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One day after The American Independent released an analysis of the National Organization for Marriage’s recently reported finances from 2010, which reveal that last year the organization spent more than $1 million more than it earned, NOM President Brian Brown emailed supporters asking for help covering what he terms a “looming shortfall.”
In the email, which is reproduced on NOM’s blog, Brown informs supporters that a “generous donor” has pledged to match all donations through the end of 2012 up to $1 million:
As 2011 draws to a close, everyone at the National Organization for Marriage is excited about the election year ahead, which we believe will be full of huge victories for traditional marriage.
But the problem is NOM does not have the funds to accomplish everything we need to do…we are facing a budget shortfall at the exact wrong time.
Without the cash to cover the budget shortfall, Brown explains that NOM will have to pick and choose in which states it will campaign and lobby against same-sex marriage. Brown asks where NOM should make cuts:
- Should I abandon a state like Maryland, New Jersey or Rhode Island, where marriage is under fire?
- Should I scale back our efforts to repeal same-sex marriage in a state like Iowa, New Hampshire or New York?
- Should I stop our Washington-based lobbying efforts to protect the Defense of Marriage Act (there is new legislation to repeal DOMA) and just hope for the best?
- Should I scale back our plans for the presidential election, letting President Obama off the hook for the lies he will tell on the campaign trail?
Obviously, I don’t want to do any of that!
This week the Human Rights Campaign reacted to NOM’s income returns for 2010, expressing surprise that the majority of NOM’s funding last year came from just two individual donors and that the organization reported a $1.2 million budget shortage.
“This is extremely unusual – that practically the entire budget of a $9 million national organization is funded by five mysterious individuals or entities,” said HRC President Joe Solmonese in post on HRC’s project NOM Exposed. “We can only conclude that NOM’s claim to being a grassroots organization representing thousands is phony. Tax returns don’t lie. NOM speaks for a few wealthy anti-LGBT donors and does not speak for the majority of Americans who support marriage equality.”
“NOM’s tax filing shows an organization that’s struggling to pay its own bills,” added HRC’s Campaign Media Director Kevin Nix. “How can a group in so much debt in 2010 so quickly turn around a year later and claim it’s on track to have a $20 million banner year?”
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