scheherazadesghost

Maybe. But there's also a whole professional field dedicated to raising funds for non profits (off the golf course.) Some call it Advancement, others Development. Others Donor Cultivation. And they don't just get the money rolling cause the flood gates stay open naturally forever. It's a profession for a reason. Because donor cultivation requires constant attention and care. Constant communication and synchrony with other departments in the non profit. Constant pats on the backs of donors who want them and constant, painstaking hoops to jump through for big corporate donors who will easily take their demands to the next non profit who can meet them better than you. The work is constant.

Vanguard has more of an alumni cultivation problem than a talented/knowledgeable alum problem. Many of us have been trying to help... enough of us have given up after being intensely burned by our own people. For years. DCI can promote this knowledge all they want, but if corps are possibly not receptive bc bingo is king-o, then it don't matter.

I'm impressed that it appears as though your volunteer board manages this relationships without a paid staffer overseeing it all. Unless they brought them all in themselves I suppose. Still, keeping names like Chase happy take a lot of work. Kudos to Boston. I peeped their board a while back. Formidable. Especially sans bingo.

Naming rights is just one kind of corporate sponsorship. They can take any form really so long as the parties involved find the agreement mutually beneficial. Sky's the limit for the experienced and well supported development pro. I think SoA was getting somewhere with Arby's honestly... just don't think the mission alignment was quite there. Unless SoA has some snarky thing going on idk. SCV's fleet is an excellent asset that thousands of people drive by daily. Quantify that then market corporate sponsorship space to partners who are the most mission aligned. Same thing as program ads for the local ballet recital. This is straight from the np playbook.

Many of the alum I'm still close to worked jobs to pay for drum corps fees instead of going to college or the military. They had no familial financial support, worked more bingos than were required by a lot, and had tour jobs like loading busses or painting fields. They were the best of us. And the rest of us with more means were lucky we got to spend a summer with them. The whole corps and org was better for including them. I hate that money is now keeping people out more. My partner wanted to march BITD but couldn't afford it. He would've gone to Bluecoats if only because they were the sole corps holding Texas auditions then. He ended up with a BA in music ed and advanced degree in sonic arts. I also saved money (and my health) by not marching my final two years and eventually earned an advanced degree in dance which allows me to teach the subject (and others) in higher education. I would have loved not having to choose one over the other.

I appreciate your post overall but I want to lean into this part. I agree that funders are looking for hyper-locality, services for underserved communities, and arts experiences (extraordinary is in the eye of the beholder.) I firmly believe that drum corps absolutely provides extraordinary arts experiences, it's just a weird initial sell for most prospective donors who are unfamiliar. If corps could clean up their compliance and safeguarding, they could be viable contenders for major funding due to their focus on legacy artmaking and youth education. But that would require a sea change in approach. A singular $50,000 grant does not justify a grant writer's labor in the context of the world class corps budgets anyway, especially if the upkeep for such a grant requires year-round reporting. Many do. But to your point, yeah, drum corps (as it is currently packaged) is not competitive. Grants also often require NPs to report out internal info like demographics of employees and populations served, as well as how many hours each employee works on each project-type category. I don't think most drum corps have the people power for even smaller grants at this time. My biggest concern is the interest I've seen in several parts of our community in special needs/underserved ensembles as an incentive for grants. First, funds for such community-oriented programming would be restricted and such programs are very unlikely to ween themselves off external funding. Meaning such programs rarely turn into revenue generators, unless the organization shifts focus entirely to getting good at serving that population and dropping drum corps. Because the funding is likely restricted, it can't be used on anything else, let alone to fund a conventional drum corps tour. I've seen countless nonprofits and other bad actors exploit underserved and marginalized populations in this way before so I just wanted to clarify. There are serious penalties for using restricted funds on areas outside of their stated purpose. Most importantly, if your mission doesn't directly necessitate services for marginalized communities, suddenly supporting them and getting grants for it looks weird. The org likely doesn't have the expertise built up to support these populations because the mission has been focused on other, better-served populations prior to its interest in grants designated for serving marginalized populations. Unless, of course, your mission was too broad to begin with and you're unaware of the mission creep going on. If serving these communities is of genuine interest to orgs who don't already specialize in doing so, an appropriate approach would be to build partnerships with nearby orgs who are actually good at doing so, not applying for grants to do it themselves. Not enough to read? Here's a supportive resource for anyone interested: https://www.501c3.org/misappropriating-nonprofit-funds/

Mainly the Mercury News. This is the only record still available.

The way drum corps fund their endeavors is an outlier in my experience working for other nationally and regionally known NPs that focus on youth arts education. I only know how things are done in those more successful and stable contexts. I left the drum corps world after numerous preventable injuries and after working directly under Jeff Fiedler at SCV. I wasn't intending to focus too closely on other corps in my previous comments. I don't know (or want to know) about their inner workings at this time. I can't afford to volunteer that time right now. The money from performance fees is a small line item. Should open corps be getting more? Of course. But relatively speaking, this is fighting over peanuts when other, more stable sources are out there. You're delving into mission alignment stuff. If your core output/activity is fielding a competitive drum corps then it won't make money. That's the textbook definition of an NP: your mission isn't about making money, it's about providing a public good and not taking profits from doing so. But if your mission is not just fluff, and you have the workforce to make it happen, then you can expand programming beyond the niche of fielding a drum corps to generate revenue (as long as you stay within your scope. Ex: if your mission is to support youth underwater basket weaving, don't start a community program for senior tai chi classes as a revenue generator.) But that's only if you want your arts education services to generate income, which is really tricky for NPs anyway. You can also look to grantwriting, individual and institutional funder stewardship and yes, corporate sponsors, which traditionally make up the bulk of legit NP revenue. But that takes a lot of legwork, expertise, and organizational synchrony that bingo does not. Success on the field does not always equate to success in other areas. Yeah, well, angel investors are not sustainable. By design. Is it any wonder why someone with a successful for profit business would see a NP as a financial sinkhole? If that's how it's seen, then either (1) the NP is a sinkhole because of mismanagement or (2) there's a fundamental misunderstanding of how NPs function in collaboration with their communities (read: funders, in part) to produce public goods. In this way, NP and for-profit professionals tackle their work in entirely different ways for entirely different reasons. NP professionals KNOW that NPs can be sinkholes (worst case scenario;) work tirelessly to safeguard and earn public trust; and creatively engage the public so that rather than being seen as a sinkhole, the public understands that the work takes money the NP can't otherwise make on its own, and will enthusiastically give because they value the public good provided (whether they see direct benefit or not.) And the public can see the work is being done ethically because the NP is transparent and effectively communicative. Most for-profit pros lack the crucial combo of expertise and constitution to fine tune their skills to prevent their NPs from becoming sinkholes. It's not a knock; just a difference between the industries. Because it's a NP mindset and skill set. Trust, I worked in nonprofit contemporary dance education/performance/presentation from 2005-2020. Talk about undervalued. Talk about working my ### off to try and convince public stakeholders of the value of contemporary dance to the public good. Because I didn't have the luxury of a gambling revenue source. (I've broken down my previous employer, The American Dance Festival's donor/sponsorships relative to their 990s in previous comments in order to provide a reputable example outside of drum corps of how it's done.)

Eep. But doesn't it red flag anyone else here for an organization to opt for gambling as a revenue source when they can't be self-sustaining from their core operations? So your org can't put together a solid financial or strategic plan to be self-sustaining, but here's a revenue source that requires rigorous oversight to ensure money goes where it's supposed to? Just seems silly and a bit lazy, honestly. It's why Vanguard and BD are getting labeled as bingo operations with a drum corps side gig. That feels great as an alumna. And don't get me wrong. The conventional revenue sources for NPs require a LOT of legwork year-round to sustain, and NP employee burnout is a industry-wide problem. But at least the work to achieve these conventions would be supported by a broader community of state and national NP leaders, respectable donors, and affinity organizations. Right now, Vanguard's out on it's own 'cause DCI and member corps don't have the same incentives or loyalty that Vanguard could find in the NP community. But I'm just pontificating. Bingo's not going anywhere. Only the side hustle is. I'm hesitant to speak to my attendance of alumni meetings as I've received requests to censor my thoughts on those I've posted in this very thread. But I will say that recent changes to the VAA bylaws may allow for more alumni representation in the future. Like with everything else, I'm cautiously optimistic.

I think the corps has a history of this from time to time. In normal circumstances, it's probably not uncommon for board members/volunteers in a small NP to donate accounting labor sure. Without rigorous internal protocols though, it can go bonkers fast. (And I wouldn't personally trust the oversight of $15 MIL changing hands via gambling with volunteer hands, honestly. But that's just me.) With the amount of turnover at SCV, I've expressed more than once I'm concerned about the preservation of key institutional knowledge such as this. The current and previous CFOs' profiles (despite their histories with the corps) don't indicate that they've worked in NPs as accountants prior to their hiring. NP accounting is wildly different than for-profit accounting. You don't just know this stuff, it takes time to learn it all because NPs make up a unique industry. Being on a board doesn't mean you know how to be an NP administrator. Governance and administration are different too. '19/'20 saw a letter from the CA DOJ requesting an independent audit after they first went delinquent. That can't be done internally, from my understanding. (Or at least, I would highly un-recommend completing an required audit in-house.) Yeah, I'm reading that CPAs, who are in charge of the conducting audits for NPs, must be independent of their audit engagements. But before the CEO leadership shift, alumni were assured that independent audits happened yearly. So where did those audits go if not to the CA DOJ that requested them (who shows they weren't received?) If bureaucratic backlog is the problem, then is there a way to request a letter from the DOJ stating that VMAPA is in the clear and that the registry is out-of-date?

Lightening in a bottle. The players and arrangers made it real easy to interpret visually. And the drumline/pit shoved the rest of us uphill both ways.

TY. I've limited my scope to Vanguard. From a distant glance it appears that BD wins the diversification game with Boston showing real promise. SoA is coming back strong and totally winning the safeguarding game. Then there's groups like Colts and Stars who took transparency and accountability to the next level. There's good stuff happening and I don't mean to paint all corps with a broad brush. But I can smell mission creep a mile away. It's all over drum corps.

Right, but if you've never been an admin for nonprofits, as I have, you don't understand how important it is to align mission with revenue sources. Moose Lodge folks are excellent because they can raise funds pretty freely for a variety of causes and nobody cares how they got it really so long as it's legal. That's a feature not a flaw. But I've worked for a youth arts ed nonprofit that was taking sponsorship dollars from a gun retailer the year before I started. By no action of my own, they chose to drop that sponsor the next year. Why? Mission alignment. They didn't think it looked good to have a gun retailer's logo in the middle of their youth Nutcracker program or projected on the walls of the theater. You don't have to agree with their decision to understand why it may have been made. This kind of thing happens all day every day in the decisionmaking processes of nps. Moose Lodge folks don't have the responsibility of safeguarding children and youth as VMAPA and other youth nps do. Gambling as a revenue source is fine because mission alignment is less of a problem. Sigh. Everyone's looking for these mythical new sources of revenue. If drum corps followed the established arts ed non profit model, they'd be able to compete with other nps for public funds. I've already shared this info in previous comments, but all of the successful nps I've worked for in the past rely on something wild like 60-80% of their revenue to come from grants, individual donors, institutional funders, and sponsorships. They put at least one person in charge of grants, and another in charge of donor stewardship... ideally a third person in charge of sponsorships but that was rare in the underfunded np world I worked in. Each of these orgs had comparable budges to VMAPA and most drum corps. NPs across the US work like this all day every day. It's because this revenue standard, without a gambling revenue source, enables most NPs to model transparency and interdependence with their communities. It's the way it supposed to work. Throw a fast and loose revenue source in there like gambling, and it can degrade public trust.... for the reasons I mentioned in my previous comment.

Included this earlier on the ethics of charitable gambling: https://prism.ucalgary.ca/server/api/core/bitstreams/194b7c27-814d-4822-96d0-b1dba92f39dc/content Speaking to the nature of those attending bingo... "The connection between gambling (charitable or otherwise) and social problems such as addiction, family breakdown, and crime was mentioned by most respondents [emphasis mine.] Raising money at the expense of problem gamblers was a common concern. As Table 8 illustrates, the number of respondents who agree that 'charitable gambling increases the number of problem gamblers' far outweighs those who disagree. Many respondents go a step further and argue that gambling revenues often come from those least able to lose money and, in turn, that charitable gambling is a 'tax on the poor.' Further, other comments argue that there is an inherent hypocrisy in using a funding method that increases the number of people who turn to the charitable sector for help."

This makes me nervous, cause don't nobody want fellow alumni in jail: This letter dated Sept 2021 clearly outlines liabilities: "Directors, trustees, officers and return preparers responsible for failure to timely file these reports are also personally liable for payment of late fees. PLEASE NOTE: Charitable assets cannot be used to pay these avoidable costs [late fees.] Accordingly, directors, trustees, officers and return preparers responsible for failure to timely file the above-described report(s) are personally liable for payment of all penalties, interest, and other costs incurred to restore exempt status." Now, all of this could be happening. I genuinely hope it is. But my trust is shot and neither the DOJ nor VMAPA are communicating about it. So, all I can do is sit here with public documents in hand and ask the questions... hoping for an answer... Yes, thank goodness they never lost state or federal tax exempt status. But they failed to either complete or file required audits, despite telling alum they conduct them every year. So which is it? That's not good for a number of reasons. And even if they can fix it, wouldn't you think that would necessitate some kind of changeover of leadership roles? So the ones who "forgot" to do required paperwork don't "forget" again? At least do some kind of training or compliance to show they've changed their ways and those changes have been incorporated into institutional knowledge permanently....

I've stated before that the delinquency status is more common than I'd expected. The DOJ's website, and the letter sent to VMAPA both outline repercussions of not correcting the delinquency, which can include board and leadership culpability directly. However, the DOJ and other groups provide countless tools for correcting it. They want to help orgs. It's not insurmountable at all. It all depends on the state of the books, which we'll likely never know. But when alum professionals look through the 990s and and are flagged by the state of the audits, in combo with patchy communications for the org, what are we supposed to do? The other alum are chatting away in a closed Fb group...... or absent entirely. Are these youth education institutions? Even churches can get away with gambling fundraising, but I've literally never seen another successful youth arts np outside of drum corps leverage gambling for funds. I've provided resources earlier in the thread that explain why so many other youth education nps avoid this revenue source. They also explain why some nps still use bingo. This isn't just some angry alum opinion, it's a professional one that's shared across the np space. Your revenue sources ideally align with your mission. In what way does gambling align with VMAPA's mission? Until they can answer that, they'll be stuck with the regular drum corps funders. If they answer it expertly, they may be able to convince new funders, but it'll be a shlogg. Ultimately the response from such discriminating funders will likely be, "if bingo is so lucrative, then why do you need me?" and they'll bounce. However, I hope it's understood that I marched during the bingo theft years and that also plays largely into my advocacy now. Bingo is too lucrative to go anywhere. So I promise it won't. I only argue against it because I'm the sole professional voice willing to do so. But that's part of the problem. It's lucrativeness is super attractive to foul play. Mix that in with lax oversight and what do you get? The amount of money changing hands in that operation is closer to $15 mil/yr and the director is living in Hawaii collecting a salary. One word from me: How? I welcome VMAPA to continue to play with fire though I guess cause I can't do anything about it. Perhaps if I trusted leadership's explanations to diversify revenue I'd be a little more forgiving about bingo revenue, but my trust is shot and several aspects of the business are red flagging me. I appreciate trying to help defend VMAPA against criticism, but let's say all the money aside gets ironed out perfectly. Excellent. However, the other issues addressed in this thread still lead me to believe they aren't quite ready to adequately care for young members again yet. If they start up again, and I start getting new credible alum reports of financial or org mismanagement, abuse, medical neglect, or harassment, then wild horses won't be able to stop my advocacy.

They are accountable to their stakeholders; and because they don't currently have "members," the alum are a crucial group of stakeholders. Along with staff, board, community, funders, partnerships, donors, etc. More: https://nonprofitquarterly.org/who-are-stakeholders-and-why-do-they-matter/ "Ethics—Promoting Equitable Power Dynamics. The nonprofit sector is rooted in relational accountability. It fosters trust in civil society while also being dependent upon the public’s trust to remain viable.5 However, business pressures can sometimes cause nonprofit organizations to lose sight of this, resulting in mission creep and abandoning of essential programs that cannot pay for themselves. As Nonprofit Quarterly’s editors have described, explicitly identifying stakeholders is an effective way to counter such pressures, because it brings ethics and relational accountability to the forefront of organizational decision making.6 It ensures that those with the least power have a meaningful voice and equitable opportunities to advance their interests." Another danger of having so few NP pros among the staff. Stuff like this is fundamental to successful NPs. I've already spoken to VMAPA's mission creep in previous commentary, but the "abandoning of essential programs that cannot pay for themselves" needs no further explanation. I've seen it countless times before and competed for funding against NPs and other grant applicants who are clearly stuck in that way.

I'll just leave this here: https://rec.arts.marching.drumcorps.narkive.com/gbcqistZ/scv-news-volunteer-accused-of-embezzling-from-bingo-losses-estimated-50-000

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This is why I advocate for an eventual separation of the two. It will never happen so why not say what I think? But that revenue stream is both an outlier and a liability. This makes two reports, separated by at least a decade, of bingo fraud. I haven't seen this kind of model in any of the other arts non profits I've worked for. Nothing like it. (I know other examples exists, but my work didn't intersect with them. And my circle of professionals give side eye whenever I ask them about bingo as a NP revenue source.) Edit to add... This, again, is my professional opinion, but here are some sources that reinforce my point: https://grantstation.com/gs-insights/Fundraising-Through-Charitable-Gaming https://prism.ucalgary.ca/server/api/core/bitstreams/194b7c27-814d-4822-96d0-b1dba92f39dc/content

This is why I try to encourage temperance among alum. Try to imagine having a dozen alum reports make it your way in one year. You have no way of verifying which are true, except to trust the word of your fellow alum who are clearly showing signs of concern and are in widely various states of recovery from what they endured or witnessed. None of them want to talk to each other. The emotional labor they exhibit to tell their stories has kept you up at night. So, one option is to believe all are true and fight like hell to stop the bleed. Always respecting the expressed desires of whistleblower confidentiality first. There's also the option to assume that many are true, in which case it's still important to try and advocate among the alum and larger community, and raise awareness of these potential issues. Hmm, now let's imagine instead that few of them are true. Okay, less members were harmed, great! But some still were and some of them are feeling dissatisfied with mutual attempts at resolution. Best approach is to work the whistleblower channels that exist respectfully but without sugarcoating anything. Okay... the last option is to assume all reporters are lying to me out of some strange vindictiveness. Lying about abuse/misconduct/etc to sabotage a struggling nonprofit? What caused those alum to be so vindictive? Let's just say returning to my old house to discover that any of these scenarios is possible has increased my hard-earned gray patch significantly over the last year. Most of my fellow alum look like dear in headlights when I tell them anything about any of this.

💯 Didn't take it that way and appreciate your saying so. Also, it's crucial that other corps cross their t's and dot their i's. I hate that my corps is splayed out for our teachable moments but might as well learn from it if nothing else.

If the org doesn't have that kind of power, the individuals it harmed still have even less. I just fear that some are giving whistleblowers more power than we actually have to "destroy" an institution. And, even though anyone outside of wb circles would have no way of knowing this... the amount of restraint demonstrated by every single one I'm in contact with is monastic and profoundly compassionate, given what they endured. I think the subtext directed at wbs in this convo of ours is "be careful, don't break Vanguard pl0x." To which I can only say, "We are being incredibly delicate. But to move the dial, we also have to judiciously assertive as well. We love Vanguard too." And it's not like these wbs are some united force, most just want to be left alone. I'm btw a hard rock and a place. Seriously. Alum with reports approached me as recently as last month. Beyond everything else, I'm stuck figuring out how to help ensure those and future reporters don't face retaliation. Unless anyone here has any better ideas about how to handle that...

There were updates to some of this in the recent alum meeting. Perhaps another alum who's in less hot water with our peers will share those updates. No update on timeline. Listen, imagine raising 20k for a good cause, only to have that work roadblocked by fellow alum. At least, that's probably the perception. It's probably nonetheless frustrating to alum whose primary mode of engagement these days is fundraising. Nevermind that the messengers for that news weren't the ones that fell behind on required compliance paperwork, and continued to solicit without communicating to their donors about that delinquent status, nor the ways they plan to correct it. Those messengers are worried about the handling of fundraising, as well as the safety of donations and personal data... ... because, professionally speaking, there are red flags. But the messengers are hell bent on destruction, right? We couldn't possibly have our peer-donors' best interest in mind, because we know the signs of safe donations and protected data. No way. Shoot the messengers and leave those actually responsible alone! A go/no go date exists. Another thing that perhaps some other alum will share. I get wrist slaps when I share out too much from a public meeting. Why do you think I restrict my commentary to my corps? What little poking around I've done in other groups has not been well met. Except for SoA.