A far-left activist who helped lead a mob into a Minnesota church to protest Immigration and Customs Enforcement is now facing scrutiny for quietly cashing in big — all while the nonprofit she ran handed out far less to the people it claimed to help.
In a “First on Fox” story, Nekima Levy Armstrong, a self-described civil rights lawyer and “scholar-activist,” was one of the organizers behind the disruptive protest at Cities Church in St. Paul on Sunday. Demonstrators stormed the service after Armstrong claimed in a Facebook post that one of the church’s pastors is an ICE leader. The incident was part of a broader wave of demonstrations opposing the federal government’s recent surge of immigration enforcement agents sent to Minnesota to address widespread fraud.
But while Armstrong was busy agitating against ICE and stirring controversy, tax filings show she was also benefiting handsomely from her role atop a Minneapolis-based nonprofit.
From 2019 through 2024, Armstrong served as executive director of the Wayfinder Foundation, an organization marketed as a champion of anti-poverty initiatives. During those six years, Armstrong collected a total of $936,395 in salary, along with an additional $201,313 in health benefits and other compensation — pushing her personal haul well past the $1 million mark.
During that same period, the Wayfinder Foundation disbursed roughly $700,052 in grants, meaning the woman running the charity took home more money than the communities it was supposedly created to serve.
The imbalance is particularly stark in the most recent filings. In 2024, the foundation awarded just $158,811 in grants, while Armstrong paid herself $215,726 in salary, plus $40,548 in health benefits, benefit plan contributions, and deferred compensation.
The year before followed the same pattern. In 2023, the nonprofit gave out $133,698 in grants, while Armstrong pocketed $170,726 in salary and another $44,300 in other compensation.
In 2022, Armstrong again out-earned the foundation’s charitable giving, collecting $175,000 in compensation plus an estimated $33,126 in additional benefits, while grants totaled $161,325.
All told, the Wayfinder Foundation reported $5,246,387 in revenue from 2019 to 2024. Among its donors were some of the biggest names in progressive activism and corporate philanthropy.
The Black Lives Matter Global Network Foundation donated $20,000 in 2023, according to its tax filing, earmarked for Wayfinder “to conduct activities to educate and support Black communities.” Even more striking, the Walton Family Foundation — tied to the Walmart fortune — poured $2,340,000 into Wayfinder between 2018 and 2024.
Though the nonprofit’s website has since gone dark, archived pages reviewed by Fox News Digital reveal an openly radical mission. Wayfinder bragged that through its “signature Community Activist Fellowship (CAF) program,” it aimed to “intentionally invest in Black women and Latina activists, organizers, and change agents who are using their social, political, and financial capital to challenge the status quo and to disrupt business-as-usual within systems that perpetuate oppression.”
Armstrong herself wrote to potential donors:
“Where others see deficiencies, lack, and want, Wayfinder sees opportunity for little revolutions that place demands on power and change systems for the better. We get there by investing directly in the most basic unit of change in a child’s life, their mother.”
Today, Armstrong is listed as the founder and CEO of a cannabis company called Dope Roots, but her record of far-left activism continues to draw controversy. She has played a leading role in boycotts targeting Target after the retailer scaled back its diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives.
In another eyebrow-raising moment, Armstrong praised convicted cop killer Joanne Chesimard — also known as Assata Shakur — in a September 26 post, calling her “a brave, wise, powerful, and revolutionary Black woman.” Chesimard was convicted in the 1977 murder of New Jersey State Trooper Werner Foerster.
