Young Eagles funding

PittsDriver

PittsDriver

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PittsDriver
Most of us know of, and many have participated in the great experience of Young Eagles flights to introduce the joy of aviation to our youth. I've never had a bad experience and it's one of the most worthwhile things I'd spent my time and money on in aviation. To see kids get that experience and how they respond is amazing.

But, here's my question - where does all the money go that's raised for the Young Eagles organization? We donate our time and planes including a pre-requisite amount of insurance. OK, there's a database somewhere at EAA that keeps records of all this. At EAA Airventure this year over $2.6M was raised at the Young Eagles auction including $370,000 for a custom, one of a kind Ford Mustang donated by Ford. And this year was not a big stand out year. Young Eagles has raised a bazillion dollars over the years. I'm pretty sure Harrison Ford volunteered his time and name and wasn't compensated. Does anybody here know where this money goes and how it benefits the mission of Young Eagles?
 
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Call the EAA accounting office and ask for the current financial statement. As a 501(c)3 this should be public record.
 
What Murph said. Off the top of my head, insurance and marketing would be the two largest expenditures.
 
There has been a big thread over on eaaforums.org about this. There biggest costs are the insurance and the scholarships that are involved in the ye program.

There's not only insurance on the pilots (bringing the 100K seat up to a smooth million) but also on the related activities (ground crews, organizers, the national organization itself, ...).
 
gprellwitz said:
What Murph said. Off the top of my head, insurance and marketing would be the two largest expenditures.
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Maybe but I wouldn't think so. Another EAA subsidiary, the IAC insures aerobatic costests, dozens of them, every year, has a magazine, and supports a staff and I'm pretty sure they don't spend anything close to hat. And I didn't see any young eagles Super Bowl ads either. I'm not accusing anyone of anything but just curious where that much money goes in an organization that runs almost entirely on volunteers?
 
flyingron said:
There has been a big thread over on eaaforums.org about this. There biggest costs are the insurance and the scholarships that are involved in the ye program.

There's not only insurance on the pilots (bringing the 100K seat up to a smooth million) but also on the related activities (ground crews, organizers, the national organization itself, ...).
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Do the ground crews and organizers get compensated?
 
Thats a pretty good question. I'm sure a lot of it is marketing of some type. Ground crews and pilots at the chapter level dont get compensated. The closest we ever got when I hosted a few was the FBO decreasing the cost of fuel and using their facilities.
 
On the EAA Forum, the number quoted was about $12M raised over the last decade. That didn't all go to insurance and marketing and if it did it would be interesting to know who the insurer and marketing firms were that benefited from all that. One interesting comment was made that the Gathering of Eagles event at Airventure is very expensive to put on. If that's the case, why? I'm pretty heavily involved in non-profit fundraising as the president of an independent school board and we would never hold an event in which the expenses took a significant portion of the income - what sense would that make except as a self-funded party for the donors?

I think there's a lot of "well, it's probably this or that..." but I've looked and can't find the financial statements for the Young Eagles organization. Does anyone know where to find this information?
 
Does anyone know what the Young Eagles organization is named as a corporation? I've checked Guidestar and there's a bunch of EAA corporations (mostly chapters) but only two that I find that are the main EAA Association with revenues of about $35M and the EAA Foundation with revenues of around $2M. Oddly, there are no officers or directors listed on the 990 for the main association on Guidestar. The top paid employees of any non-profit are required to be listed on the 990 with their compensation. Tom Poberenzy is listed as the top paid guy in the foundation at about $580K for 2011.

What interesting is that I had thought that there was a for profit company that actually ran AirVenture.

It just seems curious that something as heavily volunteer driven as Young Eagles, that draws an incredible result from a one time auction annually over over $2.5M and it's not very easy to figure out where all that money goes. I wonder if there's anyone at the EAA that can answer what their overhead is for Young Eagles. In other words, for every donation dollar, how much directly benefits a flight for some kids?
 
This is exactly why I believe using experimental planes for YE rides is illegal. It is a charitable or fundraising event. Experimentals cannot be used for fund raising events.

I have been shot down several times wanting to donate rides go cancer fund raising events, specifically breast cancer. Got shot down every time by the FAA.
 
Going back to the insurance issue...you know how much you pay for insurance annually. Now take that number, increase it to the $1M smooth policy then multiply by every entity. HQ (in reality it's the lawyers) have informed us that EVERY flight must have a separate, signed release by both the parent/guardian AND the pilot. In other words, if a pilot makes 4 flights at one event, the pilot must sign each release individually. So each one of those flights has the possibility to invoke that $1M smooth clause.

Let's look at some other numbers. Our chapter expects to fly 400 YEs this year. That's $2000 "credit" for us to create scholarships to Academy, etc. How many chapters fly YE, and what's the overall total for 2011? According to the YE website there were 2365 pilots who flew at least 10 YE or $118,250 credit. In reality it's considerably more. Be generous, call it double or $236,500 which is a bit less than 10% of what was brought in on the auction.

All I can suggest is calling HQ and ask for the financials. Possibly look on the Wisconsin state website and see if you can find any additional financial info.
 
PittsDriver said:
Maybe but I wouldn't think so. Another EAA subsidiary, the IAC insures aerobatic costests, dozens of them, every year, has a magazine, and supports a staff and I'm pretty sure they don't spend anything close to hat. And I didn't see any young eagles Super Bowl ads either. I'm not accusing anyone of anything but just curious where that much money goes in an organization that runs almost entirely on volunteers?
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There are no passengers involved in IAC contests.
 
Geico266 said:
This is exactly why I believe using experimental planes for YE rides is illegal. It is a charitable or fundraising event. Experimentals cannot be used for fund raising events.

I have been shot down several times wanting to donate rides go cancer fund raising events, specifically breast cancer. Got shot down every time by the FAA.
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Young Eagles is NOT a fundraising event. Nobody pays anything directly or indirectly for the ride. Further the EAA and the FAA have determined experimentals to be suitable for this purpose and the EAA's insurer is OK with it as well.

That's a different ballgame from someone going to a church event and donating $100 to the church for a ride.
 
flyingron said:
Young Eagles is NOT a fundraising event. Nobody pays anything directly or indirectly for the ride. Further the EAA and the FAA have determined experimentals to be suitable for this purpose and the EAA's insurer is OK with it as well.

That's a different ballgame from someone going to a church event and donating $100 to the church for a ride.
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Negative. The Young Eagles program is a direct recruitment tool for new EAA members for profit. There are several Sporty programs the YE can do for free to get them interested in joining and using Sporties stuff, and to pay dues to EAA.

Why couldn't I raffle off a flight in my RV-10 for a cancer charity?
 
Geico266 said:
Negative. The Young Eagles program is a direct recruitment tool for new EAA members for profit.
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I disagree, as does the FAA.

Giving a kid a ride serves the purpose of getting them into aviation, and inspiring them, but there's no more chance of them becoming an EAA member than a Flying subscriber or an AOPA member.
 
TMetzinger said:
I disagree, as does the FAA.

Giving a kid a ride serves the purpose of getting them into aviation, and inspiring them, but there's no more chance of them becoming an EAA member than a Flying subscriber or an AOPA member.
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According to the EAA YE program the ride is the first step in a series of steps geared towards recruitment. The second step is to become a member of EAA. Third step is to take a Sporties class.

http://www.youngeagles.org/flightplan/student_membership.asp

I am not anti YE, but to say it is not a recruitment tool is a bit disingenuous. To not allow experimentals to be used in other areas of recruitment, and charity work , but to allow them for YE is a bit hypocritical .

JMHO.
 
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