Per the California Attorney General Vanguard is operating illegally as a non profit

[Eustis]

1 minute ago, Eustis said:

To be clear I'm not part of any organization, I'm just asking what I consider to be valid exploratory questions. Which drum corps are you referring to that do have strategic and financial plans that allow them to market their core activities as their primary source of income (vs. bingo)? Do junior drum corps, any of them, get paid sufficiently for their performances (competitive or otherwise) to be primarily funded by that source? Or primarily from corporate sponsorships? By your own admission SCV and BD do not seem to be among them, and they are among the most historically successful corps on the field.

As I seem to recall even in the days of the one of the first corporately sponsored corps, Star of Indiana, that sponsorship had virtually nothing to do with the corps' on field (core) activities. Bill Cook's business was Cook Group which was/is in medical instrumentation (think heart stent, for example). A respectable and above board business of course, but drum corps was if any thing a loss leader (financially speaking) for Mr. Cook.

Point being, junior drum corps are non-profit for a reason. No one yet seems to be willing to pay any significant, self-sustaining amount of money to a corps for whatever goods or services it might provide.

[scheherazadesghost]

34 minutes ago, Eustis said:

To be clear I'm not part of any organization, I'm just asking what I consider to be valid exploratory questions. Which drum corps are you referring to that do have strategic and financial plans that allow them to market their core activities as their primary source of income (vs. bingo)? Do junior drum corps, any of them, get paid sufficiently for their performances (competitive or otherwise) to be primarily funded by that source? Or primarily from corporate sponsorships? By your own admission SCV and BD do not seem to be among them, and they are among the most historically successful corps on the field.

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.

34 minutes ago, Eustis said:

As I seem to recall even in the days of the one of the first corporately sponsored corps, Star of Indiana, that sponsorship had virtually nothing to do with the corps' on field (core) activities. Bill Cook's business was Cook Group which was/is in medical instrumentation (think heart stent, for example). A respectable and above board business of course, but drum corps was if any thing a loss leader (financially speaking) for Mr. Cook.

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.)

[Richard Lesher]

1 hour ago, Eustis said:

To be clear I'm not part of any organization, I'm just asking what I consider to be valid exploratory questions. Which drum corps are you referring to that do have strategic and financial plans that allow them to market their core activities as their primary source of income (vs. bingo)? Do junior drum corps, any of them, get paid sufficiently for their performances (competitive or otherwise) to be primarily funded by that source? Or primarily from corporate sponsorships? By your own admission SCV and BD do not seem to be among them, and they are among the most historically successful corps on the field.

As I seem to recall even in the days of the one of the first corporately sponsored corps, Star of Indiana, that sponsorship had virtually nothing to do with the corps' on field (core) activities. Bill Cook's business was Cook Group which was/is in medical instrumentation (think heart stent, for example). A respectable and above board business of course, but drum corps was if any thing a loss leader (financially speaking) for Mr. Cook.

You're so spot on. Drum Corps is really quite expensive. Dollars spend toward the marching members is far less efficient than everything I can think of toward other performing arts activities their revenues could be directed toward. 

It's a shrinking activity with less and less influence in performing arts. 

Think of DCI as the Indy 500 Series of youth based arts. They need to figure out a NASCAR model. 

[MikeN]

BOA, to their credit, has created what I think is probably the NASCAR model.  They've offloaded the infrastructure costs onto public schools, which more or less had music programs built for that anyways, and have a drop in / drop out model that keeps programs from spending beyond their means (if they choose to).  On one hand, you get instances where the San Antonio Regional can be a de facto championship.  On the other, you open up access to so many bands that your reach increases exponentially.  

Mike

[IllianaLancerContra]

1 hour ago, Richard Lesher said:

You're so spot on. Drum Corps is really quite expensive. Dollars spend toward the marching members is far less efficient than everything I can think of toward other performing arts activities their revenues could be directed toward. 

It's a shrinking activity with less and less influence in performing arts. 

Think of DCI as the Indy 500 Series of youth based arts. They need to figure out a NASCAR model. 

I follow NASCAR and would suggest that it isn’t the model we want DCI to follow.  NASCAR is a privately-held, for-profit business owned by the France family.  The family makes, selectively enforces, and sometimes arbitrarily changes the rules as it sees fit.  But they do understand their audience and put on a good show.  
 

If what you mean is the corporate sponsorship is something that the Corps need, I’m more ok with that (although the devil is in the details).  I suppose we could speculate if the Pennzoil Cadets (with Yamaha Performance Technology) will be able to pass the Coca-Cola Spirit of Atlanta or the Union Pacific Troopers this weekend…

[MGCpimpOtimp]

3 hours ago, Richard Lesher said:

That's exactly what more than likely happened. 

I'm also privy to additional information that I have as hearsay (but entirely believe). I can only show here definitively by their own 990 filings  that they stopped paying for accounting services entirely as reported on their 990's, and that is 100% correlated with their lack of audits, lack of compliance, and end result of losing both their Corps.  

Basically, they do not have sufficient accounting and financial information about the economic direction of the organization to make sufficiently informed operational decisions in a fiscally responsible manner. 

What really pisses me off.................

When I was there overseeing finances............. it was just me (and I did it for free), and the operations manager and we were fixing a mess to begin with.

Right here, right now SCV has on the Board a CPA who is the Board President, and has been paying a CFO position going back to 2016 to people with accounting and business credentials. 

COME ON!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

They have been spending $250K in regards to financial accounting, reporting, and CFO and Bookkeeping expenses to keep things straight. They cut out all the outsourced services and it goes completely sideways. 

It was the OUTSOURCED stuff they needed to KEEP if anything, and stop paying a non functional CFO six figures. 

 

So it sounds like the issue isn't that they aren't spending on accounting, because when you were doing it, it was fine. But that the person who is currently doing it, is not doing fine.

[Tenoris4Jazz]

5 hours ago, Eustis said:

To be clear I'm not part of any organization, I'm just asking what I consider to be valid exploratory questions. Which drum corps are you referring to that do have strategic and financial plans that allow them to market their core activities as their primary source of income (vs. bingo)? Do junior drum corps, any of them, get paid sufficiently for their performances (competitive or otherwise) to be primarily funded by that source? Or primarily from corporate sponsorships? By your own admission SCV and BD do not seem to be among them, and they are among the most historically successful corps on the field.

As I seem to recall even in the days of the one of the first corporately sponsored corps, Star of Indiana, that sponsorship had virtually nothing to do with the corps' on field (core) activities. Bill Cook's business was Cook Group which was/is in medical instrumentation (think heart stent, for example). A respectable and above board business of course, but drum corps was if any thing a loss leader (financially speaking) for Mr. Cook.

Bill Cook funded Star for the first few years entirely, but he also had them develop the charter bus company that Star used during the tour and then ran, as a fund raising business, the rest of the year to whomever needed buses.  By 1987 or '88, the charter service basically paid all of Star's bills.  They also bought brand new King bugles and never bought more horns.  Star had them refurbished every year by the manufacturer.  Right up until 1993 they were still the best sounding horns on tour.

[denverjohn]

On 5/6/2023 at 10:51 AM, KVG_DC said:

That's a blast from the past.  [looks at the poster's name for that blurb]

From she who shall not be named.😲

[scheherazadesghost]

1 hour ago, denverjohn said:

From she who shall not be named.

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

[JimF-LowBari]

28 minutes ago, scheherazadesghost said:

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

Denverjohn was referring to the RAMD person who posted the article. Let’s just say RAMD was not moderated like DCP and some of this persons posts would be deleted quickly here. 🤯