Last month’s impressive Black Friday protests at a reported 1,000 Walmart stores highlight the growing movement against the company’s low wage culture. As the nation’s largest private employer, Walmart has done more than any other company to reinforce income inequality. With an average wage of $8.81 per hour, Walmart keeps its labor expenses low by encouraging its employees to rely on charity and sign up for federal benefits such as Supplemental Nutritional Assistance (SNAP).

The corporation’s impacts on the food system are no less troublesome. It has been at the center of the nation’s cheap food structure, forcing a globalization and industrialization that is grounded in a race to the bottom for labor and environmental standards. It has driven out of business an untold number of small food retailers, which were once the heart and soul of community food systems across rural America.

Even in its highly promoted initiatives to sell more local and organic food, Walmart’s procurement practices have often forced greater consolidation in the marketplace, essentially providing a counter-weight to the local food movement.

Now, in a disturbing trend, an increasing number of food and farming nonprofits are relying on the Walmart Foundation to fund their programs. The Milwaukee–based urban agriculture leader Growing Power paved the way when it accepted a seven-figure grant from the Foundation in 2011. Since then, FoodCorps, a service corps program focused on educating kids about healthy food, and the food hub pioneer National Good Food Network (NGFN) have both followed suit.

Neither Food Corps nor NGFN staff responded to our request for comment on their rationales for accepting Walmart funding. In Growing Power’s blog from 2011, however, Will Allen argues: “We can no longer be so idealistic that we hurt the very people we’re trying to help. Keeping groups that have the money and the power to be a significant part of the solution away from the Good Food Revolution will not serve us.”

We’ve been party to discussions within one unnamed national organization as it decides whether to apply for a $1.5 million grant from Walmart Foundation. In those considerations, we’ve heard crop up one common misconception. Those in favor of accepting Walmart’s money rationalize that the Walmart Foundation and Walmart, Inc. are separate entities. They believe that accepting Walmart Foundation money is not akin to aiding and abetting Walmart.

Nothing could be further from the truth: The Walmart Foundation is Walmart.