Bicycle Coalition's diminishing dues
A reader send this:
| Year | Membership dues ($) |
|---|---|
| 2009 | 333,165.00 |
| 2010 | 343,761.00 |
| 2011 | 344,663.00 |
| 2012 | 185,921.00 |
| 2013 | 74,803.00 |
Rob,
Rats are jumping from the SFBC ship. Found SFBC IRS files for the past few years. One item is revenue from membership dues.
Their membership is $35 per person.
According to the table, there is about a 78% drop in paid membership dues from 2011 to 2013.
They haven't been bragging for some time how they are 12,000 people strong.
Rob's comment:
Yes, it's apparently official that the Bicycle Coalition's membership is now down to 9,315. For years it seemed like every time Leah Shahum was interviewed the membership swelled by 1,000. Those days are clearly over.
Along with how the MTA is sitting on the latest bicycle count report, these numbers show that the city's bike movement is now on the decline. But big bike projects continue to shamble zombie-like through city neighborhoods. In spite of the city's moribund bike movement, the neighborhood-damaging Polk Street bike project and the Masonic Avenue bike project are being justified by lies about safety.
Labels: Anti-Car, Bicycle Coalition, Bicycle Count Report, Masonic Avenue, Muni, Neighborhoods, Polk Street
posted by Rob Anderson @ 10:21 AM
10 comments
10 Comments:
Why collect dues when you're on the government's payroll?
CONSPIRACY!
Here's the deal. If you donate to the SFBC education fund, it's tax deductable. Membership dues are not. Standard practice is now to donate some amount, say $200 to the education fund, get a tax deduction, and the SFBC waives your membership dues. QED.
Not only does it confuse your reader, it also means that the federal and state government are de facto supporting the SFBC via your taxes. Well, not Rob's taxes since he's a taker, not a maker.
It was a nice try though.
Right. "Makers" bravely make anonymous comments to this blog. By the way, I pay the Prop. K city sales tax, part of which goes to the SFCTA to pay for the Central Subway boondoggle and, of course, goofy bike projects.
Looks like a large decline in membership. I was a member for only one year, back when Ms. Shahum was always boasting about 12,000 members. I let my membership lapse because I concluded that the SFBC was a faith-based evengelical mission more concerned with people who don't (yet) ride bikes than people like my friends and me who ride thousands of miles every year. I knew I didn't belong there when I couldn't ever engage them in any conversation about where, in my experience, the most mayhem takes place: the intersections.
Oh, and in response to the anonymous comment about tax-deductability, enterprises that grant valuable perquisites to their donors as a reward for donating are typically required to inform the donor of the value of said perquisites and to subtract it from the tax-deductible portion of the donation.
enterprises that grant valuable perquisites to their donors as a reward for donating are typically required to inform the donor of the value of said perquisites and to subtract it from the tax-deductible portion of the donation.
Fortunately, I was able to copy all of your writing to convince the IRS that a membership to the SFBC is worthless, and thus nothing needs to be subtracted from my donation.
The anonymous poster is trying to confuse the readers.
What is the relationship between the SFBC and the SFBC ed. fund?
Since the anonymous poster donates to the SFBC ed. fund, why can't they become a member of the SFBC ed. fund?
Sounds fishy that they give money to one org but get membership waived with another org.
I dropped my membership in the SFBC when they use to poll their members about who they would vote for. When they refused to post the actual number of member votes on their web site and merely stated that so and so won i called Shahum and asked them why. She said we don't get into that level of detail. At that point I figured this was not a truly democratic group which openly shared any information that might be too far from their reality, real or perceived. Anyway, it was at that point that I felt they were a closed secretive group which did not want any other views expressed. That was more than 8 years ago.
Learn more about the SFBC's Education Fund here. You can get a tax deduction for, among other things, contributing to Bike to Work Day and teaching children to ride bikes here in SF.
Who cares? They're doing just fine and with the passing of prop A & B, and the utter rejection of prop L it's very clear that people care about non-vehicle commuting.
"Non-vehicle commuting"? You mean bikes as opposed to cars, right? But commuting by bike in the city has stalled for years at less than 4%. Where's the latest bicycle count report to update that percentage? The Bicycle Coalition's membership has declined, and there are 30,000 more motor vehicles registered in SF than there were in 2000. Muni---that is, "motorized" vehicles---the real alternative to cars for most people, has more than 700,000 boardings every workday.
People have made their choices, and only a small minority in the city chose bikes.
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