Are millions spent on Sacramento’s youth violence prevention with little oversight?

As Sacramento leaders debated how to close a $66 million deficit, the city’s Office of Violence Prevention was one of the programs under discussion to be slashed.

Over the last five years, a network of nonprofits overseen by OVP has received more than $6 million in public money.

Paris Dye, who represents Impact Sac, one of the organizations potentially on the chopping block, said prior to a City Council meeting in May: “The city should be proud of the work that we’re doing instead of making us come back and beg for funds.”

Councilmember Lisa Kaplan, arguing the violence prevention efforts were too vital to eliminate, brokered an agreement to restore $1.25 million for OVP grant funding for the next fiscal year.

But two of largest recipients of city violence prevention funds — both formed as nonprofits after the city’s OVP program was restructured in 2021 by former City Manager Howard Chan — received millions with little and sometimes no oversight from the city or the Sacramento Police Department, which oversees the OVP.

One of the organizations is Impact Sac, whose CEO is Terry Schneider, the minister of a Sacramento County church, Liberty Towers. Dye serves as the organization’s executive director. Another is Brother 2 Brother Mentoring, which was founded by Mervin Brookins, a former felon who spent decades in prison on kidnapping and other charges, and has built an inspirational story of how he has turned his life around.

City records show Impact Sac has received $1.26 million since 2020. Brother 2 Brother, along with another organization founded by Brookins, Girls Leading Our World, has received $2.5 million from 2020 to 2025. Even critics of the organizations, and some of the people they have served, say they have played key roles in preventing youth violence.

Thousands of pages of city contracts, expense reports, tax filings and interviews with more than a dozen people familiar with both organizations, show that Impact Sac’s and Brother 2 Brother’s leaders have profited from their groups’ efforts, repeatedly failed to document expenses, from payments to mentors called “credible messengers” to gift cards to food, and violated financial regulations.

Both have funneled money to family members, documents show. Both spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on items such as gift cards with little documentation of who received them. And both were found delinquent by the California Attorney General for failing to file required annual tax returns and other documents — a status that legally prohibited them from soliciting or disbursing charitable funds.

Records show that even when some attempts at oversight occurred, they did not last long. In February 2025, Impact Sac briefly had a $56,250 invoice delayed because it had been submitted without documentation.

The city paid anyway.

In an unsigned email from [email protected], obtained through a public records request, a city official explained its reasoning — the organization had done it before: “I have run up the chain your invoice #3 and the 33% being allocated for your GPIT grant, because your invoice #2 was approved using this reporting process we will grant approval for the same 33% with no back up documents.’”

Dye defended the organization’s work. “Impact Sac has always done good work,” she said in a text message.

Citing a recent event at the Capitol to promote mental wellness, violence prevention and substance misuse awareness, Dye said, “We are experts at youth empowerment. We work to prevent violence by exposing young people to experiences and opportunities not typically offered to marginalized people groups.”

Debra Cummings, an anti-violence activist in Del Paso Heights, questions how these organizations spend the city’s money.

“The city has helped and assisted in this nonsense and it is killing our community,” she said. “There is a lot of fear around criticizing these groups. But people need to start speaking out.”

How did they start?

The story of how these organizations came to receive millions in city funds begins with the Office of Violence Prevention itself.

Before it entered the picture, Advance Peace — a nonprofit that had documented violence reductions in Sacramento, Richmond and Fresno — was contracted in 2017 to work with Sacramento. In 2020, Sacramento reported it had no homicides of youths 18 and under in an 18-month period. A UC Berkeley study found that 12 mentors hired by Advance Peace, all ex-felons guiding individuals deemed at high risk of gun violence, had driven youth homicides from six in the previous two-year period to zero and cut overall firearms assault rates in areas the program served by 25%.

The city canceled its contract in 2021 during restructuring of the OVP. Chan decided not to renew Advance Peace’s contract, records show. OVP was reshaped in 2020 with a new director and was moved from the city manager’s office to the police department.

Nicole Clavo, whose son J.J. had been shot and killed in 2015, became the director in July 2020.

Clavo oversaw the new contracts. Dye, a longtime community advocate, had said that Clavo encouraged her to form Impact Sac as an independent nonprofit. Previously, the organization had been a program within Liberty Towers. Clavo, through a police spokesperson, declined to comment for this story.

To qualify for its city contract, Impact Sac incorporated in September 2020 and received IRS tax-exempt status in January 2021. According to publicly available records, the organization did not register with the California Attorney General — a legal requirement for nonprofits soliciting or disbursing charitable funds — until July 2024. BDocuments show that between 2021 and 2024, the city paid Impact Sac $624,000.

Shortly after Clavo was appointed director, Brookins received his first Office of Violence Prevention contract — $250,000 routed through Girls Leading Our World. Brother 2 Brother had not yet completed its formation as a nonprofit.

The contract stated: “In response to the recent surge in gang activity, the City shall award Girls Leading Our World (G.L.O.W.) $250,000 who intends to subcontract with Brother-to-Brother (B2B) to formally establish its U-Turn mentoring program.” Days later, the contract was amended with one change, subtracting a single dollar, dropping it to $249,999 — one dollar below the threshold requiring City Council approval.

Records show the city then cut a check for $249,999. Asked for documentation of the expenses through a public records request, the only records provided by the city consisted of a ledger of payments, with no receipts.

Impact Sac’s first contract executed in 2021 was also for $249,999.

Contracts and documentation

Former City Councilwoman Katie Valenzuela called these “ghost contracts” — deals engineered to stay just below the threshold that would require a public vote.

“What really frustrated me, and it’s something I voiced multiple times, is that the city manager, Howard Chan, had the discretion to extend contracts which put them substantially over $250,000,” Valenzuela said. “So we had a lot of contracts just under $250,000 which were later amended.”

The Sacramento Police Department continued to approve contracts and pay both Impact Sac and Brother 2 Brother despite the organizations’ delinquent status. State law states that delinquent organizations are prohibited from “soliciting or disbursing charitable funds.”

Police Spokesperson Anthony Gamble said verifying nonprofit standing is not part of OVP’s job.

“Tax filings and related documentation are not part of our contractual requirements and fall outside of OVP’s oversight,” he said in an email. “As part of our due diligence, we confirm that a (community-based organization’s) status is current on both the Secretary of State and Attorney General websites. If the status is anything other than current, we notify the CBO and allow time for them to address and resolve it.”

The organizations filed overdue returns — both following The Bee’s inquiries. Brother 2 Brother reported $199,999 in revenue for 2022; the city had paid it $604,490. The filing of a dollar short of $200,000 fell below the threshold requiring a full Form 990 with mandatory disclosure of family payments and related-party transactions.

Impact Sac’s initial registration with the state attorney general was three years late. When it finally filed its initial registration and annual reports, the organization stated that in 2022, it had $0 in revenue, $0 in expenses, $0 in assets, and answered “No” to whether it had received any governmental funding.

City records show Impact Sac received $262,499 in public money during that same period. For every year Impact Sac has filed a nonprofit tax return, Schneider, Dye and Courtney Martin (Schneider’s daughter) have each reported receiving $0 in compensation, even though city expense records show payments to Schneider, Martin and Dye from grant funds.

City expenditure reports, for example, show Dye was paid $39,832.87 as director from a single 2023-2024 city contract, while Schneider submitted invoices for additional payments — compensation neither reported on Impact Sac’s tax filings. Schneider did not return multiple requests for comment.

In a text exchange with The Bee, Dye said: “With regards to loose accounting and gift cards. ‘Loose’ is interpreted individually and is nothing more than an opinion.”

In a Facebook post last October, Brookins acknowledged that he had not properly reported income or tracked expenses.

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“Have I made mistakes?” he posted. “Yes. Sometimes, you don’t know what you don’t know until someone tells you. Yes, we have been out of compliance. Yes, we have been on suspended status. Yes, I have incorrectly filed tax paperwork. But just as important, Yes, I have taken steps to correct all of those issues.”

Nearly a year later, the under-reporting of over $400,000 in income has not been corrected. Brookins said he is in the process of amending 2022’s taxes and said that getting his paperwork squared away has been “a long road,” but is something he is committed to doing.

‘It smells terrible’

City records show Clavo received luxury suite tickets at Golden 1 Center from Impact Sac — through a city program that distributes tickets to a publicly owned box — to marquee concerts and Kings games. Impact Sac received 783 tickets through the program between 2018-2026, more than any other nonprofit by nearly 300.

Joan Harrington, a nonprofit law professor at Santa Clara University and fellow at the Markkula Center for Applied Ethics, said when a gift goes to a nonprofit and then comes back to the police official overseeing millions of dollars — especially repeatedly — it looks like there was some sort of agreement.

“It smells terrible,” she said.

Because it is a church, Liberty Towers is exempt from filing the public tax returns required of nonprofits — making it nearly impossible to track how money flows in and out.

“This is obviously an inappropriate utilization of a loophole,” said John Pelissero, a political scientist and government ethics expert. “Nonprofit 990 tax returns are there to provide transparency. Finding ways around filing taxes and not reporting this much income for vital services is not fair to organizations that follow the rules.”

Clavo oversees the OVP’s interactions with the organizations, such as Impact Sac, receiving money from city contracts. City records show Impact Sac paid Mixed By Clavo, a catering business owned by Clavo’s daughter Japhera, $350 directly from its city grant from a contract her mother controlled.

Asked by text if he had also been offered the services of Mixed by Clavo, Brookins replied, “Yes. They do excellent desserts and really good cheesecakes. REALLY good food presentation.”

Brookins did not specify whether, or how much, his organization paid for the catering service. Expense reports show that Brother 2 Brother had tens of thousands of dollars for expenses approved with no receipts.

Expenses submitted by Impact Sac lack receipts. Expense reports from 2024, for example, show $9,707.79 in “Enrichment/Entertainment Events” charges across seven reporting periods. Expense reports provided to The Bee through a public records request show no vendor named, receipt or itemization for those expenses.

In addition to money for gift cards, city records show monthly fees in 2024 paid to Liberty Towers included as much as $9,400.45 in for “mentoring, case management and consulting.” A former Impact Sac employee said the organization had no counselor on staff.

Records show Liberty also had contracts with Sacramento County for social services for over $600,000 and four contracts with state agencies for over $1.4 million dollars.

In a text, Dye said: “During Covid, Impact Sac scrambled like the rest of the country to adjust to situations never handled before…..we delivered supplies to teens including gift cards and several other items. The demand was greater than our staff, but we prioritized serving youth over anything.”

The funds to a church

Impact Sac’s expense reports show Schneider collected payments under nearly every budget line.

In the first six months of 2022, he received 52 separate payments totaling more than $24,000 — drawing a salary as “Operations Manager” while separately billing for mileage, civic engagement, supplies, bookkeeping, software, marketing, leadership training and video production. In one instance, he collected a $96.57 payment logged under the category reserved for program participants — the at-risk youth the organization was funded to serve.

His daughter Courtney Martin, using the last name Schneider, collected nearly $11,000 in that same period in bookkeeper fees, case manager salary and supplies. She later appeared on a subsequent city grant as the Alternate Financial Officer — under the name Courtney Martin, with a Liberty Towers email address — certifying expense reports that included payments to her father.

His wife Diane collected an additional $1,000 as a caseworker. Paris Dye’s son David Dye received 14 payments totaling more than $9,200, spread across contract labor, video production and podcast production. Together, the Schneider and Dye families collected nearly $46,000 from city grant funds in a single six-month period in 2022 — more than a third of Impact Sac’s total reported expenditures.

Impact Sac’s articles of incorporation list Terry Schneider as CEO, Courtney Schneider as CFO and Paris Dye as director. Under nonprofit law, when an executive director authorizes payments to an organization he simultaneously controls, an independent board is required to make that decision with the interested party recused.

“What occurred is not the way decisions are supposed to be made in a nonprofit,” Harrington said.

Brother 2 Brother’s records

Even those with concerns about Brookins’ bookkeeping say he has a talent for connecting with people. Julius Thibodeaux, founder of Movement 4 Life and former local director of Advance Peace in Sacramento, knew Brookins when both were inmates at Solano Prison.

“I saw him mediate things and it was amazing,” Thibodeaux said. “Merv is smart. He understands the science behind the work.”

For example, Ebony Hall said her two sons would be in prison or in jail without Brother 2 Brother. Both had brushes with the law and got in trouble for weapons-related crimes. She said the organization helped them through court and made them accountable.

“When they needed somebody to talk to about just life, somebody from Brother 2 Brother was there,” she said.

Brookins said the tax preparer who handled his returns, Angela Lofton Moore of ALM Business Institute, was recommended by Jay King, president and CEO of the California Black Chamber of Commerce.

Expense records show Brother 2 Brother paid ALM $4,500 in city funds in August 2024.

Lofton texted that the returns needed to be amended and referred questions to Brookins.

Brookins did not dispute the discrepancy. He said he was working on amending the tax return with a different preparer.

“This is an area that I need to improve in,” he said in an interview. “We are good at the work, not at the paperwork. The buck stopped with me. I dropped the ball.”

He stressed that results matter.

“On Memorial Day there were zero shootings in areas we work in,” he said. “When someone is concerned about a potential escalation, we are the ones the city calls.”

Expense reports show hundreds of thousands of dollars in listed payments with no supporting documentation. Records show $133,610 in cash payments in 2020 and 2021 with no receipts — including $21,000 for an item labeled “Misfits,” a youth football team. Brookins also paid his brother Patrick Brookins $13,750 in a flurry of payments labeled as “mentor arrears” as a 2024 contract expired with more than $60,000 left unspent.

Syd’Quan Thompson, a former NFL player and Grant High School’s football coach, was also said to have been paid, according to the expense reports, $24,500 as a “Mentor” with a payment in August 2024 for $10,000 as the contract was expiring. Thompson declined to comment on his compensation.

“Please direct questions about pay to Brother 2 Brother.”

Asked about the payments to Thompson, Brookins said it “absolutely happened” and said he would go to his bank to locate the canceled check.

City spokeswoman Jennifer Singer said the pandemic and staff transitions “created challenges” and that cash payments “are often necessary to engage with the community in a way that aligns with how people manage money.”

“At the end of the day, how was this allowed to occur? Three years is a very long time not to file taxes, and then to follow that up by understating what they earned — was anyone keeping an eye on the store?” Harrington said.

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