Preemptive Love Coalition (PLC) is a multi-million dollar non-profit humanitarian organization that describes its mission as risking “our lives for peace,” serving on the frontlines where conflict is most prevalent around the world, including Iraq, Iran, Lebanon, Syria, Libya, Korea, Israel, and Palestine.
On December 16, 2021, PLC’s former communications director, Ben Irwin, released an articleaccusing its founders, Jeremy and Jessica Courtney, of abusing staff and misleading donors. The article came after Irwin had begun to disclose these allegations on Twitter.
Irwin worked at PLC for six years and has now accused the Courtneys of running PLC “like a cult,” saying that they “demand unquestioning loyalty and punish dissent, perceived or real. They act like people who will do anything to hold onto power.”
The Courtney couple is more worried about building their brand than building up local organizations, Irwin claimed. He argued that Jeremy and Jessica misled their supporters, recalling a particular incident in 2016 where Jeremy led viewers to believe he was somewhere he wasn’t.
“In May of [2016], Iraqi forces launched an offensive to retake Fallujah from ISIS control,” Irwin said. “Tens of thousands of people fled for their lives. While Hala Al Sarraf’s team risked their lives bringing food to fleeing families, Jeremy sat in his office 250 miles away, in the relative safety of northern Iraq. (That’s one detail he usually leaves out of his story of dropping into Iraq in the middle of a war: they landed in one of the safest parts of the country, Sulaymaniyah.)”