CSGV Continues to Deteriorate

The form 990s for Coalition to Stop Gun Violence are now available for the year 2009, so that presents some opportunity to do some comparisons. For those of you following along at home, here are the relevant IRS documents:

• Form 990 for 2008 for Coalition to Stop Gun Violence
• Form 990 for 2008 for Educational Fund to Stop Gun Violence
• Form 990 for 2009 for Coalition to Stop Gun Violence
• Form 990 for 2009 for Educational Fund to Stop Gun Violence

The good news is that the Coalition to Stop Gun Violence is continuing to hemorrhage money. The bad news is that CSGV has shifted almost all of their operations into their 501(c)(3), the Educational Fund to Stop Gun Violence. This trend is following all gun control organizations that we’ve been tracking. I say bad news only because I’d prefer all of them having to file for unemployment, but when it comes to political reality, it’s good news. So what are the trends?

CSGV continues to lose money. In 2008, they took in $224,887, and in 2009, they took in $207,066. At the same time, CSGV increased their program expenses from $94,426 in 2008, to $110,061 in 2010. As a result of that, CSGV’s net assets dropped from $21,706 in 2008 to $14,335.  No one has technically been on payroll at CSGV since 2007, and that was when they were paying Michael Beard $35,306 to act as Secretary of the organization. In fact, even going back to 2004, Beard has essentially been the only person making any money off CSGV.

But the story of CSGV is not the entire story of this anti-constitutional rats nest. You also have to consider the Educational Fund to Stop Gun Violence, which is the 501(c)(3) organization of the same bunch of rats. If you look at EFSGV, it paints a different picture. EFSGV has actually managed to boost revenue, to $372,600 in 2009, from $346,139 in 2008. Despite this boost in revenue, they have cut program expenses from $413,381 in 2008, to $319,321 in 2009. This had the effect of taking their 2008 net assets of $33,128 in 2008 to $86,407 in 2009. In my analysis, this was out of utter necessity. Despite the increase in revenue, they needed to squirrel away money to avoid complete ruin.

CSGV’s public support percentage dropped from 90.6% in 2008 to 87.2% in 2009. Why? Because 2009 was the year the Joyce gravy train started to deliver. In 2009, the Joyce grant was $85,274.00.  You can see that the Joyce grant more than made up for EFSGV’s shortfall. Had it not been for that money, they would have reduced their revenue an additional $26,461 that same year. In 2010, and 2011, Joyce upped their grant to $125,000. I suspect this grant is largely what is going to keep EFSGV afloat at all since then. In short, the Joyce Foundation has the gun control movement on life support.

So what can we use as a proxy to figure out how the size, in terms of number of employees, of the organization is faring? Leasing expenses are a good proxy for that. So how is what’s left of the National Coalition to Ban Handguns doing in that arena? In 2009, CSGV reduced its leasing expense to $9,465 from $20,149 the previous year. Looking at EFSGV, it’s leasing expense in 2004 was $63,141. In 2008, leasing expense was $45,783. In 2009, it was $43,267. This is an organization that has been shrinking, not growing, since I doubt it’s getting a break on D.C. office space leasing rates.

The picture painted is an organization shifting a great deal of its expenses over to its 501(c)(3). Think of the 501(c)(3), in this case, as a leaking lifeboat, that’s only staying above the waves because someone is expending effort to continuously bail water. At some point, the Joyce people might just get tired of bailing, and decide it was a good effort, but that it’s time to go down with the ship. We’ll continue to track their finances, and report how they are doing, along with all the other gun control organizations.