Race wants prize money back

The Bigger Story wrote:

Congrats to the race director for doing what he should have done in the first place. $9,000 is now settled in the most reasonable manner.

However, the real issue is non-profit's tax forms.

In 2014, the had 151,040 in revenues. The revenues include a deduction for 49,994 in direct expenses, presumably for the race.

In 2014, they had $32,486 in expenses for actual charity work (non salary or admin expenses).

That's right, 20% of their revenue went to their actual non-profit work. That is abysmal, even for a small non-profit. Good non-profits run at 80+% generally.

excellent post. definitely worth looking into further

I decided today after reading all the posts that were made on this message board that 8 out of 10 people thought I was wrong.

From there I decided to drop everything, call and write all of the runners back and tell them that I was sorry and wished them a Happy Holiday. To those runners who sent us checks, I tore them up and also issued a check back to a runner who received a check from today.

All of the runners received twice the amount that I intended to give out, except for the costume contestants, largest teams and Masters Division. That's my fault and I did a really poor job of listing the amounts on the prize money.

We advertised $15,000 and we paid out a bit more than $24,000. I decided this wasn't the organizations fault and I should pay the difference ($9,000) I will be issuing the organization a check tomorrow so some of our projects this next year won't have to suffer because of my incompetence.

This is a painful and expensive lesson for me and is setting me back, but it was the right thing to do after reading what everyone thought of me and how I was handling the situation. I agree I was probably being a bit arrogant and was seeing only one side of the story.

These athletes do work hard and unfortunately I probably left a really bad taste in their mouth. I'm sorry for that.

Thanks again for the nice message, trust me these help quite a bit.

I'm just about done with this message board because it's wearing on me.

You don't tug on Superman's cape,

You don't spit into the wind,

You don't mess around with the ole Lone Ranger or the LRCMB

Irene,

You misquoted that expression. The correct quote is: "For the love of money is the root of all evil"

1 Timothy 6:10

That was an excellent last post Bob. If I was your lawyer or on your board, I would advise you to leave it right there.

Esquire wrote:

That was an excellent last post Bob. If I was your lawyer or on your board, I would advise you to leave it right there.

Someone scared the bejeezus out of... Bob...

We've actually donated almost $140,000 since November of 2013. If your going to start lying about 990's go to our website and see how much we've actually given back

http://surfingmadonna.org/where-the-money-goes/

Make sure you read our 2013, 2014 and look on our website to see how much as been donated in 2015.

Do you think it would be wise for an organization to give all of their money back immediately after an event. You would go bankrupt, projects wouldn't be able to perpetuate, what about upcoming projects. When you look at what we net, our expenses are, EBITDA Margin is etc, you'll see that we give a lot more than most organization out there.

That's a really low blow to lie about something like that. Here's how much money we have donated back to the community from our race since November of 2013

WHERE THE MONEY GOES…

Surfing Madonna Oceans Project Donations

$6,250 – Marine life safety equipment for injured and stranded marine mammals for Encinitas.

$23,000 – Marine biology and oceanography scholarships.

$15,000 – YMCA’s special needs aquatic program.

$9,966 – Mobi-mats for the Encinitas lifeguards (allows for advanced access to the ocean)

$1,500 – Lunches for Special Olympics at Encinitas’ new park.

$700 – Green Week at San Dieguito High School Academy.

$13,700 – Summer surf camp for special needs children & Wounded Warriors.

$400 – Campus wide recycling program at San Dieguito High School Academy

$25,000- Parks and Recreation Ocean/Beach Projects (ex. Beach Wheelchairs)

$400 – Rhoades School ocean conservation programs

$3,000 – Local Salvation Army for their homeless and disadvantaged youth projects.

$400 – Leukemia and Lymphoma Society benefiting local children.

$2,000 – Grants to community members for Ocean Conservation Projects

$500 – H2O Trash Patrol’s SUP Waterway Clean up Program

$500 – Healthy Day Partner’s upcoming Farm Lab for elementary school students

$10,000 – City of Encinitas & State Park’s free habitat & ocean conservation program for youth at local beaches.

$500 – Boys to Men nonprofit – 100 Wave Challenge in San Diego

$250 – Encinitas Arts Commission

UPCOMING PROJECTS:

“Plastic to Paper Straw” Campaign with local businesses

Marine Protection Act (MPA) support

Sea Lion Rescue signs at Swami’s, Moonlight, Beacon’s & Grandview beach accesses

Free Surf Camp from April – October (2016) that benefits a specific disability or disadvantaged group each month. (Example: April benefits persons with Down Syndrome, May benefits children in foster care, June benefits persons with traumatic brain injuries, etc.)

Ok Bob, you have this thing where you accuse people of making things up when they aren't making anything up.

For instance, you accused the OP of making things and that was a false accusation. He didn't make anything up

Bigger Story posted accurate figures from your 2014 990

Please trust that You are bringing more attention and scrutiny to this and that may not be in your best interest. your board also may not appreciate that.

At this point who cares what we think. It's between you, your board and the IRS

And yes, less than 20% given back is pretty rough

Your probably right Esquire. I\'m tired and I\'m done. Too much wasted energy on ridiculously stupid stuff. In all seriousness, if your on our site this year and you see something that the runners might question please contact me, I\'d hate to go through these pack of wolves again.Best,Bob

Esquire wrote:

That was an excellent last post Bob. If I was your lawyer or on your board, I would advise you to leave it right there.

Ok, will keep you posted.

also the misuse of "your" right there is also a definite clue to me that you were previously trolling hard under those usernames that connected the username and the first sentence ("happy jack" etc). "Your" vs "you're" was frequently misused there too. Not completely conclusive but very likely

If so I give you 9/10 for the trolling

Respect

Wait a second, did you even look at how much we've given back. I just posted it from our organizations website. Plus our 2015 990 isn't even up there. We received a letter from congress thanking our organization. We can't give money back until our race is done with. Here's an example.... Our first race was November 16th of 2013. We took those proceeds and spent them in 2014. Our next race was October 25th of 2014, most of those proceeds were spend in 2015, our October 24th 2015 race will be spending most of its proceeds in 2016.

In short, its impossible for us to spend all of our proceeds immediately after the race, especially when most of our programs involve the ocean and revolve around the summer time.

So when you look at our 990 for 2014 keep that in mind. If you look at how much we've donated since November 2013 you'll see that we have donated almost $140,000. That a HUGE amount considering the size of our organization.

If you guys don't understand that, then I give up. We've received multiple awards for the money we have given out throughout San Diego. Do a little Google research to see just how much money our organization has given out. I've attached a few articles from the papers for you....

http://www.encinitasadvocate.com/news/2015/jul/21/surfing-madonna-oceans-project-donation/

http://92024magazine.com/2015/09/01/surfing-madonna-inspires-people-to-get-on-board-with-ocean-conservation/

http://www.encinitasadvocate.com/news/2015/jun/09/surfing-madonna-surf-camp/

http://www.encinitasadvocate.com/news/2015/sep/23/surfing-madonna-disabled-men-cean/

http://www.encinitasadvocate.com/news/2015/jun/20/robert-nichols-surfing-madonna/

[quote]Rdsurfingmadonna wrote:

... I'd hate to go through these pack of wolves again.

Best,

Bob

[quote]

That "pack of wolves" as you call them were just trying to get to the truth, seems some still are.

Any way you cut it Bob, that 2014 990 is rough. Seems like even you are acknowledging that. And the person who posted those numbers was accurate.

We'll keep an eye out for 2015 though. After you pulling it together today, I'll give you the benefit of the doubt that it won't be as questionable as 2014

I've said my peace, I'm done. Good luck and Happy Holidays. This is too much non-sense for me.

Bob

Bob, just make sure if a Mike Rossi runs your race that you keep someone on him the entire way. If he gets away with cheating again, you will never the hear the end of it.

Esquire wrote:

Ok, will keep you posted.

also the misuse of "your" right there is also a definite clue to me that you were previously trolling hard under those usernames that connected the username and the first sentence ("happy jack" etc). "Your" vs "you're" was frequently misused there too. Not completely conclusive but very likely

If so I give you 9/10 for the trolling

Respect

Esquire, be assured Happy Jack is not Bob.

The things Happy Jack posted on this thread are consistent with the postings and off the board knowledge I have of him from nearly half a decade on the tracktalk.net board.

tom hyland

Okay Brojos, thread is settled.

Lock it up.

wineturtle wrote:

Esquire wrote:

Ok, will keep you posted.

also the misuse of "your" right there is also a definite clue to me that you were previously trolling hard under those usernames that connected the username and the first sentence ("happy jack" etc). "Your" vs "you're" was frequently misused there too. Not completely conclusive but very likely

If so I give you 9/10 for the trolling

Respect

Esquire, be assured Happy Jack is not Bob.

The things Happy Jack posted on this thread are consistent with the postings and off the board knowledge I have of him from nearly half a decade on the tracktalk.net board.

tom hyland

You're right. My mistake. I looked too far into their fairy tale bff conversation a few pages back.

I apologize that I've been at times heated in the discussion.

The initial situation really rubbed me the wrong way and I felt compelled to get involved. I could have been more diplomatic.

I'm glad that it has reached a satisfactory resolution and wish all parties the best.

Signing off,

Esquire

Rdsurfingmadonna wrote:

I'd hate to go through these pack of wolves again.

LRC denizens are moving up the food chain.

Alberto Salazar referred to us as a bunch of rats.