There’s no recession at LiveStrong aka the Lance Armstrong Foundation. And cost of living increases for staff members were better than ever in 2011.
Salaries are up at LiveStrong, but public support is down for the last three years according to federal tax filings. http://livestrong.org/pdfs/4-0/LAF-2011-Form-990
Here’s how it works. In 2009, public donations to Live Strong were at an all time high–$40 million. Then in 2010, when Lance Armstrong’s problems started to spill out in public, contributions slipped precipitously — to $30 million. On the 2011 tax filing, public contributions are down to $24 million. After Lance Armstrong’s doping scandal, and the flight of his sponsors, it’s up in the air how LiveStrong will finish 2012.
At the same time, salaries are up, up, up. Total executive salaries at LiveStrong went from $1.6 million in 2010 to $2.1 million in 2011. Not bad. All the top execs got nice raises, with president and CEO Douglas Ulman leading the pack. He went from $321,000 to $354,000 in one year. Lance Armstrong’s name does not appear anywhere on the Form 990 filing.
Total salaries, including volunteers, increased from $7,388,608 to $8,505,675. Beyond the execs listed, no other specifics are given,
Even though public contributions fell by roughly $6 million, LiveStrong reported higher revenue in 2011. They claimed it increased from $42,267,410 to $46,838,932. Nevertheless, the amount of money paid in grants decreased a lot, from $9,058,100 to $5,210,262. That’s the money they dole out to cancer programs at hospitals and clinics.
And Live Strong always has a mysterious “Other” line on its expense report. In 2011, it was listed without specifics (as usual) at $3,917,983.
More Expenses: Live Strong does not stint when it comes to spending on themselves. Their outside advisers are paid big bucks, too. They ran up a bill of over $1.2 million with a local printer in Austin. They paid just under $1 million for consulting assistance to Bully Pulpit Interactive of Washington, DC–a firm whose other clients are Google, the Obama-Biden campaign, the United Nations and the gigantic Society for Human Resource Management. They also paid about $794,000 to John Snow, an international health consultancy in Boston.
There are some more expenses that are head scratchers: LiveStrong also spent another $1.5 million on “merchandise giveaway.” They also put $2.5 million into “public awareness.” This was separate from $3.2 million on Advertising and promotion.
