Has anyone done the comparison?

[Jason__G]

Since most conservation and preservation groups have some form of tax-benefit status, their annual expenses should be available. It would be fascinating to see a break-down in percentage and dollar amounts of how much RMEF, BHA, HSUS, PETA etc all spend on several key categories. The first ones to come to mind would be:
1)Administration - How much the organization pays its staff and employees
2)Advertising - How much money gets spent trying to get more money
3)Lobbying - Expenses relating to creating or challenging the creation of new laws
4)Legal - How much money the organization re-directs to lawyers for various legal battles
5)Asset acquisition - Purchasing items that hold value to be held by the organization, not for donations etc.
6)Donations to other organizations
7)Conservation - How much is left over after they have paid all the other stuff that actually goes directly to the core cause of the organization
8)Others?

I am not saying that a group like RMEF should not spend money on lawyers, but it would be interesting to see what percentage of the organization's revenue is actually making it's way to the cause that the organization is championing. Has anyone done a simple breakdown of these or other categories to see how our conservation groups compare to the preservation groups?
Percentages would be nice because it's a very easy conversation to have about how much of every every dollar goes where where the advertisements make it sound like it goes.

 

[Beendare]

Charity navigator monitors these outfits, you might find what you want;
Link

If you want to see what hypocrites HSUS is, check the humanewatch.Org site.

HSUS is a joke.... and shoulnt be in the same sentence as RMEF

 

[Beendare]

BTW,
Charity Navigator doesnt monitor Backcountry hunters anglers, but you can view their tax filings and its pretty ugly.

Looks like in 2016 they brought in $1.6m, with $1.3m in expenses, spent about $770,000 in salaries ( with a big chunk going to unnamed directors appx $500k- weird especially when their underlings arent getting any salary) i cant believe they dont have to name these folks- its 1/2 a million $$$.

Then their expenses are another big chunk inc over $100k for fravel, advertising $250k, it appears there is little left to do anything.

It shows a little over $100k going to political contributions... and mr Towny is not shy about giving himself a raise.

I would love to see what a CPA thinks about this ...

 

[Beendare]

OP, did you find what you are looking for?

RMEF- from the Charity navigator website;
88.6% of funds going to their cause...with only 3.8% admin costs and 7.5% fundraising

Thats ^ Outstanding!

..

 

[Jason__G]

OP, did you find what you are looking for?

I am getting close thanks to your link. It doesn't look like anyone has compiled the data into one group of graphs/charts, and I am toying with taking it upon myself to do so.
With that being said there are still a few things to track down. First would be a list of the big groups to compare. Some pro, some anti. The data for administration and advertising as a percent of revenue for a year is easy to come by thanks to your link. What is still missing is breaking down the catch-all category of 'program expenses'. This is the largest portion of the expenses of these organizations and could contain all sorts of sub-categories that the organization declared as benefiting the target cause. What I would like to do is break this large chunk down a bit more into legal fees, lobbying, etc to see if we can get a better feel for how much went to actually helping animals versus lining lawyer pockets. What other sub-categories would we be interested in?
Example: If Ducks Unlimited used 1 million dollars to buy and restore a wetland, that has a lot more impact on ducks than if they spent that same 1 million dollars lobbying for a proposed law that didn't get passed(or even make it out of committee). Once again, not saying that lobbying isn't important, but rather wold like to know what percentage of money goes towards lawyers/lobbying versus more 'boots on the ground' work. This is an area that I feel that hunting/conservation groups will dramatically outpace the antis, and it would be great to show it. It could also be very easy for a group to claim that a large lawyer payment was a 'program cost' when it actually was spent on something non program related. Parsing this data would be harder, but at least we can start with breaking the program expenses down into smaller categories.

 

[Jason__G]

OP, did you find what you are looking for?

RMEF- from the Charity navigator website;
88.6% of funds going to their cause...with only 3.8% admin costs and 7.5% fundraising

Thats ^ Outstanding!

..

BTW, thanks for the link and the RMEF numbers are outstanding!

 

[WoolyBugger]

I'd like to see the breakdown of BHA, i'm a member but haven't done a ton of research. Seems like most of their campaigning is on social media vs the "boots on the ground" type of thing you were describing

 

[Jason__G]

I'd like to see the breakdown of BHA, i'm a member but haven't done a ton of research. Seems like most of their campaigning is on social media vs the "boots on the ground" type of thing you were describing

Well then, let's start with a list of groups to chart/graph. Maybe keep it to a short list of the big conservation versus preservation groups. Here would be my starter list:
1)RMEF
2)HSUS
3)Ducks Unlimited
4)PETA
5)BHA
6)Defenders of Wildlife
7)TRCP

I know my brain is missing a few big ones here..... Who else?

 

[Beendare]

I'd like to see the breakdown of BHA, i'm a member but haven't done a ton of research. Seems like most of their campaigning is on social media vs the "boots on the ground" type of thing you were describing

The numbers I posted for BHA were from their tax return- public knowledge anyone can confirm. That Charity Navigator is a legit outfit.

Maybe one go the BHA guys will take the time to post a screen shot of that info.....and have Mr Towny the president -making over $100k a year- justify the small amount that actually gets to their mission statement.

From memory, but I think its about $4 million to $5 million they have taken in over the last several years.....my question to the BHA guys or Mr Towney; How much of it has gone to their mission statement?

..

..

 

[Beendare]

Re;
RMEF,
California Waterfowl assoc,
Trout Unlimited,
SCI- Safari Club,
Ruffed grouse Society-

All ^ top rated and this page at link shows an analysis of RMEF compared to the other charities- scroll down to see the chart. All of the above outfits devote 86% and above of their resources to their mission- thats exemplary....kudos to these charities.

Link to Charity Navigator RMEF analysis
link

 

[molliesmaster]

Check out Pheasants Forever, they have some pretty impressive numbers if I recall correctly.

Some of the "heart and cancer" charities make BHA's spending look real good.

 

[Beendare]

Mm, yes Pheasants forever is higly rated.

Im not sure if Rokslide will accept this, Lets see if i can post a screenshot from the CN site:

 

[Beendare]

Ok that screen shot works slick, here is first page of the 2016 BHA non profit tax filing (public knowledge), all of the filings can be searched easily throun the CN site, free registration.

 

[Beendare]

Here is the synopsis of the RMEF financial breakdown, looks like pretty impressive management to me.

 

[orionthehunter1]

Yeah I've called out BHA's financials before on here and got chastised by the kool-aid drinkers. They pretty much spend all their money on salaries and beer for pint nights.

 

[Trial153]

here is a good tool


https://www.guidestar.org

 

[Kootenay Hunter]

Just remember that a lot of boots on the ground stuff done by volunteers is not a cost. The big costs are recruiting members, supporters, etc. etc.

New conservation groups require a lot of capital to get things off the ground. It's not apples to oranges to compare groups that are trying to grow their numbers and expand to well establish groups with stable membership and income. Not to mention management is figuring things out, trial and error costs money.

Old groups like RMEF are relying on annual donations from wealthy benefactors that they can count on. Once the infrastructure and membership is there, all you need to do is re-allocate funds each year for projects and go for it, efficiency improves over the years!

 

[Beendare]

here is a good tool


https://www.guidestar.org

I would disagree.^
Guidestar is a program to help market these non organizations....pay to play...

link to their pay to play program
Guidestar programs

 

[Trial153]

I would disagree.^
Guidestar is a program to help market these non organizations....pay to play...

link to their pay to play program
Guidestar programs

we have a subsection, its a huge time saver for us.

 

[Jason__G]

So it looks like I get to go down this rabbit hole and put the data together. I will do this, but my time is limited for a couple of weeks. I will try and put it together into some simple comparison charts based on simple categories and sub-categories. In the mean time, can we please all agree to a couple of things?
1)data is data. Lets stick to facts and keep this thread on track. Let's keep the name calling or fan boying out.
2)Let's wait until the data is done to draw conclusions. If possible, let's draw those conclusions in other threads. Data is data. Interpretation is above my pay grade.

I am also looking at how to best present the comparisons and it seems to me that we need to break down the organizations to apples-to-apples comparisons as fairly as possible. For instance, BHA versus PETA is not an accurate comparison since they have very different mission statements. Having Ducks Unlimited data right next to the data for the Audobon Society would be pretty apples to apples. Both are multi-species, bird-oriented, conservation groups. Mule Deer Foundation would need a 'single-species, anti-hunting organization' to compare it to. Who would that be? I am sure there are some wolf or bear groups out there. What would BHA's counterpart in the anti-hunting world be? Trail Alliance? Mountain Bike group?
Let's look at a few of our big pro-hunting groups, evaluate their mission statement, and then find an anti-hunting group that we can include with as close of a mission statement as possible. I would like to get that data and see it presented side-by-side. Once again, interested in facts and data, not emotion an insinuation.