NRS Revealed

[Brady Barrows]

In doing my usual critique of the NRS I discovered that the NRS now
has a page dedicated to explaining how they spend their donations:

http://www.rosacea.org/about/financial.php

The above page paints a very pretty picture of how the NRS spent
the donations which came from the public and from 'industry partners'
and if you check out the page you would think that the NRS was the
coolest thing going for rosaceans. However, if one takes the time to
investigate, like I have, there is something rotten in Denmark, or should
I say Barrington, IL.

Take the time to read this one page of Form 990 that was submitted by
the NRS to the IRS which explains an item not shown in the pretty picture
page above >

http://rosaceans.com/pdf/nrs_990_2005_statement_4.pdf

It will take you maybe a couple of minutes to download and read the above
page. This page is on page 23 of the entire Form 990 report if you care to
investigate completely (this will take you considerably longer to read)
which you can read by downloading this report >

http://rosaceans.com/pdf/nrs_990_2005.pdf

Statement 4 which is the link I asked you to read is only one page and explains
the salary of three of the board members of the NRS who work for Glendale
Communications Group, Inc., of Barrington, IL. The pretty picture that the NRS
gives on its financial page omits also what is found on Schedule A >

http://www.rosaceans.com/pdf/nrs_990_2005_schedule_A.pdf

On Schedule A, Part II - Compensation Paid to the Five highest paid independent
contractors for professional services it reveals that $393,458 of the total
donations spent was to Glendale Communications, Inc., a company owned by
Sam Huff who is the director of the NRS. You can now see why Statement 4 makes
the following statements:

"Three of the seven directors of the National Rsacea Society (NRS),
Samuel B. Huff, Datha J. Olney and Mary F. Erhard, are employed by Glendale
Communications Group (Glendale). Glendale provides the personnel and
infrastructure, and carries certain outside expenses, needed to support and
implement the program services and administration of the NRS, and also provides
services to other clients unrelated to the NRS. The postiions of these NRS
directors
with Glendale and their total salaries from Glendale in 2005 are as follows:

Name Glendale Position 2005 Salary
Samuel B. Huff President $202,948
Datha J Olney Technical Support 8,221
Mary F. Erhard Medical Editor 42,587

The total spent on rosacea research in 2005 was $97,510. The total donations
for 2005 was $632,292. That means that 15% of the total donations was spent
on rosacea research, which is up from previous years. You may read more about
this on my editorial of the NRS at this url >

http://www.rosaceans.com/html/nrs.html

If you want to donate to the NRS here is the url >

http://www.rosacea.org/donate/index.php

Or you have a choice. I felt the NRS is rather wanting and formed the RRDi >

http://www.irosacea.org

Brady Barrows
RRDi Founder

[Munch Ausen]

Brady

Can you give us an update as to what the RRDi has been up to lately?

Thx

[Brady Barrows]

Keeping a group of volunteers together is a feat beyond belief. Personalities are quite different and even though we all have rosacea as a common thread, getting everyone to agree on something can take time and effort. Ask David Pascoe about volunteers. Everyone seems to agree that increasing the MAC is a good thing. That is what I have been focusing on. The MAC speaks for itself and has grown to 25 very impressive members. The MAC members are very busy professionals and volunteering for them is on a whenever they have the time basis. That is the nature of volunteering. If we could get all the professionals to come together someplace, like Hawaii I imagine we could get more volunteer time out of them. That is one goal I would like achieve with some sort of convention for rosaceans. Who knows? Maybe it will happen. We could have some very impressive speakers on rosacea. Funding is very difficult to achieve from the skin industry. The pharmaceutical companies have totally ignored the RRDi. They just love the NRS and how it operates and continue to donate more money to that non profit. Letters and emails to the pharmaceutical companies are ignored. I received one letter back from one company declining interest in our organization. All we can do is hang in there and keep trying to get more corporate members and hopefully find some volunteers who can help the RRDi get better public relations and increase the membership to thousands, rather than a couple of hundred which will not doubt get the attention of some pharmaceutical companies who might then donate. The difference is that if we receive a donation of $600K we will spend that year $540K on rosacea research. We can operate on 10 % of the funds easily. We are already operating on such a small budget so that would be incredible to have some funds to increase awareness of our organization.

Most non profit organization have to pay employees to operate. That is just the way it is done. A total volunteer organization is difficult to achieve but it has been done. The charter allows the RRDi to pay members for services as long as it not against the conflict of interest policy.

One thing I have noticed is that I get on an average 15 applications a day for corporate members. I try to go through the process and read the application but it takes about 1 minute for each application so sometimes I put it off for a few days and have like today 60 applications to go through. Of the 60 applications only two were valid applications that identified the individuals, their address and phone and that they are real rosaceans. The other 58 were trolls who want to disrupt things by either trying to obtain emails address from groups or cause other mischief. This has led me to believe that most members of the rosacea groups are filled with trolls and others who are trying to get email addresses or cause other problems. The 263 corporate members that we have today are, as far as we know, legitimate legal members. We can confirm a member by mailing a post card or letter to see if the member replies with a valid signature. We also know if the member has rosacea or not. Rosaceans are running this organization, not a corporation owned my a non rosacean. All the board members are rosaceans and one of the board members is a physician. Corporate members can decide who runs the organization and can change the direction of this non profit in any direction the members want. So far, getting volunteers to help has proved rather difficult. I have asked many volunteers to do this or that and so far the results have been rather slow in coming. We lost the best volunteer worker who spent hours and hours making the web site and forum because not everyone can volunteer due to time constraints and other commitments. That is the nature of volunteering. When one volunteers it is wonderful. All we can do is appreciate what one can do and go on from there. I don't know if I can keep volunteering like this either. It is a lot of work. But I keep plugging along and trying to wake rosaceans up that they can do something. They can either give support to the NRS or they can support the RRDi. There is a choice and I keep hammering this over and over. Donate to the NRS or donate to the RRDi. Donate your time, energy and support to a non profit. Which one will you support?

I have requested the Form 990 for 2006 from the NRS and anyone can also do the same because the law says that a non profit who receives more than $25K in a year has to file Form 990 with the IRS. All non profits who file a Form 990 must provide a copy of their report to anyone who asks for a copy within 30 days or the non profit may be in violation of the law. Why not ask the NRS for a copy yourself of what they did in 2006? The Form 990 reveals things that explain what the non profit does with its donations and is a bit more difficult to hide where the money is being spent. If more rosaceans were watchdogs of the NRS than just me the NRS may improve. From 1998 to 2004 the average money the NRS spent on rosacea research was 8 %. In 2005 the funding for rosacea research went up to 15%. That is improvement. What if more rosaceans demanded more research from the NRS? That is what some rosaceans think should be done. However, I have provided an alternative. I think if you carefully read the Form 990 for 2005 that I have pointed out you will find that Glendale Communications Group, Inc., has other interests than the NRS. The Statement A clearly points this out when it says that Glendale 'provides others services to clients other than the NRS.' Is that where you want your support to go to?

Brady

Can you give us an update as to what the RRDi has been up to lately?

Thx