Encouraging Leaders (nonprofit)
Outcome
Encouraging Leaders founder Tezzaree El-Amin Champion was sentenced to 84 months in federal prison and $3,479,575 in restitution for submitting at least 42 fraudulent grant applications to DOJ, Hennepin County, the City of Minneapolis, and multiple Minnesota state agencies, misrepresenting the nonprofit's activities to obtain more than $2.7 million in grants.
Details
Encouraging Leaders (Minneapolis) — Nonprofit Grant Fraud (2020–2024)
Outcome: Tezzaree El-Amin Champion, founder of Minneapolis nonprofit Encouraging Leaders, was sentenced to 84 months in federal prison and ordered to pay $3,479,575 in restitution after pleading guilty to a $6 million fraud scheme in which the nonprofit submitted at least 42 fraudulent grant applications to multiple government agencies and misappropriated more than $2.7 million in awarded grant funds.
Champion used Encouraging Leaders and a related marketing company to submit fraudulent grant and public-contract applications containing material false misrepresentations to multiple government funders between 2020 and 2024. Victims included the U.S. Department of Justice, Hennepin County, the City of Minneapolis, the Minnesota Department of Education, the Minnesota Department of Human Services, the Minnesota State Arts Board, and others.
Encouraging Leaders submitted at least 42 grant and public-contract applications and was awarded 27 grants totaling more than $2.7 million. The nonprofit sought more than $3.8 million in total funding across the fraudulent applications. Substantial portions of the grant funding were misappropriated rather than used for the stated programmatic purposes.
Champion was sentenced on November 18, 2025, to 84 months of imprisonment followed by 60 months of supervised release, and ordered to pay $3,479,575 in restitution. His co-defendant and operations director Tony Robinson was separately charged with five counts of wire fraud and conspiracy, with losses attributed to Robinson's participation exceeding $1 million.
Primary Source: Minneapolis Non-Profit Executive and Business Consultant Pleads Guilty in $6 Million Fraud Scheme
How Crucible Prevents This
Crucible's grant application integrity hook cross-references claimed program activities against documented deliverables submitted in prior grant cycles — 42 fraudulent applications across multiple funders over four years would have generated escalating anomaly scores. A multi-funder grant tracking control visible to all grant-making agencies would have surfaced the pattern of misrepresentation across DOJ, county, city, and state awards simultaneously. Crucible's progress-report verification protocol requires third-party corroboration of claimed service delivery before releasing grant funds.
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