A look at Violence Policy Center public support:

The previous article examined how Violence Policy Center (VPC) had to downsize in recent years in order to survive, due to significant decreases in “direct public support.” Because VPC has no public membership revenues, the term “direct public support” is misleading.

Two people perform most of VPC’s public outreach: Executive Director Josh Sugarman and Legislative Director Kristen Rand. Between 2003 and 2007, as revenues decreased 49.9%, both Sugarman’s and Rand’s salaries increased 5.9%. But because revenues decreased, these two top earners––each of whom earned $132,894 in salary and $3,987 in benefits in 2007––went from 15.5% of total revenue in 2003 to 32.7% in 2007, more than doubling their slice of the pie (111.3% increase). Having just two employees taking home about one-third of total revenue may not be a long-term success strategy for a normal business, but it works when normal profitability concerns don’t exist. To understand the financial circumstances of VPC, one must understand their definition of “public support,” which accounted for 91.8% of VPC’s total revenue between 2003 and 2007.And to understand VPC’s “public support,” one must understand the Joyce Foundation, because VPC’s primary “public donor” is the Joyce Foundation.

At the Joyce Foundation site, selecting “Gun Violence” on their “Grant List” page displays a roster of Who’s Who in gun control: e.g. Violence Policy Center, Mayors Fund to Advance New York City, Illinois Council Against Handgun Violence. Joyce Foundation spent $9,475,883 on gun control research between 2005 and 2007. By comparison, the entire gun rights industry contributed a total of $3,188,704 for the four years of the 2006 and 2008 election cycles.

Posted in uncategorized on May 4th, 2009 by SayUncle | RSS 2.0 |