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

[rjohn76]

30 minutes ago, scheherazadesghost said:

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.

The bulk of the bingos games in my area are not tied directly tied to youth programming, but quite a few do indirectly benefit youth.  For example, the Moose lodge down the road from me hosts a weekly bingo session that's run by the local high school athletic booster club.  That club helps fund equipment purchases, stadium upgrades and so forth.  Even looking at the churches that are running bingo games, most of them have K-8 schools or other youth programs attached to them.  I've never taken a deep enough look at their books to know how the money generated from the bingo games is being utilized, but I would guess that there's some cross over there.

The challenge all corps face is identifying new revenue sources that can help support their mission.  Within the organizations that I have closest ties to, the older alumni are still clamoring for the days of door-to-door candy sales, coupon books and car washes.  While all of those methods were successful to a degree at some point in time, I'm not sure if any of those revenue generating methods are any more aligned with the mission than hosting bingo games.

[scheherazadesghost]

12 minutes ago, JimF-LowBari said:

Regarding who can run Bingo believe it depends on state laws. For PA we have nonprofits and for profit groups running. Difference is if taxes are paid on the profits.

My area used to have multiple groups running games and then a for profit company basically ran a bunch out of business. The nonprofits would run on different nights of the week so they wouldn’t cut into each others business. The for profit company ran on those nights and had higher payout.

What ended up killing everyone’s Bingo was when they had to go nonsmoking. Surprised how many people would play Bingo just so they could smoke in public. Then again I helped at my corps Bingo and would go home with car windows open in 10 degrees because I stunk like a used Marlboro.

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."

[rjohn76]

19 minutes ago, scheherazadesghost said:

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....

Don't get me wrong, the organization has some serious house cleaning and explaining to do in order to regain the trust and confidence of those with direct ties to them, and quite frankly the entire activity as a whole.  Transparency is key, which so far hasn't exactly been there at the levels most of us would like to see.  They clearly have room for improvement in many areas.  I was more or less pointing out that the letters from the AG office of CA, while important and scary looking, are very much a formality that should be able to be resolved with some basic due diligence on the organization's part.  They're not building new jails to house all of the board members of the 33,000+ orgs that are currently delinquent.

[scheherazadesghost]

14 minutes ago, rjohn76 said:

The bulk of the bingos games in my area are not tied directly tied to youth programming, but quite a few do indirectly benefit youth.  For example, the Moose lodge down the road from me hosts a weekly bingo session that's run by the local high school athletic booster club.  That club helps fund equipment purchases, stadium upgrades and so forth.  Even looking at the churches that are running bingo games, most of them have K-8 schools or other youth programs attached to them.  I've never taken a deep enough look at their books to know how the money generated from the bingo games is being utilized, but I would guess that there's some cross over there.

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.

14 minutes ago, rjohn76 said:

The challenge all corps face is identifying new revenue sources that can help support their mission.  Within the organizations that I have closest ties to, the older alumni are still clamoring for the days of door-to-door candy sales, coupon books and car washes.  While all of those methods were successful to a degree at some point in time, I'm not sure if any of those revenue generating methods are any more aligned with the mission than hosting bingo games.

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.

[Eustis]

3 hours ago, scheherazadesghost said:

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.

These are really interesting points you're making here. As someone who is considering becoming involved with the activity again (after many years away), do you know if there are any organizations within drum corps that have adopted the model you outline here, to a greater or lesser extent?

[scheherazadesghost]

2 hours ago, Eustis said:

These are really interesting points you're making here. As someone who is considering becoming involved with the activity again (after many years away), do you know if there are any organizations within drum corps that have adopted the model you outline here, to a greater or lesser extent?

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.

Edited May 7, 2023 by scheherazadesghost

[Richard Lesher]

11 hours ago, rjohn76 said:

Maybe I missed something in the 43 previous pages, but this thread was largely about the failure to file necessary paperwork with the CA Registry of Charitable Trusts.  There are monetary penalties/fees that can be assessed for failure to meet these filing requirements, but nobody is going to jail for failing to file paperwork.  Unless the failure to file the paperwork was part of a larger intentional effort to somehow commit a criminal act and a larger investigation ensues, the "delinquent" status in CA isn't that significant in the grand scheme of things.  And as far as I can see based on public IRS lookup tools, the organization remains in good standing with the IRS.  

So we are all trying to figure out what all this partial information means. There is a lot of speculation that being delinquent is not a big deal. I don't disagree. 

What is a bid deal is that both their Drum Corps are gone, and millions of revenue is being pulled in by Bingo. See, Bingo never goes away. SCV or not, those bingo players are out there spending money be it at SCV or elsewhere. 

When a non profit organization fails to provide it's mission that's a big deal. When they are out of compliance with audits that escalates the importance of what would have been found in an audit. Audits are to protect the stakeholders and the public from getting dupped. 

Below is the expense break out for SCV for FY2017, 2018, 2019, and 2020. These are their IRS form 990 they filed with the IRS. 

The astronomical red flag is their accounting services expenses went to $0. Are they $0, or submitted with errors? I can't tell you. What I can tell you is they used to have bookkeeping outsourced. So this kind of stuff would never be a problem.

Now accounting services is $0?

Now they don't have audits?

Now they are out of compliance?

Bingo is still pulling in Bingo Revenue?

Now the Drum Corps are gone? 

[Sutasaurus]

12 hours ago, Richard Lesher said:

So we are all trying to figure out what all this partial information means. There is a lot of speculation that being delinquent is not a big deal. I don't disagree. 

What is a bid deal is that both their Drum Corps are gone, and millions of revenue is being pulled in by Bingo. See, Bingo never goes away. SCV or not, those bingo players are out there spending money be it at SCV or elsewhere. 

When a non profit organization fails to provide it's mission that's a big deal. When they are out of compliance with audits that escalates the importance of what would have been found in an audit. Audits are to protect the stakeholders and the public from getting dupped. 

Below is the expense break out for SCV for FY2017, 2018, 2019, and 2020. These are their IRS form 990 they filed with the IRS. 

The astronomical red flag is their accounting services expenses went to $0. Are they $0, or submitted with errors? I can't tell you. What I can tell you is they used to have bookkeeping outsourced. So this kind of stuff would never be a problem.

Now accounting services is $0?

Now they don't have audits?

Now they are out of compliance?

Bingo is still pulling in Bingo Revenue?

Now the Drum Corps are gone? 

Ouch! Not a good look. What happened in 2018 for the BOD to spend $71K in legal expenses?

Edited May 8, 2023 by Sutasaurus

[Jeff Ream]

13 hours ago, scheherazadesghost said:

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 correcting 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.

Somehow BD’s bingo operation runs with few if any issues ever getting out. Maybe there’s the model to emulate 

[TRacer]

16 hours ago, scheherazadesghost said:

 

Edited May 8, 2023 by TRacer
Nvm