Did some background to help with Annie Linskey's piece on NRA, and much of it was cut for space so I thought I'd tweet a bit.
In the 2016 election cycle alone, the NRA and its affiliates spent roughly $60 million on political activities.
But big spending is just Act 2 in this story. Before the NRA can make campaign contributions, it has to raise that money somehow.
And the forgotten strength of the NRA is that it is first and foremost a potent fund-raiser.
In its 2015 tax filings, the NRA reported $337 million in total revenue, a figure that has grown by 65 percent over the last decade.
And despite accusations that the NRA is funded by gun manufacturers, they seem to be getting their money from lots of different sources.
Still today, the bulk of the NRA's money comes from membership dues and programming fees.
In 2015, that added up to $180 million--or something like $40 per person, if the NRA has the 5 million members it claims.
Things look slightly different when you turn to the NRAs second-biggest source of funding: donations.
There, you find gun industry titans among the big contributors, including Ugo and Monique Beretta--yes, that Beretta.
But workaday gun-buyers contribute mightily as well, including through initiatives like "round up"...
...which allows gun customers at select stores to round their purchase up to the nearest $ and donate the extra to the NRA's lobbying arm.
The very fact that the NRA has a dedicated lobbying arm is another clue to the secret of their fund-raising success: diversification.
Not only do they collect funds from lots of different sources, they direct that money to different sub-organizations
As a tax-exempt 501(c)4 "social welfare organization," the main NRA can engage in a wide variety of political activities--including lobbying
but it can't contribute directly to political candidates.
However, there's a workaround. The NRA is allowed to setup its own Political Action Committee--NRA-PVF, for Political Victory Fund
And the PAC can make direct contributions
This separate-but-not-separate PAC has proved a powerful weapon in the NRA's fight for gun rights--and against gun control
But it has also gotten the organization into some hot water, when it comes to maintaining the proper distance between PAC and host.
In 2015, Yahoo News found donations for the lobbying arm being inappropriately funneled to the PAC; the NRA said was it a "coding error."
Separately, @CREWcrew has filed complaints about the surprising fact that from 2008 to '14 the NRA reports spending $0 on political activity
In the end, though, the organization's ability to create nearly-but-not-quite-identical copies of itself has proved a fundraising boon.
People who care about the ethic of gun-ownership can devote their dollars to membership dues.
Meanwhile, those who prefer political battles can give to the NRAs lobbying arm or its PAC.
Either way, the NRA reaps the full reward. </end>
