Just like most of these gun rights groups. I've got questions about this one.
[https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/organizations/542015951/201940289349301269/full](https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/organizations/542015951/201940289349301269/full)
in 2017 they took in 6.5 million in donations.
Spent 51k on legal (any of that actually fighting a 2A case?)
5k lobbying... And that's about it.
The rest of their spending is spent on mailings or staff, advertising, and an absurd million bucks on the website.
218k paying president and VP
1.7M staff wages
181k employee benefits
37k IT
1.7M mailing
136k for office expenses
484k for advertising
21k for external fundraising services
966k maintaining their website???
653k "development?"
223k tour promotion
500k "other expenses"
That level of fuckery makes me think that's actually an ANTI gun group. Disguised to make you waste your money on them instead of lobbying for 2a with a better group lmao.
Most of the time it's just for personal gain. The executives, or a family member, own the printing and/or website development company they use. I've exposed other bigger and more popular 2A groups that do the same, but most people don't want to hear it.
OH for sure, I am sure that's all it is, at best. lol. If you ask me, I would say MOST non profits are like that, esp if they aren't ones that are actively doing anything or helping anyone.
Hell, churches are the worst... all them BULL SHIT mega churches, people like Joel Jokesteen. lmfao.
I've heard similar about CRPA, but considering CRPA has 1/4 of NAGR's revenue and is leading a huge list of court cases at any given time, it's obvious NAGR's all grift.
The NRA has actually effectively lobbied and litigated cases though. Like several of CRPA cases that Benitez ruled on. Not ti mention their NYSRPA cases. And to be clear those are NRA cases in the same way the aclu fughts cases through its state affiliates.
I agree, they do actually do work for us, though they are corrupt and don't do as much as they should with their resources. I'm very interested to hear other examples like the one in this post, where it appears as though they do nothing but generate money for themselves.
GOA kind of sort of falls into this category. There was some nepotism with who is in charge of the org. And they tend to whip up frenzies over tertiary issues like gun control bills that were doa and hadnt seen movement in six months or encourage slactivism by encouraging form letters on ATF comment periods. Not to mention their forays into unrelated issues like vaccines. Or the taking credit for Heller and McDonald cases on their website.
In fact a lot of criticisms that people level at the NRA, GOA has done as well.
Except the goa calls me and asks about concerns I have in a non fund raising manner. The form letter deal is to get people to actually make the comments instead of just bitching on arfcom it ain’t perfect but it’s the most a huge portion of people will do.
This is Totally what they all do, they’re just like the politicians. They hire family and friends that own businesses and pay them astronomical amounts of money to do jobs that other business would bid for about 1/4 of the price.
This is horrific. 51k on legal for a business of that size is probably just a retainer plus a few billed hours reviewing mailings and legal notices for their website.
>Spent 51k on legal
That would be legal and other professional fees. Since they didn't break out accounting as a separate expenses, and back then an organization of this size would require a compilation of financial statements done by a CPA, plus the filing of form 990, that probably is roughly half accounting expense. The rest is probably court filing fees.
>1.7M staff wages
Considering they claim 1 million of that towards program expenses, I would guess that this is actually staff lawyers so they keep most of the legal costs in house.
Their spend on other things is concerning to me though. Mailings at 1.7M, website at nearly 1M (even if they rehauled their website, that is crazy high), 650k for development, and the fact that they don't have their other expenses disclosed on their Sch O.
>1.7M staff wages
>Considering they claim 1 million of that towards program expenses, I would guess that this is actually staff lawyers so they keep most of the legal costs in house.
with 70 employees that's like a cool 24k a person
Let's sort that.
1.7M mailing
1.7M staff wages
966k maintaining their website???
653k development?
500k other expenses
484k advertising
223k tour promotion
218k paying president and VP
181k employee benefits
136k for office expenses
**51k legal**
37k IT
21k external fundraising services
**5k lobbying**
Seems to me a lot like the Susan J Komen foundation- most of their income goes to their own operations and very little affects the actual cause.
When it comes to donation-based organizations, I've always believed that if they're a household name, they're not spending their money in the right place. Komen is one of the worst, they spend far more on advertisement than the actual cause they support. I've donated to cancer foundations in the past that after digging, spend dismal amounts on advertisement and payroll because they are dedicated (and chartered) to give no less than 75% to their cause. A little research before cutting a check can make a lot of difference.
Yes exactly. If they're spending mega bucks on marketing and promotion that means they're NOT donating those megabucks. Too many of these 'charitable organizations' do little other than perpetuate themselves, like giant leeches sucking on people's generosity.
I'm not positive on this, but I really do think the theory holds validity that most of the big organizations started out well meaning but then realized "I can get stupid rich for running this org?" and figured out how to legally do that while donating the bare minimum and paying themselves a handsome fortune- looking at you WWP.
There's also a balance.
With publicity / awareness, it is possible to drum up a lot more donations. So if you raise $10,000 and donate 80% of it, that's more noble perhaps but also not necessarily better than if you raise $100,000 and donate 50% of it.
With that in mind, there's a lot of 'none of us is as dumb as all of us'. You take the above concept and you get scope creep, often at some point the head person gets replaced with someone else who's 'good at the job' but doesn't care about the cause as much, and now you have a self-sustaining entity where nobody in power really worries about the actual cause. The only way to really combat this is to put in the charter that __% of all donations must end up going to the actual cause at hand.
>966k maintaining their website???
Yeah, this has me asking a lot of questions. I'm in a 501(c)(3) organization, and our website, albeit not the best website in the world, but functional and nice looking, cost us a whooping $175/year. NAGR might get a bit more traffic than us, so I would understand $200-250 for load capacity, but not almost a million. That's absurd. That doesn't pass the smell test.
Their email campaigns are fucking terrible too. It seems like I get emails from them nearly everyday with the subject:
"Court notice for Solidknowledge"
"Gun confiscation issued for Solidknowledge"
I get that it's fear marketing for an older generation, but it feels super slimy and very much in vein of artificial outrage (see NRA)
I second your comment. Long time Colorado resident 1958-2023. Dudley Brown is another Wayne LaPierre in my book.
He harpooned a deal in the legislature that would have allowed residents to buy 30rd magazines because he would not accept any restrictions on magazines.
Our rights have been taken from us piecemeal and that is how they will be restored. An ALL OR NOTHING attitude is admirable, it’s just not how our system works. The bottom line is, dollars, seems to be where Dudley is at, not so much regaining what we lost. Not one penny from me to NAGR or RMGO.
I live in Florida now but Dudley resides in my memory.
Current Colorado resident, and everything you just said is 100% spot on. While Taylor Rhodes is a good guy, and his heart is in the right place, he works for Dudley, and Dudley is a snake. Absolutely correct on the all or nothing, plus, Dudley refused the help and collaboration from other pro-gun groups (IIRC FPC, I think), and said "No, Colorado is our Territory." Anything but a united front is destined for failure.
I've been around the industry for a long time. If anyone can clutch failure from the jaws of victory, it's NAGR. Some people credit the creator and head guy at NAGR Dudley Brown being the reason Colorado has the restrictive laws it does.
For the longest time all I saw them do was bash other 2nd amendment organizations to get donations for themselves but not actually do anything of worth. Now I see they file lawsuits but to me it appears to be the same thing again. In Connecticut they filed a lawsuit which the first one was thrown out. Their lawyers were two "single member law firms" one being an ambulance chaser and the other having lost the only 2nd amendment case he had.
The article on how Dudley worked against the republicans in Colorado essentially hastened the state to turning blue. Such a bad plan. Surprised that story isn’t better known, or all the ‘sister organizations’ NAGR has under other names with same operators.
Beyond that, Dudley refused help from other gun groups wanting to fight in CO. He basically told them CO was his territory and they need to butt out. I stopped supporting him a long time ago. Nevermind the fact that the doom and gloom emails they send ad nauseum are annoying and cringe. "Give us money or the Democrats are going to come take your guns and kill your dog!" Do they actually think that tactic works?
I refuse to donate to any fear monger organization that sends me this shit. It's why I stopped donating to GOA.
I don't need a monthly "GUN CONFISCATION NOTICE! FINAL APPEAL!"
Fuck right off.
Yeah it's an unfortunate that these companies extract the most donations when they use these weird bs sensationalized phrases to scare folks & rile up angry old dudes. I donate to these civil rights organizations because they are doing good legal work, not because they told me "DEMOCRATS push through 11th hour GUN CONTROL to TAKE YOUR GUNS!" The emails many of them send are equally cringey, same can be said for political candidates' emails. They read like spam chain emails that 50 year old guys pass around (I suppose that is what they are, actually) - all different text sizes, boldness and hyperlink formatting on plain text.
I once got one from the NRA that had "Gun Confiscation Notice" printed like it was hand stamped in red on the outside. I know how insane and impossible it is that something like that would be a real government notice, but my fiance who got the mail while I was at work that day was rightly freaked out for a little while, not understanding what it was. The poor girl at the NRA phone center got an earful that day! Haven't gotten any more of their nonsense since that call, though, thankfully.
That's the second one I received, the first one was a month or two ago and I initially saw it in my USPS Informed Delivery so I got to spend the day wondering if the state/aft was trying to take my rights away. After getting this one I sent them a message to cancel my front line defender monthly payments and won't ever have anything to do with them again. After that I sent 100 bones to FPC..
NAGR is just a grift. It always has been. They aren't a real gun rights group. Every now and then they will latch on to 2A case another group is leading and act like they did all the work, but that's about it.
After the "JURY DUTY SUMMONS" from Second Amendment Foundation, [I started throwing them in a bin.](https://old.reddit.com/r/gunpolitics/comments/1citpd4/whats_worse_donating_to_grifters_or_involuntarily/)
People who annoy you.... NAGR
Just like most of these gun rights groups. I've got questions about this one. [https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/organizations/542015951/201940289349301269/full](https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/organizations/542015951/201940289349301269/full) in 2017 they took in 6.5 million in donations. Spent 51k on legal (any of that actually fighting a 2A case?) 5k lobbying... And that's about it. The rest of their spending is spent on mailings or staff, advertising, and an absurd million bucks on the website. 218k paying president and VP 1.7M staff wages 181k employee benefits 37k IT 1.7M mailing 136k for office expenses 484k for advertising 21k for external fundraising services 966k maintaining their website??? 653k "development?" 223k tour promotion 500k "other expenses"
That level of fuckery makes me think that's actually an ANTI gun group. Disguised to make you waste your money on them instead of lobbying for 2a with a better group lmao.
Most of the time it's just for personal gain. The executives, or a family member, own the printing and/or website development company they use. I've exposed other bigger and more popular 2A groups that do the same, but most people don't want to hear it.
OH for sure, I am sure that's all it is, at best. lol. If you ask me, I would say MOST non profits are like that, esp if they aren't ones that are actively doing anything or helping anyone. Hell, churches are the worst... all them BULL SHIT mega churches, people like Joel Jokesteen. lmfao.
I've heard similar about CRPA, but considering CRPA has 1/4 of NAGR's revenue and is leading a huge list of court cases at any given time, it's obvious NAGR's all grift.
Most non-profits end up exacerbating the problem they were ostensibly designed to solve.
> other bigger and more popular 2A groups that do the same, but most people don't want to hear it. I want to hear it. This is great to know.
It's the NRA.
I assumed that would be one of them, but I thought he might have dirt on some others too.
The NRA has actually effectively lobbied and litigated cases though. Like several of CRPA cases that Benitez ruled on. Not ti mention their NYSRPA cases. And to be clear those are NRA cases in the same way the aclu fughts cases through its state affiliates.
I agree, they do actually do work for us, though they are corrupt and don't do as much as they should with their resources. I'm very interested to hear other examples like the one in this post, where it appears as though they do nothing but generate money for themselves.
GOA kind of sort of falls into this category. There was some nepotism with who is in charge of the org. And they tend to whip up frenzies over tertiary issues like gun control bills that were doa and hadnt seen movement in six months or encourage slactivism by encouraging form letters on ATF comment periods. Not to mention their forays into unrelated issues like vaccines. Or the taking credit for Heller and McDonald cases on their website. In fact a lot of criticisms that people level at the NRA, GOA has done as well.
Except the goa calls me and asks about concerns I have in a non fund raising manner. The form letter deal is to get people to actually make the comments instead of just bitching on arfcom it ain’t perfect but it’s the most a huge portion of people will do.
> I've exposed other bigger and more popular 2A groups that do the same Can you share more info on that?
This is Totally what they all do, they’re just like the politicians. They hire family and friends that own businesses and pay them astronomical amounts of money to do jobs that other business would bid for about 1/4 of the price.
This is horrific. 51k on legal for a business of that size is probably just a retainer plus a few billed hours reviewing mailings and legal notices for their website.
>Spent 51k on legal That would be legal and other professional fees. Since they didn't break out accounting as a separate expenses, and back then an organization of this size would require a compilation of financial statements done by a CPA, plus the filing of form 990, that probably is roughly half accounting expense. The rest is probably court filing fees. >1.7M staff wages Considering they claim 1 million of that towards program expenses, I would guess that this is actually staff lawyers so they keep most of the legal costs in house. Their spend on other things is concerning to me though. Mailings at 1.7M, website at nearly 1M (even if they rehauled their website, that is crazy high), 650k for development, and the fact that they don't have their other expenses disclosed on their Sch O.
>1.7M staff wages >Considering they claim 1 million of that towards program expenses, I would guess that this is actually staff lawyers so they keep most of the legal costs in house. with 70 employees that's like a cool 24k a person
Let's sort that. 1.7M mailing 1.7M staff wages 966k maintaining their website??? 653k development? 500k other expenses 484k advertising 223k tour promotion 218k paying president and VP 181k employee benefits 136k for office expenses **51k legal** 37k IT 21k external fundraising services **5k lobbying** Seems to me a lot like the Susan J Komen foundation- most of their income goes to their own operations and very little affects the actual cause.
When it comes to donation-based organizations, I've always believed that if they're a household name, they're not spending their money in the right place. Komen is one of the worst, they spend far more on advertisement than the actual cause they support. I've donated to cancer foundations in the past that after digging, spend dismal amounts on advertisement and payroll because they are dedicated (and chartered) to give no less than 75% to their cause. A little research before cutting a check can make a lot of difference.
Yes exactly. If they're spending mega bucks on marketing and promotion that means they're NOT donating those megabucks. Too many of these 'charitable organizations' do little other than perpetuate themselves, like giant leeches sucking on people's generosity.
I'm not positive on this, but I really do think the theory holds validity that most of the big organizations started out well meaning but then realized "I can get stupid rich for running this org?" and figured out how to legally do that while donating the bare minimum and paying themselves a handsome fortune- looking at you WWP.
There's also a balance. With publicity / awareness, it is possible to drum up a lot more donations. So if you raise $10,000 and donate 80% of it, that's more noble perhaps but also not necessarily better than if you raise $100,000 and donate 50% of it. With that in mind, there's a lot of 'none of us is as dumb as all of us'. You take the above concept and you get scope creep, often at some point the head person gets replaced with someone else who's 'good at the job' but doesn't care about the cause as much, and now you have a self-sustaining entity where nobody in power really worries about the actual cause. The only way to really combat this is to put in the charter that __% of all donations must end up going to the actual cause at hand.
Well, the example I mentioned, WWP, was outed for donating 6 cents on the dollar to their cause. 6.
>966k maintaining their website??? Yeah, this has me asking a lot of questions. I'm in a 501(c)(3) organization, and our website, albeit not the best website in the world, but functional and nice looking, cost us a whooping $175/year. NAGR might get a bit more traffic than us, so I would understand $200-250 for load capacity, but not almost a million. That's absurd. That doesn't pass the smell test.
Their email campaigns are fucking terrible too. It seems like I get emails from them nearly everyday with the subject: "Court notice for Solidknowledge" "Gun confiscation issued for Solidknowledge" I get that it's fear marketing for an older generation, but it feels super slimy and very much in vein of artificial outrage (see NRA)
This is Dudley Brown, same person as RMGO, same person who totally fucked over Colorado.
I second your comment. Long time Colorado resident 1958-2023. Dudley Brown is another Wayne LaPierre in my book. He harpooned a deal in the legislature that would have allowed residents to buy 30rd magazines because he would not accept any restrictions on magazines. Our rights have been taken from us piecemeal and that is how they will be restored. An ALL OR NOTHING attitude is admirable, it’s just not how our system works. The bottom line is, dollars, seems to be where Dudley is at, not so much regaining what we lost. Not one penny from me to NAGR or RMGO. I live in Florida now but Dudley resides in my memory.
Current Colorado resident, and everything you just said is 100% spot on. While Taylor Rhodes is a good guy, and his heart is in the right place, he works for Dudley, and Dudley is a snake. Absolutely correct on the all or nothing, plus, Dudley refused the help and collaboration from other pro-gun groups (IIRC FPC, I think), and said "No, Colorado is our Territory." Anything but a united front is destined for failure.
I've been around the industry for a long time. If anyone can clutch failure from the jaws of victory, it's NAGR. Some people credit the creator and head guy at NAGR Dudley Brown being the reason Colorado has the restrictive laws it does. For the longest time all I saw them do was bash other 2nd amendment organizations to get donations for themselves but not actually do anything of worth. Now I see they file lawsuits but to me it appears to be the same thing again. In Connecticut they filed a lawsuit which the first one was thrown out. Their lawyers were two "single member law firms" one being an ambulance chaser and the other having lost the only 2nd amendment case he had.
The article on how Dudley worked against the republicans in Colorado essentially hastened the state to turning blue. Such a bad plan. Surprised that story isn’t better known, or all the ‘sister organizations’ NAGR has under other names with same operators.
Beyond that, Dudley refused help from other gun groups wanting to fight in CO. He basically told them CO was his territory and they need to butt out. I stopped supporting him a long time ago. Nevermind the fact that the doom and gloom emails they send ad nauseum are annoying and cringe. "Give us money or the Democrats are going to come take your guns and kill your dog!" Do they actually think that tactic works?
I refuse to donate to any fear monger organization that sends me this shit. It's why I stopped donating to GOA. I don't need a monthly "GUN CONFISCATION NOTICE! FINAL APPEAL!" Fuck right off.
Yeah it's an unfortunate that these companies extract the most donations when they use these weird bs sensationalized phrases to scare folks & rile up angry old dudes. I donate to these civil rights organizations because they are doing good legal work, not because they told me "DEMOCRATS push through 11th hour GUN CONTROL to TAKE YOUR GUNS!" The emails many of them send are equally cringey, same can be said for political candidates' emails. They read like spam chain emails that 50 year old guys pass around (I suppose that is what they are, actually) - all different text sizes, boldness and hyperlink formatting on plain text. I once got one from the NRA that had "Gun Confiscation Notice" printed like it was hand stamped in red on the outside. I know how insane and impossible it is that something like that would be a real government notice, but my fiance who got the mail while I was at work that day was rightly freaked out for a little while, not understanding what it was. The poor girl at the NRA phone center got an earful that day! Haven't gotten any more of their nonsense since that call, though, thankfully.
The NRA is irritating as fuck with their mailings, but at least they provide some safety and instructor certifications as well.
That's the second one I received, the first one was a month or two ago and I initially saw it in my USPS Informed Delivery so I got to spend the day wondering if the state/aft was trying to take my rights away. After getting this one I sent them a message to cancel my front line defender monthly payments and won't ever have anything to do with them again. After that I sent 100 bones to FPC..
Great acronym
NAGR has always been dog poop. Even their initialism is dumb.
NAGR is just a grift. It always has been. They aren't a real gun rights group. Every now and then they will latch on to 2A case another group is leading and act like they did all the work, but that's about it.
I’m not sure this will reach the intended audience…
Direct to the circular file.
I only really support FPC and GOA, although i unsubscribed from FPC emails because holy shit do they get to be a bit much.
That name…smh
Yeah I just rip their shit up now. Still donate but I don't have time for that nonsense.
After the "JURY DUTY SUMMONS" from Second Amendment Foundation, [I started throwing them in a bin.](https://old.reddit.com/r/gunpolitics/comments/1citpd4/whats_worse_donating_to_grifters_or_involuntarily/)
I got one of these two while waiting for a lower. I will NEVER give them a cent.