Wife of NC lieutenant governor shutters nonprofit that had drawn criticism from fellow Republicans

As North Carolina Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson enters the final stretch of this year’s race for governor, his wife is shutting down the Greensboro nonprofit that she’s run for nearly a decade — and which has recently become a source of criticism of Robinson from some of his fellow Republicans.

Robinson’s wife, Yolanda Hill, founded Balanced Nutrition in 2015. The group is a sort of intermediary between the federal government and adult or child care centers in the Triad area that qualify for federal food subsidies.

Robinson doesn’t work for the nonprofit, but he has been criticized as hypocritical for condemning government spending while his wife and other family members have derived income from an organization whose sole source of funding is the federal government. The state is paying Robinson more than $157,000 this year for his work as lieutenant governor. Hill has made hundreds of thousands more from the nonprofit.

Balanced Nutrition didn’t immediately respond to requests for comment. Robinson’s campaign declined to comment, referring questions to a lawyer in Greensboro, Tyler Brooks, who told WRAL he’s helping the nonprofit wind down its work.

“Balanced Nutrition has aided community partners in providing hundreds of thousands of nutritious meals to some of North Carolina's most vulnerable populations,” Brooks said in a written statement. “Balanced Nutrition is proud of its accomplishments and is actively working to ensure a smooth transition for each of its partner facilities, as it turns the page to a new chapter.”

Hill has long been a regular presence with Robinson on the campaign trail. He often credits and applauds her for supporting their family over the years; they previously faced financial struggles that led to Robinson facing civil and criminal legal trouble. He has embraced that history on the campaign trail, saying it makes him more attuned to challenges facing regular people.

But running for governor is a more intense task than running for most other political offices, including lieutenant governor. In early April, Hill contacted the daycares she works with to let them know she’d be shutting down soon to focus on her husband’s political campaign.

“Some of you may or may not be aware that my husband is the Lt. Governor of North Carolina and is currently running for governor of North Carolina,” she wrote in the email, obtained by WRAL. “With that being said, my life has gotten extremely busy over the last few years and those obligations no longer allow me the time to be a sponsoring organization.”

Some of Robinson’s former opponents in the GOP primary had attempted to use the nonprofit against him. Yet it stayed open through the primary, despite those lines of attack from a fiscal conservative point of view, and Robinson won the primary easily, with 65% of the vote. Hill’s email made no mention of any political pressure from fellow conservatives who have criticized the nonprofit.

Robinson’s resounding win in the March primary hasn’t stopped his intra-party critics from continuing to bring up the nonprofit. Chief among them is Brant Clifton, an outspoken conservative blogger from Southern Pines who runs the Daily Haymaker website: “It’s a curious career choice for a man who is a vocal and frequent critic of the social welfare state,” Clifton wrote in late March.

Details of Balanced Nutrition

The nonprofit is a family affair. Since its founding, a number of family members have worked for it as board members or employees. Hill and Robinson’s son Dayson Robinson has been a part-time employee since 2019. Their son-in-law, Danzeto Cephas, was listed as an unpaid board member in the early years of the group. Individuals who the Daily Haymaker has identified as Hill’s mother and sister have also been involved.

Tax filings show the organization paid out more than $700,000 in salaries and wages from 2018 to 2022, the most recent publicly available data — ranging from $80,000 to $173,000 annually.

The only employees listed in tax records during those years were Hill, her son, and Cassaundra Spinks — a woman the Daily Haymaker has previously identified as Hill’s mother.

Hill appears to have earned the majority of the wages — a combined $319,000 in 2018, 2019 and 2020, which is more than three-quarters of the group’s total salary payout in those years.

But the tax documents are also inconsistent year-to-year in how they report income. In more recent years the group has begun reporting only the total amount of salary paid, without indicating who made what.

There are also inconsistencies in what’s being reported in other documents.

Starting in 2021, when Robinson took office as lieutenant governor, Hill began stating on the tax forms that she was making $0 from the nonprofit. But in separate ethics forms filed with the state, Robinson has reported that Hill has made at least $5,000 from the nonprofit every year since 2020.

And the group’s tax filings show it has continued to pay out wages, just with few to no indications of who was paid, or how much they received.