120 likes | 283 Views
The Foundation for Free Flight Report to the USHPA. Bill Bolosky, October 23, 2010 FoundationForFreeFlight.org. What is the Foundation?. A 501(c)(3) charity dedicated to conservation of hang gliding and paragliding in the United States. Site Preservation Safety and Education
E N D
The Foundation for Free FlightReport to the USHPA Bill Bolosky, October 23, 2010 FoundationForFreeFlight.org
What is the Foundation? • A 501(c)(3) charity dedicated to conservation of hang gliding and paragliding in the United States. • Site Preservation • Safety and Education • Fostering Competition • Set up by USHPA in 1987, but now a completely separate and independent entity.
What Do We Do? • Give grants to help conserve HG & PG • Site Preservation • Safety & Education • Competition • Granted over $210K since 2003 • $142K of that was for site preservation; almost $27K in 2010 alone. • Work hard to be accountable for how we handle donor’s money
Who Are We? • A board of seven Trustees, an Executive Director and various volunteers. • All current trustees are now or were USHPA directors • Four of the seven are past USHPA Presidents • We have no paid staff (including our ED). We use her house as our office, rent-free. • The board elects new Trustees. We have 6-year term-limits.
Grant Process • Fill out a grant application • Generally only fund half of the total cost, the rest must come from other sources • The grant committee and board review the request to see that it meets our guidelines, and decide if it fits in the budget • We send the money to its ultimate detsination as often as we can to minimize the number of hands it passes through
2010 Site Grants • Lookout Mountain (Colorado) - $3500 • Pulpit (launch safety improvements, PA)- $2500 • Mt. Equinox (Ramp building, VT)- $2750 • Bidwell Park, pt. 3 (city of Chico, CA)- $650 • Buffalo Mountain (four sites) - $6000 • Moore, ID (showers @ park for King Mountain) - $1500 • Tiger Mountain (moving LZ/expanding parking, Seattle)- $10K
2010 Safety & Education Grants • Tennessee Tree Toppers Team Challenge - $700 • Aerobatic Judge Training - $1000 • ABLE Paragliding - $5000
2010 Competition & Misc. Grants • Women’s HG World Meet entry fees - $1000 • Class II World Meet entry fee - $650 • USHPA ACE Program - $5000 • Chelan PWC (special fund) - $3500
Financials • The board adopted a policy to try to build an endowment, so we try to spend half of what comes in and save the rest (except for the competition funds). • Overhead is < 15% of income, mostly accounting, postage, ads, phone bill, web hosting.
Financials, cont’d • Total balance $481K • 56% general fund • 27% site fund • 2009 Income $65K • $34K through contributions made during USHPA renewals + USHPA match • Remainder through a small number of large, direct contributions and a small amount of interest income
Conclusion • The Foundation does something that USHPA members want: We arrange for money for sites, safety & education, competition • Our mission is aligned with USHPA’s and is important for USHPA to achieve its goals • We are careful and efficient with our money; 85% of it goes to grants or endowment building. No expenses for board or staff.