Exodus financial results for 2004 are now available, courtesy of MinistryWatch:
Contributions to Exodus rose 36 percent, from $454,000 in 2003 to $617,000 in 2004. In the prior year, contributions rose 40 percent, from $324,500 to $454,000.
Other revenue sources rose more than 50 percent, from $200,000 to $308,000. In the prior year, other revenue sources plummeted from $352,000 to $200,000.
Total revenues rose to $925,315 from $654,653 in 2003 — an increase of 41 percent. In the prior year, revenues fell slightly, from $677,125 in 2002.
Expenses were down only slightly in 2004, at about $660,000, after a massive cut from $795,000 in 2002.
All told, Exodus attained a budget surplus of $267,000 in 2004, compared to budget deficits in the two prior years: $13,000 in 2003 and an alarming $118,000 in 2002.
Why the big increase in earnings? Opinions will vary; Exodus provides few direct clues. Strategic changes during this period included (in my opinion) an increased focus on lobbying for constitutional amendments to ban gay marriages and civil unions; speeches, media events, and networking indirectly supporting the re-election of President Bush and religious-rightist lawmakers; increased publicity for Exodus antigay political activities via religious-rightist media such as WorldNetDaily and the American Family Association’s AgapePress; and a de-emphasis of the organization’s historic but unprofitable mission of material and logistical support for local exgay member ministries and counselors.
MinistryWatch gives Exodus a mediocre three-star rating for financial efficiency, which is below average for the advocacy sector. Just as bad: Exodus earns a mere grade of “C” for financial transparency; in other words, Exodus provided minimal financial information in response to requests, and withheld this information until seven months after Dec. 31, 2004, the end of the fiscal year. In order to receive an “A,” Exodus would need to provide ample information within the first five months of the new year.
I’d like very much to see the identities of all donors who gave in excess of $1,000 for the year.
Do you think this means that ex-gays are becoming more and more prominent and accepted to the public, with gays losing some support, or does this just mean that political or religious groups are now using ex-gays for their own gain? Yet, when these groups become more public, they seem to lose some credibility, as happened with that Love in Action fiasco, or Stephen Bennett’s hysteria about Brokeback Mountain. I wonder if their earnings declined again for 2005, although they seem to have money to throw around, judging by those “hate crimes laws are mean to ex-gays” ads run a few weeks ago, or whatever they were called.
The California anti gay groups didn’t muster the needed signatures for a new ballot measure regarding marriage and other life issues regarding gays and lesbians.
They are redoubling their money and efforts for the next election cycle.
Certainly now, they will target gay friendly politicians, write new measures and pay for promotional materials to ‘protect family and marriage’.
This is very strange.
Marriages continue to fail. Children are dying from abuse, abortion, and gang warfare and neglect and are relegated to being raised by all kinds of situations except with their own parents.
None of which can be blamed on gays and lesbians.
Let alone gay and lesbian couples with children they are nurturing.
Yet, money, political action and media is dedicated to protect and defend the ‘tradition’ of man/woman marriage.
Not the actual saving of marriages and existing families and children.
More effort thrown at the abstraction, rather than the substance of marriage and children.
Is it just me…or are these people seriously seeing dragons where there are windmills?
The worst of the California anti-gay measures, the one that will probably ban even wills and hospital visitation rights, may still get on the November 2006 ballot. It’s amazing how so many of these groups claim to not be prejudiced, they just want to be left alone or to protect family, yet they desperately work to destroy families.
I won’t be surprised if ex-gays start running for office soon, so they can try to trick or confuse the voting public as well as other elected officials who may otherwise be persuaded by the testimonials and friendship of gay elected officials.
All that money and all those victim routines and they still don’t seem to be able to get half as much of their message out as you’d expect. That “don’t support hate crimes laws, they’re mean to ex-gays” ad they ran was a mess, and considering that this will never be signed by Bush anyway, a waste of money, unless they thought this was going to give people a more positive view of ex-gays (the scowls on their faces in the ad didn’t do much to help that).
2005 was an awful year for anti-gay politicians in a slew of states, from Maine to Virginia to Minnesota. I hope that was just a warmup for 2006. I’m tired of gays being used as punching bags. I’m still not sure why it is that ex-gays have to support legislation that will cause gays to not even have hospital visitation rights, since they already have all the rights that straight people have.
James at December 29, 2005 03:04 AM
I’m tired of gays being used as punching bags.
Then make other arrangements. Learn a foreign language. Send your investments overseas. Buy property overseas.
The US isn’t the only country in the world. And its search for empire will certainly bankrupt it just as the British search for empire bankrupted them.
I’m fortunate in that my partner owns a (rather modest) house in a suburb of Munich (it’s on the remnants of a farm that had been in his family for generations), but we have made arrangements to move over there on a moment’s notice.
When we talk about how much money appears to be coming in to Exodus formal budget, or coming out either, context is important. How far gone is Exodus in selling itself to Focus on the Family? Promise Keepers is a bit more obvious in moving on this agenda, but I would think a little digging would find FotF or some other major players in the right wing front organization business putting up big bucks to keep Exodus available for various propaganda exercises. So the question is not so much operational stuff like “How much money does Exodus have now?” or “Did they cover their operating deficit?”, as it would be, “Did this money come from many members and friends in small chunks, or is there a major grant or a cluster of shuch grants?” or “Is there a continuing pattern of such support?”
“Grass roots” organizations that continue to rely on the support of a single major donor or a single network of such donors that operates collectively outside the organization are regularly pretty fraudulent. The executives of such organizations often do not look to the organization as their employer, but instead tend to see themselves primarily as entrepreneurs providing services to their major donors (and happily project this motivation on others). So we should look at what is happening to their compensation as well.
It is not at all unreasonable to wonder whether the current flush condition is a matter of positioning for some ejaculation of propaganda in the 2006 election cycle.
You have a good point, Jonathan, and the money they spent on those pointless ads against the hate crimes bill did suggest an influx of rescources.
”
Then make other arrangements. Learn a foreign language. Send your investments overseas. Buy property overseas. ”
Anti-gay attitudes are not limited to one country. These types of groups can just as easily pop up in Germany or anywhere else.
What puzzles me is how there is a $16,000 return from investments when both long term and short term investments equal zero. This looks to be incredibly sloppy accounting. Zero investments yield zero return.
The other is that salaries are not separated out as a subject, which I feel they should be. It is not clear to me just what ministry expenses is as distinct from management and general. Since many ministries have a history of leadership looting, this would seem to be a real concern. The amount that goes to the top people should be noted. And any monies paid to them from other sources, FOTF etc, should be counted as a contribution. Which it appears not to be.
My take is that the ministry leaders are working as paid consultants, which allows the ministry to show low revenues. Just a guess.
Since there is a large uptick in money for 2004, I feel there should be an explanation for it. If it was given to promote some specific project, then that also should be noted.
There also is no mention of donations in kind: ie help and support from other entities. If say FOTF gives them material support in printing, publishing and writting, this should be noted.
All in all, I do not find this a very illuminating financial report. It raises more questions than it answers.
I have performed audits of not-for-profit organizations and these are my observations about the financials as posted:
1. There was an increase in the revenues of the organization without an increase in the expenses. There was also an increase in the assets of the organization. This suggests to me that it is likely that the increase in contributions was not in the form of cash. Most NPO’s will increase program or operational expenses if they get more money. Usually they have goals and objectives in excess of financial ability and any new funds are immediately utilized.
I suspect that Exodus has either received a fixed asset (for example a building or equipment) or has received long-term pledges which were not yet honored at the time of the reporting.
However, a current turnover asset rate of 2.66 suggests that the assets as reported are mostly short term in nature, meaning they are either cash (or other liquid assets) or are pledges to be received within the next year. This causes me to lean toward assuming that the contribution increase was in the form of unreceived short-term pledges.
Assuming that a pledge is reflected in the $200,000 increase in the assets of the organization, backing this out would leave the actual cash increase in revenues over the previous year at about $70,000 which, while material, is not note worthy.
I also noted that the liabilities were reduced by $60,000. Either the organization repaid a debt in that amount or the debt was forgiven. While it certainly may be true that the debt was paid (I have no way of knowing), if instead it was forgiven, then this forgiveness of debt would be reported as a contribution and would account for $60K of the additional $70K, bringing cash increases down to $10,000.
Alternately, this $200,000 increase could reflect large contributions made immediately before the end of the year. This is also common for NPO’s as donors rush to take advantage of tax deductible contributions.
2. I noticed that while fundraising and management expenses increased slightly, program expenses actually went down during the period. This does not suggest to me an organization that is cash flush.
In general, organizations seek to maximize program expenses and minimize management expenses. It helps them keep good ratios and most major contributors (foundations, for example) will inquire about the ratio.
Often, organizations are a bit squishy when making allocations. A lay person would not know, for example, that in addition to the salary of persons working on a program, the office rent or even the executive director’s salary might be pro-rated to the program. With an organization like Exodus, their programs may not be as clearly defined as some (for example a soup kitchen) so there may be more leeway in allocation.
3. One third of Exodus’ revenues are from a source other than contributions. I’m not certain what constitutes this category. If I were to guess, I would think that this is either membership fees from affiliated groups or revenues from conferences.
PLEASE KEEP IN MIND that this is all supposition on my part. Additionally it is nearly a year old now.
Also please remember that Exodus does not have some special reporting obligation to us. They do not have to answer to exgaywatch about their financial activities at any level above what the IRS requires.