Save The Music Foundation Case Study

Founded in 1997, VH1 Save the Music Foundation is a non-profit organization geared towards ensuring music education programs are available to students in public schools across the United States. John Sykes, the original founder of VH1 Save the Music Foundation, volunteered as principal for a day in a New York City public school in Brooklyn. He noticed the condition of the instruments being used and how worn out and broken some looked. At the time Sykes was the President of the VH1 Cable Television Network, and felt like he had to do something. After this visit Sykes had his public affairs team investigate and they came to the realization that this problem was widespread across America. With budget cuts and constraints facing public school
The founder, John Sykes, handed the responsibility of overseeing the organization to Bob Morrison in 1998. He was responsible for overseeing the development of the Foundation at the direction of John Sykes and became the foundation's executive director and CEO. In 2003 Morrison stepped down from his position to pursue other interests. In 2004, a search firm called Paul Cothran who at the time worked as the Director of Health and Community Programs at the Big Apple Circus in New York. They told him about the executive director position at VH1 Save the Music Foundation. In an interview with the New York Times Cothran said, “I wasn’t confident I’d be hired because I didn’t feel that I was particularly cool and I didn’t have a deep musical background. But they were looking for someone with my experience and offered me the job.” Cothran has been in the position for 11 years as he still serves in a dual position as the Vice President and Executive Director of the Foundation. Previously, Paul was the Director of Health and Community Programs from 1997-2004 for The Big Apple Circus where he managed to significantly expand and reach of all programs nationally. From 1992 to 1997 Paul served as Director of Corporate and Foundation Relations at Pace University. Before his employment at Pace University, Paul was Development Director for the Lambda Legal Defense and Education Fund. Paul also served
Breaking down their contributions revenue which is 94% of their overall revenue, as seen in Exhibit 3, the Foundation heavily relies on donations and gifts. The other 6% comes from federated campaign and fundraising events. IN terms of their expenses they spend 73.4 % of their expenses on program services. 7 out of 10 charities spend at least 75% of their budget on the programs and services they deliver and 9 out of 10 spend at least 65%. So the Foundation falls into an average range in terms of spending money on the programs they deliver to the schools. Fundraising efficiency is the amount spent to raise $1 in charitable contributions and the Foundation spends $0.20 to raise $1 in charitable contributions. An ideal amount would $0.10 or less to the $1. For the year of 2013 their excess (or deficit) for the year was $-36,565. Previously in 2012 their excess was $504,771 as seen in the Income Statement in Exhibit 4 under net/gain loss. The causes of the deficit in 2013 could be because they received 9% less in contributions from 2012 to 2013 and spent 9% more on program services in 2013 than in 2012. Despite having a decline in contributions, they still receive large donations from their biggest supporters in year 0f