Few institutions in America understand leadership better than the United States Army. Yet from 2021 to 2025, the Army Corps of Engineers paid $1.7 million across eight contracts to a little-known outfit called the Nonprofit Empowerment Group to provide “graduate level instruction” on leadership development.
This week, the Trump administration canceled those contracts, with a Pentagon official telling The Daily Wire the agreements were “absurd” and “sketchy” and “don’t serve the national interest.”
The Nonprofit Empowerment Group, despite its name, is a for-profit entity structured to compete for federal contracts under woman-owned small business “set-asides.” The company’s only listed employee is Angela Massey, a former bank teller. Illinois corporate filings identify Massey as president and Tariq H. Cheema as secretary.
The Army contracts required “professional services of an academic institution regionally accredited by an agency recognized by the U.S. Department of Education and the Council for Higher Education Accreditation.” Contracting documents said the contractor would provide “graduate level instruction” in “leadership development skills.”
The Nonprofit Empowerment Group is not an academic institution. However, a more detailed version of the requirements included a provision allowing “an entity that has access to an accredited academic institution.” Massey’s LinkedIn profile indicates she previously worked as a bank teller and later as a “middle market” banker. It also describes her as “a staunch supporter of economic and social justice.”
The company promoted its status as a “Disadvantaged Women Small Owned Business” [sic], a designation that allowed it to access contracts reserved for certain minority- and woman-owned firms under the federal 8(a) affirmative action contracting program.
At the same Lombard, Illinois address, Massey and Cheema previously operated a nonprofit called the World Congress of Muslim Philanthropists, with Cheema as president and Massey as secretary. That nonprofit was founded in 2009 to foster collaboration among Muslim donors. Tax filings show it quickly accumulated hundreds of thousands of dollars in debt. By 2016, the last year it filed a nonprofit disclosure, it reported $6,955 in income and $392,809 in debt.
Cheema has said the organization operated internationally, noting in 2013 that while its headquarters were in Chicago, it was establishing a second headquarters in Doha, Qatar, and that he split his time between the U.S., Qatar, and Pakistan.
The Nonprofit Empowerment Group’s website lists seven clients, including The Global Donors Forum and The American Refugee Committee, both founded or led by Cheema; The Association of Pakistani Physicians of North America; Roshni Homes; and The Islamic Medical Association of North America (IMANA), on whose board Cheema sits.
In 1991, the Muslim Brotherhood included the Islamic Medical Association on “a list of our organizations and the organizations of our friends,” in a document outlining a plan for what it called a “grand Jihad in eliminating and destroying the Western civilization from within.” The Islamic Medical Association was established as a constituent organization of the Islamic Society of North America, which was named an unindicted co-conspirator in the 2007 Holy Land Foundation trial involving Hamas fundraising.
The Army contracts followed earlier federal work awarded to the firm. In 2019, the Navy gave it a $10,000 contract for “writing courses” set aside for a woman-owned business. In 2022, the Army awarded it its first contract for leadership development services under a similar set-aside.
Secretary of War Pete Hegseth has criticized the 8(a) program, saying it has in many cases become “a breeding ground for fraud,” with firms taking fees and passing work to larger consultants. Last month, a quarter of minority contracting firms reportedly lost certifications after failing to provide records demonstrating they performed the contracted work.
The Pentagon official said the terminated contracts were unnecessary and undermined the Army Civil Works mission. “President Trump has empowered us to cut ties with organizations that aren’t aligned with our priorities, and that’s exactly what we’re doing,” the official said.
The cancellations mark the latest effort by the administration to scrutinize federal contracting practices and reassess programs it argues may waste taxpayer dollars or create vulnerabilities.
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