Philly Fighting COVID (PFC) has been at the center of controversy this week after WHYY reported that it had accumulated doses of the COVID-19 vaccine to administer to the community only to hoard them for personal use, among other allegations. But it was its move from a 501(c)3 nonprofit to 501(c)4 social welfare group designation that has raised suspicion that profit, not social good, was PFC’s goal all along.

The organization is the brainchild of Andrei Doroshin, a 22-year-old Drexel University graduate student, who founded PFC to use 3D printing for PPE and later pitched it to the City of Philadelphia as perfectly suited to run mass vaccination sites. On Thursday, Doroshin admitted to taking doses of the COVID-19 vaccine that were supposed to be distributed, and administering them to his friends.

South Philly-based nonprofit fundraiser and comms professional Dena Driscoll first heard about Philly Fighting COVID in spring 2020. With more than 10 years of experience in the nonprofit sector, she was immediately curious when the group announced itself as a nonprofit — something she says is not easy to establish within days or weeks. Driscoll assumed it had a fiscal sponsor to support its work, and since she found that people were pleased with the work PFC did at the time, she didn’t give the fledgling organization more thought.

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