial year the group reported $8.2 million in donations and $8.3 million in expenses, most of which the organisation attributed to employment‑related costs of about $4.3 million [1], a figure that anchors how small TPUSA’s operating budget once was compared with later years.
2. The late‑cycle picture: roughly $80 million in spending by 2024
By the fiscal year ending in 2024, ProPublica’s review of TPUSA’s tax filings—repeated in multiple outlets—shows the organisation generated nearly $85 million in revenue and incurred approximately $81 million in expenses in that year, a scale that reflects the organisation’s fundraising surge and expanded program and payroll outlays before Kirk’s death [2] [3].
3. Growth trend and corroborating estimates: $39M in 2020 to $85M in 2024
Investigative reporting traces that surge: Guardian reporting cites TPUSA reporting $85 million in 2024, more than double the roughly $39 million it hauled in during 2020, indicating a trajectory in revenues (and attendant spending) that roughly doubled over four years; Forbes and other analyses characterise TPUSA by the mid‑2020s as operating at an annual fundraising and spending scale near $80 million [3] [4].
4. What reporters and records don’t give: the missing year‑by‑year ledger
While these sources establish clear data points—2016–17 expenses of $8.3 million and 2024 expenses of about $81 million [1] [2]—they do not, in the reporting assembled here, publish a complete, year‑by‑year breakdown of TPUSA’s expenses for every year immediately before Charlie Kirk’s death; some stories report revenue figures for intervening years (for example, roughly $39 million in 2020 and $28.5 million in revenue reported in 2019 in earlier filings) but not exhaustive annual expense figures in every year between 2017 and 2024 [1] [3] [4].
5. Bottom line and caveats for readers following the money
The best available, sourced answer from recent reporting is that TPUSA’s spending rose from about $8.3 million in 2016–17 to roughly $81 million in the fiscal year ending in 2024, with multiple outlets describing annual fundraising and spending in the roughly $80–85 million range by the early‑to‑mid 2020s; however, a fully detailed year‑by‑year expense table for every pre‑death year was not provided in the cited reporting and would require consulting TPUSA’s annual IRS Form 990 filings directly for each fiscal year to fill the remaining gaps [1] [2] [3] [4].