After losing her August bid for School Board Chair, outgoing Orange County School Board member Alicia Farrant transferred nearly $20,000 in unspent campaign donations to a nonprofit she runs with her husband.
Farrant moved $19,215 to Impact Nations on Sept. 30, according to Orange County Supervisor of Elections records.
“Campaign funds are allowed to be disposed of through a 501(c)(3) nonprofit. My supporters have been excited to hear that these funds will be going to help us launch an orphanage that we’ve been working to open,” Farrant said Monday night. “The funds are designated specifically for the orphanage and will be used to help us prepare and welcome children who are needing a home, safety, and love.”
The transfer may be legal, but it could raise ethical questions and be a bad look, a lawyer who specializes in Florida campaign finance law told Florida Politics.
Under state law, a losing candidate must dispose of leftover campaign funds within 90 days after the election, said David Di Pietro, managing partner of Di Pietro Partners in Fort Lauderdale.
“Refunding donors pro rata is one permitted option, and donating to a 501(c)(3) charity is another. The statute puts one express condition on the charity option: the candidate cannot be employed by the charity that receives the money,” Di Pietro said.
Alicia Farrant’s husband, Jonathan Farrant, is president of Impact Nations, and she serves as vice president. Both reported no salary in 2024, according to the nonprofit’s 990 tax form for that year. But the group’s 990s show Jonathan was paid $36,000 in 2018 and $42,000 in 2023. In those years, Alicia reported no salary.
“If she is unpaid, the donation likely complies with the statute as written. Its one express condition is that the candidate not be employed by the charity, and a volunteer officer title is unlikely to meet that test. The statute says nothing about a spouse, though. So the transfer may well be legal, but the campaign money is still going to an organization she and her husband run that has paid him in prior years. That speaks to the bad look question more than the legal one,” Di Pietro said. “If the money ends up paying the family, that is where the harder questions start.”
Jonathan Farrant is also listed as Chair, Treasurer and Registered Agent of the Courageous Leadership PAC, which has nearly $8,000 left in its coffers after giving $9,000 to the Florida Republican Party in July.
Austin Arthur, a politically active West Orange resident, chairs the Citizens for Common Sense Solutions political committee that gave $250 to Farrant in July.
Arthur said he expects campaign contributions not to benefit the candidate personally, as the law says, but said he wasn’t bothered by how Farrant handled her leftover campaign funds. “I don’t see any wrong with that,” he said.
“It doesn’t always make sense to send out very small pro-rated checks to the individual donors. You certainly can, but it’s very common and normal for political committees or even campaigns to give funds to charitable operations that align with the candidates’ known positions and belief systems because I think when you do that, you’re still honoring the intent of the dollars,” Arthur said. “Most of her donors, if you polled them, I would suspect they believe in her, they believe in what she’s doing in life, and her values and principles are aligned. So, they probably like the idea.”
Farrant has been vocal about her Christian faith on the campaign trail. She also talked about the nonprofit when she spoke to Florida Politics this Summer before the August election, describing an orphanage they were building in El Salvador and a men’s home they ran.
“It absolutely fills us with purpose,” Farrant told Florida Politics at the time. “We just really felt like we had to do something. We couldn’t just sit by and watch people die on the streets.”
Her campaign donors included Fun Spot America’s owners; businessman Craig Mateer, who serves on the Florida Board of Governors; state Rep. Susan Plasencia’s political committee; the Realtors Political Advocacy Committee; and the Orange County Association of School Administrators.
Farrant, a member of Moms for Liberty, was elected to the School Board in 2022 to represent District 3, which covers Boone, Cypress Creek, Freedom and Lake Buena Vista high schools. In August, she lost the race for School Board Chair to fellow Board Member Angie Gallo, who won with about 59% of the vote.
Gallo declined to comment for this story.
Farrant’s unspent donations come as Orange County Public Schools faces a financial crisis. The District closed seven schools in May, and nearly 100 teachers were slated to lose their jobs this Fall as enrollment fell.
