Funding drying up for nonprofit that hosted bourbon tour for NC lawmakers
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- Greater Carolina filed a tax return showing it raised far less money in 2025 than in 2024.
- A grand jury indicted four lobbyists accused of steering payments to Greater Carolina.
- Greater Carolina did not report its distillery tours to the state.
Two years ago, Greater Carolina had hundreds of thousands of dollars to spend as it took state lawmakers and lobbyists on a trip to Kentucky to visit bourbon distilleries.
A year earlier, its website published a study and a survey that helped push lawmakers toward gambling expansion.
Today, the Mooresville-based nonprofit, which is now under a state investigation over that 2024 distillery tour and another in 2022, appears to be running on fumes.
The tax return Greater Carolina filed last month shows it raised $26,500 in 2025, the lowest in its seven-year history. That’s down dramatically from $568,000 in 2024, and $834,000 in 2023, which was its highest year. It’s also less than the $91,000 in credit card debt it reported on the return.
Indictments Tuesday by a grand jury accuse four Raleigh lobbyists of getting their clients, including alcoholic beverage companies, to pay money that went to Greater Carolina to help cover the costs of the 2024 tour. The indictments allege the lobbyists’ actions violated the state’s gift ban.
Kevin Wilkinson, David Ferrell, Douglas Bowen Heath and Douglas Miskew each face a single misdemeanor charge. At least three of the four — or their lobbying firms — have issued public statements denying any wrongdoing.
Greater Carolina’s finances
Greater Carolina spent far less – $48,000 – compared to prior years when it was holding entertaining events lawmakers attended. It spent $733,000 in 2024, the year of the second distillery tour that became public after an employee at one distillery complained about the group’s behavior.
Greater Carolina didn’t report either distillery tour to the N.C. Secretary of State’s office, which regulates lobbying. Lawmakers who attended the 2024 tour didn’t report it on their statements of economic interest. Only two lawmakers have acknowledged attending the 2024 trip, then-Rep. Jason Saine, who was the House’s chief budget writer at the time, and state Sen. David Craven, who was a secretary of the nonprofit in 2020, the year he joined the Senate.
Greater Carolina and other similar nonprofits do not have to disclose their donors. That provides an avenue for powerful interests to pay for travel, meals and other perks to lawmakers without being identified.
In September, Wake County District Attorney Lorrin Freeman requested the State Bureau of Investigation to investigate Greater Carolina, which is characterized as a “social welfare” group in the federal tax code. That means it can engage in political matters, but not as the main focus of its efforts.
Her request came after Carolina Forward, a left-leaning nonprofit, filed a complaint in August 2024 contending that Greater Carolina and some of those involved in the distillery tour had violated lobbying, ethics and charitable solicitation laws.
That led to Tuesday’s indictments, but the investigation of Greater Carolina continues, Freeman said.
Greater Carolina is closely associated with Saine, a Lincolnton Republican who left the legislature three months after the second distillery tour to become a lobbyist. Clark Riemer, a former aide to Saine, set up the nonprofit in 2018.
David Coble, a Mooresville businessman and former town commissioner, is Greater Carolina’s director. He is a local representative for a residential and commercial development in the town that pledged in 2022 to build a connector road in exchange for the town board’s approval. A year later, state lawmakers gave the developer $15 million to largely pay for the road.
The News & Observer could not reach Coble for comment. The nonprofit’s web address says the group’s web account has “expired.”