Supporting the IAC Through Challenging Times

Recently two enthusiastic IACers, Bruce Mamont and Mike Ciliberti, took it on themselves to encourage members to donate to the IAC by posting fundraising campaign information on the internet. That sort of initiative and caring is much appreciated so my thanks to them. Following their lead, I’d like to take a moment to share a high level view of our financial picture and tell you how you can help.

It’s surely no surprise that the abbreviated 2020 season has hit the aerobatic community very hard. While in a normal year we have 30 to 40 contests from which we draw revenue, so far this year we have only held 5. The cancellation of AirVenture and the US National Aerobatic Championships are big blows to our revenue picture as well because we use these events for merchandise sales, to drive donations, and to gain new members.

It may surprise some to learn that dues alone do not cover our expenses. Our budget each year is a bit over $400,000. If you do the math assuming 4,000 members you will see that we spend about $100 per member. Obviously this is a lot more than the $45 in dues we collect from each of you. The dues cover the magazine and a bit of overhead, the rest of our budget is paid for with event activity.

Our treasurer, Jordan Ashley, recently reported that we will be taking a loss by the end of the year of around $100,000. To take care of our bills we will be moving around $150,000 of our investments to our expense account, leaving us with about $350,000 in CDs.

If you are following the numbers you will see that we will have a little less than 12 months of expenses in reserve now. We are still much better off than many non-profit organizations, but of course we do need to start collecting funds to replenish our losses. And this whole situation is very disruptive to the financial goals we’ve set in recent years, such as to provide endowments to provide much needed funding for aerobatic scholarships and our teams. Also, there is way more work we could be doing if we had an additional full time staff member to help out or a marketing budget that allowed us to re-engage with the public.

I understand that things are rough all over, and I’m not asking anyone to give who is already financially stretched by the pandemic lockdowns, but if you are able to give please go to iac.org and click the “Give” button we’ve recently added. If half of our members donated just $50 we would take care of this year’s shortfall. This is less than the cost of one hour of aerobatic flight!

Another way you can help out is by volunteering. Our volunteers keep the IAC going every contest weekend, but we need help at IAC HQ as well. Volunteers are working hard to update all of the IAC’s offerings, including our Policies and Procedure documents, the Contest Director’s Packet, and the web site. For these tasks we need volunteers who have skills and a willingness to dig in. I need to say this very clearly: Ideas are easy to come by. What’s harder to find are people who want to apply themselves and see a goal through to the end. In my experience there are a lot more people with ideas than there are people ready to implement them; we have to become more biased in favor of the ideas of people who can also do the work. See me if you have the capacity to take on a task or two.

Before I wrap up, a couple of quick notes. The US Advanced Team is getting some good practice in this year under the formidable eye of team coach, Rob Holland and team manager Mike Heuer. I’ve heard very good things about how this is going, and I am so excited to see what they can do. Make sure you give the team members your support! Being on a team is an expensive, rigorous, and sometimes lonely endeavor. A pat on the back goes a long way. We have no goal in world competition but ABSOLUTE VICTORY. I love the people of France, I really do, but if I never hear their anthem again at a Worlds I will be the happiest man on the planet. [Editor’s note: At the time of publication, the French team had won the last 6 World Championships and Team USA hadn’t won in 32 years.] We are behind you, team!

I am always reachable at president@iac.org.