Well, for those who are good at math, in the interest of accuracy, I believe it is important not to propagate the unsubstantiated figure of 38-40% repeated again in that linked post. We need to keep the truth on our side. While I believe those who initially estimated the costs at 40% did so in good faith with the best information they had at their disposal at the time, the figure is not quite that high. Nevertheless, it is still quite high.
The official "CPDR" (cost per dollar raised) for KFUO is $.275 for AM and FM combined. This is what you will be told if you ask the Foundation, and they have official audited figures to back it up.
That said, I also should add that neither the Foundation, nor KFUO appear to have kept track of what fundraising costs could be attributed specifically to the AM station or to Issues, Etc.
On KFUO's own financial books, the fundraising costs are arbitrarily split 50/50 between the AM and FM columns.
If you want documentation, on page 6 of the Foundation's own financial report are the figures from which the Foundation calculates a $.275 CPDR. The synod's audited financial report supports the $.275 figure as well.
The Foundation's report shows that KFUO had $1,086,756 in "Direct Gifts". These include: "cash, stock and distributions from donor advised funds." And, KFUO had an additional $227,425 in "Matured Gifts Distributed." These include: "All distributions other than direct gifts including trusts, endowments, gift annuities, pooled funds and bequests."
You get the same $.275 CDPR using the figures on pages 24 and 25 of the official audited LCMS "Consolidated Financial Reports" for the fiscal year ending June 30, 2007. The fundraising cost figure reported for KFUO in that audited report is $361,000. That's the amount KFUO's books split 50/50 between the AM and FM columns.
Just wanting to keep the truth on our side. :-) The difference between 28% and 38% is totally insignificant when considering the big picture.
Let's just forget all the financial details for a moment and suppose that Issues, Etc. was, indeed, costing the station a lot of money. So what?
The question remains, why was this particularly effective apologetic outreach considered unworthy of synod resources while so many other questionable modes of outreach (e.g. Ablaze!) are garnishing exponentially more of our synod's resources? That question demands that we realize there are theological considerations involved here.
The more disconcerting question is whether this was more than a simple matter of differences in priorities. Was Issues, Etc. considered to be a monkey wrench in the smooth oiled machinery of "change" in the LCMS toward a church growth approach to ministry and outreach? I believe the answer to that question is YES! That would mean this was not only theologically motivated, but politically calculated.
Unless the books are opened, one cannot know if the financial reports are accurate. There are numerous ways to redistribute expenses in inappropriate ways and non-profits are notorious for doing this in order to show low fund-raising and low administration costs on their financial reports.
I do not think it is a moot point, but a very important one. There is a lot of money being mishandled.
And a forced slice right off the top, whether 28% or 38% is still rapacious nonetheless.
It's a shameless grab for money that was donated for a specific purpose - that of the radio ministry of KFUO.
It was especially shameful to see just how blithely the "300" initiative was dismissed as unofficial because it was proactively initiated by Jeff & Todd for the benefit of Issues, Etc. (and KFUO), but not with the official overhead of the LCMSF baked in.
I didn't mean to imply that the books should not be examined.
Why do you think I went to all the work to examine this fundraising figure? Have any of you examined the books to try and get to the bottom of things? Have you spent hours and hours pouring over synodical budgets as I have, and asking questions?
There are many more figures that need examining, but none of them are going to come to light by throwing around accusations on blogs. Those who ARE good at math need to do the hard work of asking the right questions and getting the right documents from synod.
My comment to "forget the math" was meant for those like Pr. Weedon who are not good at math. Such people are not incapable of seeing this issue for what it really is. I am just saying that we need to keep from seeing this primarily as a financial issue. And we need to keep from framing it on blogs as primarily a financial issue. It was theologically motivated and politically calculated.
I hope ALL the financial irregularities are all exposed and examined fully, but until they are we need to keep from making unsubstantiated allegations. Let's keep the truth on our side. I'm afraid we're playing right into their hands by keeping busy talking about dollars when the real issue is the theological and political.
The canceling of Issues, Etc. is a symptom of what the real problem in our midst is. This problem is not limited to KFUO. Missionaries have been called back from the field while "mission" churches like Jefferson Hills are being planted! The is a theological and political problem.
Let's have good people doing the dirty work of following the money trail, but we must not drown the important discussions we need to be having with unsubstantiated babble about finances!
Yes, 28% is still bad. But we have a bit of egg on the face of our cause because a claim that it was 40% has been so widely circulated without doing the right investigation first. That makes the 28% seem not so bad, when in fact it's still horrible!
Instead of just posting about what you think is a financial irregularity, invest the time and effort into doing the hard investigative work. You can find out a lot by asking the right people the right questions. Get to work!
But, don't forget, this is NOT primarily an issue of finances. It is theological and it is political. We need to be looking to prove these two points by investigating the finances.
Now, in the case of the Foundation, I do not believe the size of the fundraising costs reflects that theological or political problem. As I see it, the high percentages being charged by the Foundation simply show that it is just really inefficient at what it does.
But, what still needs to be investigated and brought to light in a substantiated manner is just how much of those fundraising efforts were directed to supporting KFUOam, and Issues, Etc. in particular. I hope the people who have direct knowledge of that will come forward with what they know.
There are many other issues to be settled about the financial questions I and others have raised. But, PLEASE, lets not forget what the real battle is all about! That's the point I was trying to make in the last three paragraphs of my first comment.
In defense of Dr. Heidenreich, my observations were simply based on the numbers that are in circulation. And it all operates with the caveat that this is assuming the numbers are accurate. Which is of course the problem at this time. We don't know for certain what is or is not accurate and the numbers in circulation are often contradictory. Kudos to Dr. Heidenreich. He's done some real heavy lifting that most of us probably could not do. Rev. Jody R. Walter
I respect your concern about the political and theological issues getting lost in the shuffle. I do not want those areas neglected either. It seems to me that there are all kinds of people are trying to hammer out those problems too.
I do think that getting the financial questions answered will help support both the political and theological issues. Save the LCMS blog site has done a wonderful job exposing some of the problems. Today, they raised questions about the LCMS management's view of the words stewardship and business meaning pretty much the same thing.
I would ask you to read the blog and consider how the political, theological, and financial issues intersect in this one example and whether the idea of stewardship being a position of trust and the idea of business being about profits and losses does not have theological and political implications. When you start thinking in this light, I'm sure you will see many other ways the 3 issues connect or intertwine at times.
You wrote a very detailed post and I would like to try to respond to a few of your comments (identified in quotation marks).
"Why do you think I went to all the work to examine this fundraising figure?"
I would like to commend you for your hard work and the hours you have spent pouring over the financial statements of the synod. The point I was trying to make in my comment was that we do not know how accurate the financial statements or the fundraising charges are from the synod. At this point, we can only do the best that we can with what we have and recognize that we are dealing with unknowns. I do appreciate you pointing out the discrepancy between the official synod fee report and what is being posted online. I should have acknowledged that in my post.
"My comment to "forget the math" was meant for those like Pr. Weedon who are not good at math. Such people are not incapable of seeing this issue for what it really is"
I did not see Pr. Weedon trying to do any math. I did see a kind and thoughtful act of service posting a link to information for those who are interested. I do not see people as incapable of becoming informed, learning, or seeing the issue for what it really is. I'm assuming that you really did not mean to say that.
"Those who ARE good at math need to do the hard work of asking the right questions and getting the right documents from synod."
I agree. We need to have pertinent information, correctly interpret the information and ask the right questions. Any professional auditors and CPA's out there? Until then, I think anyone who cares to investigate the mess should be welcome to put their nose to the grindstone and duke it out with the numbers. In real life, mistakes and errors will happen - they can be corrected along the way. Your correction of the fund-raising fees is a good example of all of us working together to get the facts straight.
"I'm afraid we're playing right into their hands by keeping busy talking about dollars when the real issue is the theological and political.... But, don't forget, this is NOT primarily an issue of finances. It is theological and it is political"
I do not think that we are playing into their hands. An independent audit needs to be done. People need to be informed so they can call for an audit. A thorough audit should reveal any mismanagement issues, subterfuges, and/or blatant lies about Issues Etc. - any of which may or may not have political and/or theological implications. As I said earlier, I do not believe that there are always clear cut lines of definition between the 3 issues and I believe that there are people working on the political and theological issues. And like you, I do not want to see any of the 3 areas neglected.
Over at Pr. Walt's blog Pr. Fisk made a good observation that the bandwidth costs seem extravagant. Here's my analysis:
Amazon's S3 service charges under 20 cents per gigabyte. The following is from Amazon's website:
"Data transferred into Amazon S3 costs $0.10 per GB, while data transferred out of Amazon S3 costs $0.18 per GB for the first 10 TB (10,240 GB). Volume discounts are automatically applied for additional data transferred out of Amazon S3; the next 40 TB cost $0.16 per GB and all additional data transferred out of Amazon S3 in a month costs $0.13 per GB. Volume discounts are applied separately for the U.S. and for Europe. There is also a small per-request charge that depends on the operation and the location of the servers you are accessing. PUT and LIST operations cost $0.01 per 1,000 requests, while all other operations cost $0.01 per 10,000 requests for buckets located in the U.S. PUT and LIST operations cost $0.012 per 1,000 requests, while all other operations cost $0.012 per 10,000 requests for buckets located in Europe."
David Strand says the "average count of monthly 'Issues' downloads was 113,801." And, the average 1 hour episode of Issues, Etc. appears on my iTunes to be about 8MB.
113,801 downloads per month X 12 months = 1,365,612 downloads per year X 8MB each = 11,924,896MB/year.
That rounds out to 12,000 gigabytes per year. If they used Amazon's service, they could do this for under $2000/year. If it actually cost $30,000/year, as David Strand says, then the synod is paying $2.50 per gigabyte transfered.
It appears this cost figure is either inflated, or whoever was in charge of purchasing bandwidth was not aware that there are much cheaper services out there to choose from than what they were using.
However, let me reiterate: I'm still afraid that this type of financial investigative hype online is taking the focus off the real issues, which are theological and political. Does anyone really believe that the use of expensive bandwidth was theologically motivated or politically calculated? I think you can chalk this one up to the fact that the management of KFUO is just really bad at running a business.
The focus of our investigation should be exposing the bad theological priorities of the current leadership, and their unchristian political motivations. If all we prove is that KFUO management was doing a horrible job of managing KFUO, where does that get us?
Dr. Heidenreich, you make a great case. After all, political and theological reasons show the priorities our current synodical administration has. If they say, "Money talks," then they are foisting their agenda of how they want it to talk on us.
Of course, the cost of air time, bandwith, downloading capability etc. is high. Yet, Pr. Wilken and Jeff Schwarz were using that cost to teach the faith. Ablazers are using it to promulgate emotionalism.
The distinction, as far as money goes, is the direction or redirection it was to go. Issues Etc. was putting it toward Christ-centered, cross-focused service to the Church--proclaiming Jesus Christ. The BCS, David Strand, and Pres. Kieschnick put it toward missiolotry--anything they can do to make that contact at the critical moment. That is geared toward a man-centered works righteousness that doesn't retain a shred of Lutheran substance or style.
May God keep us steadfast in His Word and preserve us from the latter of those two directions I just mentioned!
10 comments:
Well, for those who are good at math, in the interest of accuracy, I believe it is important not to propagate the unsubstantiated figure of 38-40% repeated again in that linked post. We need to keep the truth on our side. While I believe those who initially estimated the costs at 40% did so in good faith with the best information they had at their disposal at the time, the figure is not quite that high. Nevertheless, it is still quite high.
The official "CPDR" (cost per dollar raised) for KFUO is $.275 for AM and FM combined. This is what you will be told if you ask the Foundation, and they have official audited figures to back it up.
That said, I also should add that neither the Foundation, nor KFUO appear to have kept track of what fundraising costs could be attributed specifically to the AM station or to Issues, Etc.
On KFUO's own financial books, the fundraising costs are arbitrarily split 50/50 between the AM and FM columns.
If you want documentation, on page 6 of the Foundation's own financial report are the figures from which the Foundation calculates a $.275 CPDR. The synod's audited financial report supports the $.275 figure as well.
The Foundation's report shows that KFUO had $1,086,756 in "Direct Gifts". These include: "cash, stock and distributions from donor advised funds." And, KFUO had an additional $227,425 in "Matured Gifts Distributed." These include: "All distributions other than direct gifts including trusts, endowments, gift annuities, pooled funds and bequests."
You get the same $.275 CDPR using the figures on pages 24 and 25 of the official audited LCMS "Consolidated Financial Reports" for the fiscal year ending June 30, 2007. The fundraising cost figure reported for KFUO in that audited report is $361,000. That's the amount KFUO's books split 50/50 between the AM and FM columns.
Just wanting to keep the truth on our side. :-) The difference between 28% and 38% is totally insignificant when considering the big picture.
Let's just forget all the financial details for a moment and suppose that Issues, Etc. was, indeed, costing the station a lot of money. So what?
The question remains, why was this particularly effective apologetic outreach considered unworthy of synod resources while so many other questionable modes of outreach (e.g. Ablaze!) are garnishing exponentially more of our synod's resources? That question demands that we realize there are theological considerations involved here.
The more disconcerting question is whether this was more than a simple matter of differences in priorities. Was Issues, Etc. considered to be a monkey wrench in the smooth oiled machinery of "change" in the LCMS toward a church growth approach to ministry and outreach? I believe the answer to that question is YES! That would mean this was not only theologically motivated, but politically calculated.
THAT is the real issue we need to focus on.
Forget the math!
I would beg to differ with you, Erich.
Unless the books are opened, one cannot know if the financial reports are accurate. There are numerous ways to redistribute expenses in inappropriate ways and non-profits are notorious for doing this in order to show low fund-raising and low administration costs on their financial reports.
I do not think it is a moot point, but a very important one. There is a lot of money being mishandled.
And a forced slice right off the top, whether 28% or 38% is still rapacious nonetheless.
It's a shameless grab for money that was donated for a specific purpose - that of the radio ministry of KFUO.
It was especially shameful to see just how blithely the "300" initiative was dismissed as unofficial because it was proactively initiated by Jeff & Todd for the benefit of Issues, Etc. (and KFUO), but not with the official overhead of the LCMSF baked in.
I didn't mean to imply that the books should not be examined.
Why do you think I went to all the work to examine this fundraising figure? Have any of you examined the books to try and get to the bottom of things? Have you spent hours and hours pouring over synodical budgets as I have, and asking questions?
There are many more figures that need examining, but none of them are going to come to light by throwing around accusations on blogs. Those who ARE good at math need to do the hard work of asking the right questions and getting the right documents from synod.
My comment to "forget the math" was meant for those like Pr. Weedon who are not good at math. Such people are not incapable of seeing this issue for what it really is. I am just saying that we need to keep from seeing this primarily as a financial issue. And we need to keep from framing it on blogs as primarily a financial issue. It was theologically motivated and politically calculated.
I hope ALL the financial irregularities are all exposed and examined fully, but until they are we need to keep from making unsubstantiated allegations. Let's keep the truth on our side. I'm afraid we're playing right into their hands by keeping busy talking about dollars when the real issue is the theological and political.
The canceling of Issues, Etc. is a symptom of what the real problem in our midst is. This problem is not limited to KFUO. Missionaries have been called back from the field while "mission" churches like Jefferson Hills are being planted! The is a theological and political problem.
Let's have good people doing the dirty work of following the money trail, but we must not drown the important discussions we need to be having with unsubstantiated babble about finances!
Yes, 28% is still bad. But we have a bit of egg on the face of our cause because a claim that it was 40% has been so widely circulated without doing the right investigation first. That makes the 28% seem not so bad, when in fact it's still horrible!
Instead of just posting about what you think is a financial irregularity, invest the time and effort into doing the hard investigative work. You can find out a lot by asking the right people the right questions. Get to work!
But, don't forget, this is NOT primarily an issue of finances. It is theological and it is political. We need to be looking to prove these two points by investigating the finances.
Now, in the case of the Foundation, I do not believe the size of the fundraising costs reflects that theological or political problem. As I see it, the high percentages being charged by the Foundation simply show that it is just really inefficient at what it does.
But, what still needs to be investigated and brought to light in a substantiated manner is just how much of those fundraising efforts were directed to supporting KFUOam, and Issues, Etc. in particular. I hope the people who have direct knowledge of that will come forward with what they know.
There are many other issues to be settled about the financial questions I and others have raised. But, PLEASE, lets not forget what the real battle is all about! That's the point I was trying to make in the last three paragraphs of my first comment.
In defense of Dr. Heidenreich, my observations were simply based on the numbers that are in circulation. And it all operates with the caveat that this is assuming the numbers are accurate. Which is of course the problem at this time. We don't know for certain what is or is not accurate and the numbers in circulation are often contradictory. Kudos to Dr. Heidenreich. He's done some real heavy lifting that most of us probably could not do.
Rev. Jody R. Walter
Hi Erich,
I respect your concern about the political and theological issues getting lost in the shuffle. I do not want those areas neglected either. It seems to me that there are all kinds of people are trying to hammer out those problems too.
I do think that getting the financial questions answered will help support both the political and theological issues. Save the LCMS blog site has done a wonderful job exposing some of the problems. Today, they raised questions about the LCMS management's view of the words stewardship and business meaning pretty much the same thing.
I would ask you to read the blog and consider how the political, theological, and financial issues intersect in this one example and whether the idea of stewardship being a position of trust and the idea of business being about profits and losses does not have theological and political implications. When you start thinking in this light, I'm sure you will see many other ways the 3 issues connect or intertwine at times.
You wrote a very detailed post and I would like to try to respond to a few of your comments (identified in quotation marks).
"Why do you think I went to all the work to examine this fundraising figure?"
I would like to commend you for your hard work and the hours you have spent pouring over the financial statements of the synod. The point I was trying to make in my comment was that we do not know how accurate the financial statements or the fundraising charges are from the synod. At this point, we can only do the best that we can with what we have and recognize that we are dealing with unknowns. I do appreciate you pointing out the discrepancy between the official synod fee report and what is being posted online. I should have acknowledged that in my post.
"My comment to "forget the math" was meant for those like Pr. Weedon who are not good at math. Such people are not incapable of seeing this issue for what it really is"
I did not see Pr. Weedon trying to do any math. I did see a kind and thoughtful act of service posting a link to information for those who are interested. I do not see people as incapable of becoming informed, learning, or seeing the issue for what it really is. I'm assuming that you really did not mean to say that.
"Those who ARE good at math need to do the hard work of asking the right questions and getting the right documents from synod."
I agree. We need to have pertinent information, correctly interpret the information and ask the right questions. Any professional auditors and CPA's out there? Until then, I think anyone who cares to investigate the mess should be welcome to put their nose to the grindstone and duke it out with the numbers. In real life, mistakes and errors will happen - they can be corrected along the way. Your correction of the fund-raising fees is a good example of all of us working together to get the facts straight.
"I'm afraid we're playing right into their hands by keeping busy talking about dollars when the real issue is the theological and political.... But, don't forget, this is NOT primarily an issue of finances. It is theological and it is political"
I do not think that we are playing into their hands. An independent audit needs to be done. People need to be informed so they can call for an audit. A thorough audit should reveal any mismanagement issues, subterfuges, and/or blatant lies about Issues Etc. - any of which may or may not have political and/or theological implications. As I said earlier, I do not believe that there are always clear cut lines of definition between the 3 issues and I believe that there are people working on the political and theological issues. And like you, I do not want to see any of the 3 areas neglected.
Over at Pr. Walt's blog Pr. Fisk made a good observation that the bandwidth costs seem extravagant. Here's my analysis:
Amazon's S3 service charges under 20 cents per gigabyte. The following is from Amazon's website:
"Data transferred into Amazon S3 costs $0.10 per GB, while data transferred out of Amazon S3 costs $0.18 per GB for the first 10 TB (10,240 GB). Volume discounts are automatically applied for additional data transferred out of Amazon S3; the next 40 TB cost $0.16 per GB and all additional data transferred out of Amazon S3 in a month costs $0.13 per GB. Volume discounts are applied separately for the U.S. and for Europe. There is also a small per-request charge that depends on the operation and the location of the servers you are accessing. PUT and LIST operations cost $0.01 per 1,000 requests, while all other operations cost $0.01 per 10,000 requests for buckets located in the U.S. PUT and LIST operations cost $0.012 per 1,000 requests, while all other operations cost $0.012 per 10,000 requests for buckets located in Europe."
David Strand says the "average count of monthly 'Issues' downloads was 113,801." And, the average 1 hour episode of Issues, Etc. appears on my iTunes to be about 8MB.
113,801 downloads per month X 12 months = 1,365,612 downloads per year X 8MB each = 11,924,896MB/year.
That rounds out to 12,000 gigabytes per year. If they used Amazon's service, they could do this for under $2000/year. If it actually cost $30,000/year, as David Strand says, then the synod is paying $2.50 per gigabyte transfered.
It appears this cost figure is either inflated, or whoever was in charge of purchasing bandwidth was not aware that there are much cheaper services out there to choose from than what they were using.
However, let me reiterate: I'm still afraid that this type of financial investigative hype online is taking the focus off the real issues, which are theological and political. Does anyone really believe that the use of expensive bandwidth was theologically motivated or politically calculated? I think you can chalk this one up to the fact that the management of KFUO is just really bad at running a business.
The focus of our investigation should be exposing the bad theological priorities of the current leadership, and their unchristian political motivations. If all we prove is that KFUO management was doing a horrible job of managing KFUO, where does that get us?
It would appear that a group of laypersons hiring a bean counter firm to go over the books is in order. If need be sue for access.
If our friends wish to do it in a business fashion they need our help.
Dr. Heidenreich, you make a great case. After all, political and theological reasons show the priorities our current synodical administration has. If they say, "Money talks," then they are foisting their agenda of how they want it to talk on us.
Of course, the cost of air time, bandwith, downloading capability etc. is high. Yet, Pr. Wilken and Jeff Schwarz were using that cost to teach the faith. Ablazers are using it to promulgate emotionalism.
The distinction, as far as money goes, is the direction or redirection it was to go. Issues Etc. was putting it toward Christ-centered, cross-focused service to the Church--proclaiming Jesus Christ. The BCS, David Strand, and Pres. Kieschnick put it toward missiolotry--anything they can do to make that contact at the critical moment. That is geared toward a man-centered works righteousness that doesn't retain a shred of Lutheran substance or style.
May God keep us steadfast in His Word and preserve us from the latter of those two directions I just mentioned!
I very much appreciate your comments, Mr. Rosenkoetter. Well said. Thank you.
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