In a private ceremony on September 17, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth stood at a podium inside the National Archives building in Washington, D.C., and congratulated a Florida nonprofit for what he called a singular achievement in American education. Participants were celebrating the Foundation for American Freedom and Greatness, which announced that it has provided civic education to 2 million children since its founding in 2016.
“I hope you understand how important this is” Hegseth told the room. “What we pay to the next generation will determine whether or not we retain our republic. »
FLAG founder Nick Adams has spent nearly a decade preparing for this moment. An Australian-born conservative commentator and MAGA influencer, Adams had created the nonprofit, raised $7.7 million over 10 years and received repeated praise from President Donald Trump. In March, Trump nominated Adams as Special Presidential Envoy for Tourism, Exception and American Values – a position created for him after his unsuccessful nomination as ambassador to Malaysia the previous year.
But an examination of FLAG’s finances, donor operations and online giving network reveals a less rosy picture. There is little evidence that the nonprofit has provided the civic education it claims. And Adams and his nonprofit engaged in a series of questionable financial arrangements, including paying Adams and his mother more than half of his recent annual income, while raising much of his money through a sweepstakes operation that promised donors a chance to win $1,000,000 — a prize that FLAG records show no evidence of any payment being made.
Adams moved to the United States from Australia in 2012 and has since become a staunch defender of the American political and economic system. Now 41, he has built a strong reputation as a conservative commentator and self-described “alpha male” influencer, making frequent media appearances and amassing an estimated 2.1 million followers on Facebook and 640,000 X followers on his personal pages. Adams is the author of books including “Retaking America: Crushing Political Correctness” and “Trump and Churchill: Defenders of Western Civilization.”
In 2016, Adams founded FLAG, registering it as a nonprofit organization with a mission to bring high-quality civics education to K-12 students across America. FLAG has produced civic materials like the Student Constitution, the Student Declaration of Independence, and the Student Federalist Papers – child-friendly editions of the country’s founding documents. In 2023, FLAG reported annual revenue of nearly $1.5 million, made up of donations and merchandise sales. “Thanks to the support of more than 40,000 grassroots patriots,” the organization says. website states“more than a million FLAG resources have been distributed to classrooms across America. »
To give FLAG credibility in conservative circles, Adams assembled an advisory board of movement leaders, including Hegseth, then a Fox News host; the late Charlie Kirk, founder of Turning Point USA; the late Edwin J. Feulner, founder of the Heritage Foundation; and Dennis Prager, conservative radio host and co-founder of PragerU, a nonprofit organization that produces conservative educational materials. (The council has since been replaced by a board of directors.)
Adams did not respond to a detailed list of questions about FLAG’s financial practices, how the drawing works and educational programs. A Pentagon spokesperson declined to answer questions but reiterated Hegseth’s support for the FLAG.
Civic education has become a rallying point within the Make America Great Again movement, whose slogan evokes a return to a specific vision of the country’s founding principles. PragerU is an accredited curriculum provider in at least eight states. Turning Point USA has pursued a similar goal through Turning Point Academy, a network of private schools. Along with these organizations, FLAG is now part of the America 250 Civics Education Coalition, a U.S. Department of Education partnership formed with more than 40 conservative groups.
Trump’s return to power has been a boon for Adams. The president has called Adams one of his favorite authors, and a foreword to Adams’ 2024 book, “Alpha Kings,” attributed to Trump, describes Adams as someone whose “work ethic is equal to his moral responsibility and faith in God.” Although Trump was unable to attend the 2023 FLAG Annual Gala, he sent a video praising the association and Adams, telling attendees that “tens of thousands of teachers are being trained and hundreds of thousands of parents and grandparents are now advocating for our children.”
“We need Nick from Australia to come teach us American greatness and help us fight for our country,” Trump added. “He’s an American now and we’re very lucky to have him.”
The White House press office declined to comment.
The FLAG website invites teachers to request free classroom presentations, delivered by “certified FLAG ambassadors,” including Adams himself, alongside guest speakers described as entrepreneurs, business leaders and immigrants. In 2016 and early 2017, FLAG regularly published photos documenting school visits. However, after this period, ProPublica was unable to find similar documentation of FLAG representatives visiting schools.
Since 2016, as FLAG’s annual revenue has grown from $68,000 to $1.1 million in 2024, there has been almost no indication in the organization’s annual federal tax filings that it was spending money on its stated mission. No item on FLAG’s federal income tax return identifies a payment to any school, teacher, or educational distributor. Just two lines, in a 2017 federal filing, show $26,925 for “Student Constitutions, Printing” and $5,670 for “Book Donations, Shipping and Supplies.” Over the past six years, while FLAG operated under Adams’ leadership, the only documented example of FLAG activity that appears to meet the definition of “educational” is a 2020 video showing Adams speaking at what is described as a teachers’ conference.
But the nonprofit proved lucrative for the Adams family. In 2024, Adams, born Nicholas Adamopoulos, and his mother, Angelika Adamopoulos, received a total of $587,279 in compensation and benefits from FLAG, or 53% of the organization’s revenue that year, according to the nonprofit’s federal filing.
Adamopoulos received $201,861, including benefits, as FLAG secretary. In the same filing, FLAG answered no when asked by the IRS whether an officer or director shared a family relationship with another director or officer. Adamopoulos did not respond to requests for comment.
Experts were troubled that the organization was spending so much on Adams and his mother. “The amount paid, both in absolute terms and as a percentage of the organization’s revenues and expenses, is very high,” said Lloyd Mayer, a professor of nonprofit law at Notre Dame Law School and a leading authority on tax-exempt organizations.
Mayer said Adams’ pay increases since FLAG’s inception constitute more of a “yellow flag” than a blatant violation. For FLAG’s first three years, Adams received no salary. He first received compensation of just $20,400 in 2019. Afterwards, his annual salary increased steadily to $411,209, or about 30% of the group’s total revenue, in 2023. Adamopoulos was the first employee outside of Adams to receive a significant salary, in 2024. No other employee received more than $5,000 from 2016 to 2024, according to federal FLAG documents, obtained through ProPublica Nonprofit Explorer.
The legal test, Mayer said, is whether the board made it clear that it was compensating for the first few years of low or no salary: “Did they explicitly say, ‘We’re not just paying you for this year; we are paying you for your past services, for which you were not fairly compensated”?
The IRS asks nonprofits whether their executive compensation was independently reviewed and whether they used comparisons with other similar organizations — a standard safeguard against self-dealing. In all applications filed between 2017 and 2024, FLAG answered no to both questions.
Philip Hackney, a nonprofit law professor at the University of Pittsburgh and former IRS official, said the lack of an independent review creates its own legal exposure. “Technically, that itself may constitute an excess benefits transaction,” Hackney said, referring to the IRS category that triggers taxes on compensation paid to nonprofit insiders above their fair market value.
FLAG says 66 percent of revenue goes toward expenses related to program services, according to a separate financial report filed with the Florida Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services, where the organization is now based. But Adams and her mother’s salaries, social media expenses and travel costs account for $755,541, or 86 percent, of the $878,208 allocated for program services.
Mayer said the classification is not automatically inappropriate under federal law. “Education as a charitable purpose is a very broad category,” he said. “Spending money on staff, online communications, and even fundraising appeals with informational content can all be considered programmatic. »
“What [the IRS is] “They’re not looking for inflated spending,” Mayer said. “They are looking for disguised personal expenses.”
In Australia, Adams was accused of spending taxpayers’ money on personal expenses. In 2006, when Adams was 22, he was a councilor in Ashfield, Australia. He was formally condemned by his fellow councilors for spending thousands of dollars on phone calls and taxi fares for his personal use, while claiming them as council expenses. He repaid the charges after a formal investigation, according to a 2006 article in the Weekly Inner-Westan Australian newspaper.
FLAG’s online store sells Adams’ personal books – including “Alpha Kings” and “From Mar-a-Lago to Mars”, several of which are marketed as signed copies for up to $40 – as well as its own educational materials. One of Adams’ personal books, “Trump and Churchill,” is featured on the front page of FLAG. online storeaccompanied by text stating: “Proceeds from all sales go directly to furthering our mission and providing students and teachers with high-quality educational resources.” » This is the only book whose language distinguishes between purchases that fund FLAG’s mission or pay Adams directly.
In September, FLAG published a photo from a conservative women’s convention showing Adams standing behind a table filled with copies of his personal books displayed alongside FLAG-branded resources with the organization’s banner behind him. Adams’ books were also advertised for sale on FLAG’s Facebook page, with links leading directly to Adams’ personal website for the books rather than FLAG’s Shopify page.
“He’s free to market his books,” Mayer said, “but if he asks a charity to do it, that means it’s not really a charity anymore, in that regard. It’s not about the public interest – the private benefit to him outweighs the public interest.”
In addition to the disclosure discrepancies, FLAG appears to have violated the rules regarding the organization of sweepstakes. Almost all of FLAG’s revenue comes from individual donors, and most of that money is raised through a direct mail draw operation which offers the chance to win prizes, in one case $1,000,000.
For years, FLAG ran a direct mail sweepstakes campaign under names like “Payout Decision” and “Winner Search Swps.” Competitions are regulated primarily at the state level, and organizations that conduct them are often required to register and report to state officials. Not all states require it, but Florida, where FLAG is registered as a charity, does. FLAG does not disclose a sweepstakes schedule in its federal filings, and ProPublica could not locate any official sweepstakes entries for the organization in any state.
Nine years of FLAG’s federal filings contain no transactions consistent with a $1,000,000 payment. Hackney said such a payment should appear on the organization’s tax returns. “It would have to be an amount paid at some point, and it would show up in a 990,” he said, referring to the name of the tax return filed by nonprofits, which is public. At its financial peak in 2023, FLAG held total assets of approximately $512,000, approximately half the value of the prize it offered to donors.
Mayer said the lack of a documented payment of the price raised other legal questions. “If the promise is that someone will win $1,000,000 and no one ever does, that’s fraud,” he said. “It’s lying to get people to support you.”
Internal records from a mailing list exchange database, which detail how often and for what purpose organizations use potential donor mailing lists, show a shift in FLAG’s focus. Notes in FLAG’s filing indicate that as of July 2020, FLAG was “not sending much mail” through conventional fundraising channels and was “focused on fundraising campaigns.”
In April 2024, someone filed a Better Business Bureau complaint against FLAG, alleging that sweepstakes deadlines were repeatedly postponed – along with those of more than a dozen other charities that the plaintiff claims were using the same practice. In a follow-up filing, the complainant cited FLAG’s schedule: a draw initially scheduled for January 2022 to December 2024, which was then pushed back from December 2023 to January 2025.
“I just want them to refund my hard-earned money,” the plaintiff wrote, “since I am a retired senior who loves this country.”
FLAG told the BBB on May 6, 2024, that it had responded to the complainant.
FLAG marks its 10th anniversary Wednesday, and is hosting a gala with tickets for the occasion at $1,000; $5,000; and $10,000. Adams is still listed on the website as FLAG’s founder, but handed over the CEO role in March to Cooper Rodenburg, a recent Stetson University graduate, around the time he accepted his role at the State Department for promote tourism in the United States.
Reached by phone, Rodenburg asked for questions to be emailed but did not respond.
Rodenburg has since increased FLAG’s public activity, launching a TikTok account and a Substack newsletter, meeting with education representatives, and speaking to groups like the Republican Women’s Club of Shelby County, Tennessee. A Substack article in April described FLAG, represented by Rodenburg and Adamopoulos, delivering founding documents to Mississippi schools. This is one of the only specific program activities the organization has documented in recent years.