Glad to see some adults on here, it was lonely the last time.
Pugs, good for you dredging up the BHA tax returns, any others interested can go here for more paper than you could ever stand:
http://www.eri-nonprofit-salaries.com/index.cfm?FuseAction=NPO.SearchI will comment that the 58% public support percentage claimed by BHA for 2015, which is here:
http://990.erieri.com/EINS/201037177/201037177_2015_0d10c7e9.PDFis a typical deception.
First, a read of their mission and programs on page 2 of 33 gives their actual activities. Kind of dense, but worth a careful reading.
Now, go to page 9 and you'll see they got $154,035 in membership dues. They claim on page 1 500 "volunteers" so that comes to 308 per active member. "Fundraising event" generated a whole $1,000 even.
Total "all other contributions" were 1,1 million.
But then lower on page 9, the gross income from fundraising is 132,000, minus 58 grand direct expense, leaving 74,000 in fundraising net -- not $1,000.
You have to go clear down to page 31 to see the fundraiser was the "Rendezvous".
As for Public Support, that schedule on page 15 (page 2 of the Schedule A) shows that about half of BHA's money ($646 grand out of 1.265 million total) came from donors giving over $5,000 or over 1% of the gross for the year (which would be grants in excess of 12,650 per check, rather big amounts).
If it were all 12,5 grand checks, that would be a little over 50 checks, but two things are evident:
One, few members of the "public" write such big checks to nonprofits.
Two: There's no Schedule B, redacted or otherwise, that lists the checks.
Why might that matter? Go to page 22. You'll see 106,000 spent on "political expenditures." That's perfectly legal, but substantial. And did BHA use any of their "volunteers" for lobbying? No (page 23). They spent 34,000 on advertising and 62,000 on "direct contact" with legislators, 10,000 on rallies.
So BHA is clearly political. That's fine. And they have an agenda that is focused primarily on wilderness designation and keeping public lands control firmly in the hands of the environmental movement.
