Who Is Behind the US Moldova Initiative?
A newly formed nonprofit is organizing a privately funded congressional delegation to Moldova
The “US Moldova Initiative” is working to organize a privately funded Congressional Delegation to Moldova in late July 2026. This brand new NGO is organizing, and appears poised to sponsor, the travel of American Members of Congress to Chisinau for meetings with senior Moldovan political leaders. Today we dig into who this new player in US-Moldova relations is and what it means.
The US Moldova Initiative (USMI) is a 501c3 public charity corporation based in New York State. It was granted 501c3 status by the IRS in 2024 but had no discernible activity until they launched their website on March 13 2026. According to the website USMI “connects Americans and Moldovans through exchange, civic engagement, and the belief that real relationships change the world.”
The website makes the case that now is a critical moment in Moldova as it is a “nation in conversation with its own future.” It goes on to note that this “conversation is happening against a backdrop of significant geopolitical pressure, economic challenge, and the lingering effects of disinformation campaigns designed to sow division and undermine public trust in democratic institutions.”
USMI highlights Moldova’s break with Russia and efforts at energy independence, European trajectory and also the value of Moldovan culture, wine and traditions. The site strongly supports Moldova’s integration into the Euro-Atlantic space and notes that
“American engagement here is not charity. It is strategic investment in a more stable, democratic Europe.”
What Does USMI Do?
According to their website, USMI has “Five interconnected programs that build lasting bridges between American and Moldovan societies,” namely:
Dialog Programs
Educational Exchanges
Civic Education and Democratic Development
Cultural Diplomacy
Policy Dialog and Advocacy
Right now they don’t present any information on actual activities and programs that have taken place. In the News & Updates section of their website USMI writes that “We are just getting started” and invites readers to check back in the future.
It appears that they are starting with number 5 - Policy Dialog and Advocacy. Explaining that activity on their website they write:
“At the policy level, USMI facilitates off-the-record exchanges between American and Moldovan officials, think tank researchers, and civil society leaders on issues of shared concern — from energy security and anti-corruption reform, to diaspora engagement and Moldova’s European integration trajectory. We are nonpartisan and non-prescriptive: our role is to create the conditions for honest, well-informed dialogue, not to advocate for specific political outcomes.”
USMI’s July Congressional Delegation
Documents reviewed by Moldova Matters indicate that the US Moldova Initiative is working to organize a privately sponsored congressional delegation (CODEL) to Moldova in late July 2026. The proposed visit would involve a bipartisan group of U.S. lawmakers and include meetings with senior Moldovan officials, business leaders, and civil society representatives. At least one member of Congress has indicated an intention to participate in the delegation, alongside their spouse and chief of staff.
A CODEL is a foreign trip by Members of Congress where they meet local leaders, learn about local conditions and conduct meetings to better inform US policymaking. Importantly, there are 2 types of CODELs:
Publicly Funded - Travel costs are covered by US taxpayers and visits are coordinated with US Embassies abroad. These are considered official government travel.
Privately Funded - Travel costs are paid by an outside organization, usually a nonprofit. These are typically framed as educational or fact-finding trips.
Privately funded CODELs are subject to approval by the House and Senate Ethics Committees and require disclosure of who is funding it and for what purpose. They are very common - but not for Moldova1.
USMI is organizing this trip for Members of Congress and is apparently open to families and staff as well. That makes this a very expensive endeavor and it is worth looking into just who is behind USMI and who is planning to pay for this proposed CODEL.
Sam Alaverdov - Executive Director of USMI
The Executive Director of USMI is Sam Alaverdov2 - a name that long time Moldova Matters readers should be very familiar with. From December 2024 through June 2025 Moldova Matters published a 3 part investigation into Mr. Alaverdov’s other charity - alternately named the “American Charity Fund for Helping Children of Pridnestrovie and Moldova Inc.” and the “American Charity Fund for Helping Children of Ukraine and Moldova Inc.” - and given the rather clunky acronym ACFHCUM.
ACFHCUM and the US Moldova Initiative (USMI) are both registered at the same address - Sam Alaverdov’s house in Valley Stream NY.
In spite of years of records of almost zero fundraising and zero expenditure on charitable causes, ACFHCUM signed an $85,000 contract in September 2024 with Washington DC Lobby and PR firm Qorvis Holding Inc to enhance the reputation of then presidential candidate Vasile Tarlev in Washington.
Mr. Tarlev has been widely reported as a part of Ilan Shor’s political network in Moldova. This included multiple undercover investigations in Moldova, reporting about how Shor chose Tarlev as a candidate himself and Tarlev’s own party vice president asserting that he had joined Ilan Shor.
The planned DC PR and lobbying trip never happened. Due to visa issues Vasile Tarlev never traveled to the United States for meetings with think tanks, media organizations and members of Congress as planned. But Qorvis was paid $45,000 on September 30 2024 for this work. According to the initial contract, this payment should have come from ACFHCUM but the non-profit recorded neither fundraising nor expenditure in the time in question. ACFHCUM’s 2024 tax filings showed zero activity in 2024. Following my extensive investigation Moldova Matters reported that Qorvis was actually paid the $45,000 by Sam Alaverdov personally.
Reached for comment on that previous story, and asked why his non-profit had engaged this contract, Mr. Alaverdov replied simply “I like him.”
You can read the previous 3 part investigation here:
Sam Alaverdov’s 2021 CODEL in Ukraine
USMI’s planned privately funded CODEL to Moldova is not the first experience Mr. Alaverdov has participating in the organization and funding such trips. In August 2021 a 501c3 non-profit called The Humpty Dumpty Institute (HDI) organized a CODEL to Ukraine and listed ACFHCUM as the funder of the trip in filings with the House Committee on Ethics. This trip brought Rep. Tony Gonzales (R-TX), Rep. Barry Moore (R-AL) and Rep. Troy Nehls (R-TX) to Kyiv so that they could “get a better understanding of the complexities of the region through meetings with the Ukrainian government, business, and cultural leaders.”
This CODEL was noted in the press as the most expensive of 2021 and cost over $46,000. This accounted for travel and lodging for the Members of Congress, their wives, staff, HDI staff and Sam Alaverdov.
According to tax filings ACFHCUM claimed neither income nor expenses in 2021. It remains unclear to this day who actually paid for this trip.
A Very Complicated CODEL….
That 2021 trip to Kyiv has garnered a disproportionate amount of scrutiny from some of the darker corners of the internet. There was nothing unusual about the trip itself and no credible allegations of impropriety. CODELs like this are quite normal in the American system. The problem for this trip was The Humpty Dumpty Institute (HDI) where Mark Epstein - brother of Jeffery Epstein - had served as a long time board members3.
**Correction** - an earlier version of this article incorrectly stated that Mark Epstein was the “leader” of HDI. He was a board member but not the organization’s director or board president.
The conspiracy theorist website “The National File,” founded by Alex Jones, published an article about the CODEL which latched on to the word “children” in American Charity Fund for Helping Children of Pridnestrovie and Moldova Inc and combined it with “Epstein” to create a wild array of conspiracies involving Soros, the Vatican, Israel, China, Ukrainian Nazis, Zionists, the deep state, the Clintons and many more.
This article, and the many more it spawned had absolutely no merit - but they did have impact. Rep. Barry Moore was harried by “journalists” chasing the story multiple times in the halls of Congress with questions about the trip and HDI. I myself continue to get emails from conspiracy theorists about the trip and Sam Alaverdov to this day.
While the deep state allegations had neither sense nor merit, the article did grab onto the most salient question - how did a tiny cash strapped non-profit pay more than $46,000 for this trip? and where did the money come from?
USMI’s Partners and Donors
I reached out to USMI and Sam Alaverdov with questions about the organization of this CODEL and the source of its funding. They did not respond to these questions as of the time of writing.
In the 2 years since USMI was granted 501c3 status by the IRS they have filed form 990 e-postcard for their tax returns. This is a simplified filing for small non-profits with under $50,000 in gross receipts and does not provide us information about their actual income, expenses or donors. This means that USMI’s tax filings to date provide almost no visibility into its finances because it qualifies under these rules for very small organizations.
On their website USMI has a page titled “Our Partners.” Rather than listing donors or institutional funders, this page presents an odd list of entities in Moldova - NGOs, companies (a major supermarket chain, a construction company, a winery, etc) and government agencies - such as Moldova’s UNESCO office and the UN Refugee Agency in Moldova (UNHCR).
I did not reach out to every partner listed on their website, but I did contact the most notable listings - namely UNHCR Moldova and Moldova’s UNESCO office. A spokesperson for UNHCR Moldova told Moldova Matters that the organization has no association with USMI.
Representatives for Moldova’s UNESCO office did not respond to requests for comment by the time of publication.
Most interesting of all though is the first partner that they list - WKF Moldova, which the USMI site calls the “national kickboxing federation of the Republic of Moldova.” It is not. This organization came to prominence in summer 2025 when they attempted to organize the so-called “European Kick Boxing Championship” in Chisinau in partnership with Mayor Ion Ceban. 195 “athletes,” almost all from Belarus and Russia, traveling to the event were barred from entering Moldova. The government explained that WKF is not internationally recognized, had no permission to operate in Moldova and the leader of WKF, Fritz Exenberger, had previously been expelled from the (real) International Sport Kickboxing Association (ISKA) for fraud. The Ministry of Internal Affairs stated that those blocked from entering represented a “high risk to national security.”
The PAS faction in Chisinau’s Municipal Council noted that the official observer of the event was a law enforcement officer from Transnistria and that it involved:
“more than 200 participants from Russia and Belarus to the capital of Moldova, including military personnel, representatives of the occupied territories of Ukraine, persons under international sanctions, and athletes associated with the special services of Russia and Transnistria.”
The inclusion of WKF Moldova as a featured partner raises additional questions about how USMI selected and vetted the organizations presented on its website.
What about donors?
USMI lists no donors and does not even have a mechanism on their website to accept donations. They do have a footnote on the contact form that those wishing to support their work should get in touch, but no mention at all on the website that they are a 501c3 or other important information for prospective donors such as their IRS supplied EIN number.
So What is the US Moldova Initiative?
Since launching their website less than 2 months ago, USMI has begun the process of organizing a bi-partisan Congressional Delegation to Moldova and gotten at least one member of Congress, and their family, to officially indicate interest. For a non-profit with no past operating history and no clear source of funds this represents a very big splash in Washington.
The fact that this organization is led by Sam Alaverdov increases the questions about what exactly it is. His former organization, the “American Charity Fund for Helping Children of Pridnestrovie and Moldova Inc.” had zero record of any activities in support of children in Pridnestrovie (Transnistria), Moldova or Ukraine. At the same time Moldova Matters has reported multiple stories highlighting how ACFHCUM has been legally recorded - in FARA filings and House Ethics Committee filings - as having spent large amounts of money on political activities. None of these funds are recorded either as income or expenses in their tax filings in the years in question.
Putting aside how USMI is funded, or how ACFHCUM’s finances worked, Sam Alaverdov personally paid $45,000 to a Washington based PR and Lobby firm in order to promote the image of Shor-linked Moldovan politician Vasile Tarlev. While there is nothing illegal about Mr. Alaverdov making that payment4, it is notable in the Moldovan context as an extremely large donation to a Moldovan politician’s PR campaign. The fact that Mr. Alaverdov “likes” Mr. Tarlev does not adequately explain why he took this action.
If USMI organizes their July 2026 CODEL as planned this organization will move into a central role in Moldovan-American international relations. It will have proved both the financial ability to pay for this private CODEL, and the connections in Washington to make it possible. That alone would make the emergence of USMI worth noting. The identity of its director and his past connections, as reported by Moldova Matters, make it more than noteworthy.
We will be following USMI and its planned CODEL closely in future articles.
I am not aware of any privately funded CODELs to Moldova since independence. That said, congressional ethics filings for these are often hand written and are not readily searchable. It is safe to say that this is a very uncommon, if not unprecedented, situation.
Legal name: Semen George Alaverdov
Though he was not serving on the board at the time of this CODEL
The same cannot be said of Mr. Tarlev’s failure to report it.