NRA boosted executive pay while cutting funding for key programs, filing shows (WP)

[dalton99a]

https://www.washingtonpost.com/investigations/nra-boosted-executive-pay-while-cutting-funding-for-key-programs-filing-shows/2019/11/26/da4f3f60-0c61-11ea-a49f-9066f51640f6_story.html

NRA boosted executive pay while cutting funding for key programs, filing shows
By Beth Reinhard
November 26 at 7:02 PM

Compensation for top officials at the National Rifle Association surged by 41 percent last year, according to a new tax filing, as the nation’s largest pro-gun organization sharply reduced spending on programs central to its mission.

The jump from 2017 to 2018 for the NRA’s officers, directors and key and highly paid employees included a 57 percent increase for chief executive Wayne LaPierre that boosted his overall compensation to $2.15 million.

The filing also shows perks for top officials that are typically associated with the corporate world, including charter and first-class travel with companions as well as dues for health or social clubs. Those costs were not detailed, though the filing says housing expenses were provided for five people.

During that same period, NRA spending plunged 22 percent for education and training, 61 percent for hunter services and 51 percent for field services, which includes organizing volunteers, fundraising for shooting sports and promoting the NRA at gun shows and other events, according to a previously released audit.

The pay hikes, coupled with program cuts, feed into a line of attack coming from some board members and firearms enthusiasts: that NRA leaders are putting their own financial interest above those of dues-paying members.

“Money flowing away from programs and into executives’ pockets is causing many longtime members to join the ranks of American gun owners who have lost faith in the NRA, especially its leadership,” said Rob Pincus, a firearms instructor and NRA lifetime member who is leading a petition drive to overhaul the group’s board.

According to the tax filing, legal fees more than tripled in 2018, to more than $25 million. For the first time, the tax filing lists the Texas law firm of William Brewer III as one of its most highly compensated contractors, receiving $13.8 million. Brewer has become one of LaPierre’s most trusted advisers despite his lack of experience in Second Amendment litigation. NRA officials stand by Brewer.

In a year in which LaPierre weathered calls for his resignation, his base salary rose from $1.2 million in 2017 to $1.3 million in 2018; his bonus tripled to $455,000; and “other reportable compensation” climbed from about $45,000 to more than $427,000, the filing shows. La­Pierre also received an additional $73,793 in “retirement and other deferred compensation” and “nontaxable benefits” from the NRA and related entities.

[50 Shades Of Blue]

1. NRA members: suckers.

[keithbvadu2]

2. The NRA used to be for sportsmen, hunters and gun safety.

The NRA used to be for sportsmen, hunters and gun safety.

Now it has become an industry owned shill for the sale of more guns and the enrichment of its leaders.

[keithbvadu2]

3. The NRA Is Being Sued Over Its Relentless Telemarketing Campaigns

The NRA Is Being Sued Over Its Relentless Telemarketing Campaigns

When begging for bucks goes wrong.

https://www.thedailybeast.com/the-nra-is-being-sued-over-its-relentless-telemarketing-campaigns

The NRA has employed InfoCision since 2012 under a contract that grants the fundraising company up to 65 percent of the funds it raises on the NRA’s behalf. InfoCision gets between $2.50 and $3.75 for each “completed call” to potential NRA donors, and up to half of the regular payments for new or renewed NRA memberships.
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If those high fees are unavoidable, they can also have the effect of obscuring, for a potential donor, exactly where his or her money is going. Many of those speaking with an InfoCision fundraiser, after all, will not know that a majority of their donation is not going to the charity that fundraiser is representing.

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NRAsolicitations
comment from a blog (DU I think)

I had a coworker who was a big time gun owner who kept a gun in every room in the house just in case someone broke in (lots of problems with that idea, may be worth a blog article someday, but that’s what he did). He even went so far as to start buying more guns for each room after a school shooting, like home invasion and mass shooting are correlated somehow. He had let his NRA membership lapse and refused to renew it because he got tired of nonstop requests for donations. To him all the membership did was give the NRA to badger him for more money with phone calls, and direct mailings. If the
organization is as strapped for cash as it appears, those solicitations may have gone way over the top and people are simply tired of being badgered for money and are choosing to let their membership to lapse.