Following a tumultuous series of events fit for an inevitable Netflix special, the trustees of the embattled OnePulse Foundation voted late Tuesday evening to dissolve the organization.
The announcement was made early Wednesday morning that the trustees would begin transferring assets to other local organizations, along with its planning and design materials for its since canceled Pulse Museum.
“We have been challenged by unexpected and definitive events, among them the inability to secure a full donation of the Pulse nightclub site from the property owners and a global pandemic that brought with it critical limits and many unanticipated consequences, that ultimately impacted our fundraising efforts.”
Scroll the full announcement, shared by OnePulse Foundation Board spokesperson Yolanda Londono, below.
The announcement followed the resignation of Deborah Bowie, the executive director of the foundation who was hired in June 2022, following the resignation of former director and founder, Barbara Poma.
Poma, the co-owner of Pulse Nightclub, along with her husband and Daytona-based Michael Panaggio, recently made headlines when the City of Orlando agreed to purchase the Pulse Nightclub from them for $2 million after they refused to donate it to the foundation.
The foundation announced this October that it would not be pursuing its plans to build an offsite Pulse Museum due to failed fundraising initiatives and increases in construction costs following the pandemic.
OnePulse purchased a 1.75-acre parcel for $3.5 million in September 2019, with the hopes of opening a National Pulse Memorial and Museum sometime in 2022. Orange County government had previously agreed to award the foundation $10 million in Tourist Development Taxes in 2018 to help purchase the land and plan the museum, which was expected to cost roughly $15 million to build at the time.
According to a recent report by Spectrum News 13, the foundation was issued a five-page letter from Orange County Government claiming it was in violation of its TDT funding agreement by renting out the museum warehouse to a third party, in spite of the TDT agreement which states they must seek county approval for any use of the site other than the planned museum.
