NRA Grant Store Modeled After Government

[jojo]

We've been trying to get the NRA to listen to reason. They told us that they had clubs abusing the grant money by purchasing everything from chewing gum to high heels! I wrote them a letter saying if they were worried about funds being spent on non-shooting items, they could simply use a purchase order system like many schools and government use. A club could go to vendors of his or her choice and get a bid on the items they want to purchase, submit it to the grant program and when approved the grant could be sent directly to the vendor and the items shipped directly to the club. This would prevent any "fraud" that the NRA claims is going on and the clubs could shop around to get the items they need at the price that works for them. However, the NRA only responded by telling us "too bad!" We are a business that has a program for clubs to purchase at discount prices and we have lost a lot of business due to this program. Also, we speak to many clubs that have been hurt by this program. We tried to speak to the people in charge of this program to change this new grant "store" and they did not want to change anything. We even went as far as having a lawyer write a letter to try to change this situation. It's interesting to me that they are worried about 5013C status. As a 5013C they are required by law to make all their financials public. I'd really be interested in seeing were the money is going. Many people and clubs are choosing to raise money and keep it for themselves. By doing this, the clubs keep 100% of the money raised and support local shops and businesses. I urge all clubs and individuals to do this, as I am pushing for an investigation of the 5013C status of the grant program and so-called store as it stands now. I think the financials should be posted on the Friends of the NRA web site so we know where, or to whom our donations are going and have gone. I've been made aware of other details that really make one wonder just how this "sweet deal" came about! Any way you look at it this "NRA Grant store" stinks!Please complain loudly to the president of the NRA as those in charge of the Grant Store and Friends of the NRA will not listen to the target shooters anymore. Thank you all for your support! Please let people know what is going on. Many vendors are pulling support from the NRA as the grant store is stocked by only one or two vendors for the whole nation. This is not how the free market works in our Republic!!! Oh, I almost forgot why the secret passwords to access the NRA Grant store? What are they hiding? Why can't everyone see the store? Too much secrecy for a 5013C. We need much more transparency!

[jhmartin]

Well don't hold your breath.
I have an incomplete grant and the NRA grant store will not respond to any requests I make. I finally turned in my final report that noted that the grant was incomplete.. Think the funds will be returned to my state committee? Doubt it.

Also shipping on 2 light air rifles the grant was charged $115. No way it cost $115 to ship those UPS. Any difference went to the National fund ... not back to the state committee fund.

Overall it's helpful, but for all the work that the banquet committees put into raising the funds, it's not the 50-50 sharing it is supposed to be.

We had issues here in NM with some of the way folks would spend funds and not do final reports and rather than:
1) request a return of funds
2) censor that person from obtaining another grant
The folks at NRA just punted and accepted a set of final reports w/o the receipts.
Rather than punish the offenders, they let them continue, and mess with the rest.

[Telecomtodd]

For what it is worth...

I have been a part of the local FNRA committee for the last several years. We hold a "high caliber" event every year. This year we actually had Wayne as our featured speaker.

Last fall I went to my first statewide distribution meeting. We had $412,000 in grant requests and only $138,000 to distribute. Most programs took a major haircut as they do every year, and some were just not funded (ie. robotic units for a small police department). A few were funded 100%, including two Women on Target events and one Explorer unit who was requesting 12 ga. 00 buckshot for their local police department - perfectly acceptable requests.

Since we are having to "shortchange" grant applicants and the NRA's purchasing methodologies are questionable, there needs to be one or two major changes to the program.

1. Reduce the number of applicants by making the rules to apply stiffer. Make applicants do a little more work to apply for the grant money. Show need-based funding. If your club has over $100K in their treasury, why do they need $10K in grant money? We have at least two clubs in my area that fall into this category! Why not establish a ranking system for grant awards - if an entity is a 501(c)3, 4, 7, 9 etc. they go to the head of the line and get 100% funding. And get the statewide Sheriff's Association to share a handful of Eddie Eagle outfits - we don't need a bucketload of them!

2. The NRA needs to hire a purchasing professional to fix the problems. There's no reason to go to one group for all purchasing unless they provide preferential pricing better than anyone else's in the business. Get someone in there that has 15-20 years of experience, and the cost of their salary will be offset by the satisfaction of its grantees - and their group's NRA memberships. By the way, what's wrong with buying from manufacturers, too?

Common sense...maybe we need a program administrator holding real authority who has some common sense!

To be honest, I'm still a bit burned out from this past year's banquet. And we still have our statewide meeting in another month or so. Hopefully when we start our committee back up in January that I'll be willing to get back into the swing of things.

[Quest1]

For what it is worth...

I have been a part of the local FNRA committee for the last several years. We hold a "high caliber" event every year. This year we actually had Wayne as our featured speaker.

Last fall I went to my first statewide distribution meeting. We had $412,000 in grant requests and only $138,000 to distribute. Most programs took a major haircut as they do every year, and some were just not funded (ie. robotic units for a small police department). A few were funded 100%, including two Women on Target events and one Explorer unit who was requesting 12 ga. 00 buckshot for their local police department - perfectly acceptable requests.

Since we are having to "shortchange" grant applicants and the NRA's purchasing methodologies are questionable, there needs to be one or two major changes to the program.

1. Reduce the number of applicants by making the rules to apply stiffer. Make applicants do a little more work to apply for the grant money. Show need-based funding. If your club has over $100K in their treasury, why do they need $10K in grant money? We have at least two clubs in my area that fall into this category! Why not establish a ranking system for grant awards - if an entity is a 501(c)3, 4, 7, 9 etc. they go to the head of the line and get 100% funding. And get the statewide Sheriff's Association to share a handful of Eddie Eagle outfits - we don't need a bucketload of them!...

The grant committee in our state already puts the 501 c 3 groups ahead of everybody else, so you don't need the NRA tell you to do that your own grant committee can do that on their own. They also put the youth programs ahead of everybody else, which is were most of the money is suppose to go anyway. The Friend of the NRA use to advertise that 70% of the money goes to youth and safety programs.

The youth programs are the most important part of the NRA Programs if anybody really cares about preserving the long term future of shooting. I have meet many gun owners who don't think getting the youth involved is important to the future of shooting. The only conclusion you can come to for many shooters who fell the same way is that they really don't care about the long term future of shooting. I have had many shooters tell me that when the right to shoot finally goes it won't matter to them at that point anyway.

The NRA gives the grant committees a great deal of latitude on how the money should be distributed without getting the NRA involved, which is the way should be. Our state grant committee setups it's own priorities with the first two items already previously mentioned being at the tops of the priority list. I don't think that if your business wasn't running right you'd ask the federal, state, or city government to come in help you run your business. We can all see how they been running these institutions have been run so well. I don't think the NRA wants to become the big brother nor is the organization setup to become a big brother. That is why the organization depends heavily on volunteers. The unfortunate thing is that they are responding to what we really all call big brother. They were in a crunch and this was their way of responding to that crunch.

I think the initial problem the NRA was having with the store was that they threw it up in a hurry without much planning or thought about how the store should operate or what items would go into the store. They should have at least held off implementing the store for at least a year and at least gone out and found out what the store should have been stocking. It was obvious talking to the people that where running the store that they where doing this on the fly. If you where going to setup a real store you would have at least have decided what items should go into the store and then have them available from different sources or vendors. Well that didn't happen when they opened the store. They opened the store with a few items on the shelves and sometimes when the items weren't available they would give the money if it was explicitly mentioned in the grant. There were other times even when it was explicitly mentioned in the grant and it wasn't in the store you were forced to buy something that was in the store that usually was more expensive. They are finally getting some items needed, but the cost of many of those items are as much 40% higher then if you where able to get them on our own, which is contrary to what they advertised the site would do, which was to get the items at a lower cost.

The other problem I had with the store is that if I came across a used rifle instead of buying their guns at an inflated cost there is no provision for this to happen. The bottom line here is that the biggest grip I have with the store is that it doesn't allow for you to stretch the dollars you are given and in fact it does just the opposite.

I worked on our FNRA Banquet committee for over 20 years until the NRA Rep we had destroyed the committee I worked on. We were the highest net producing committee in the state and his boss didn't seem to care if this committee went away. We were even out producing committees that where located in population centers with numbers that were 10 times our size. He angered so many committee members over the years that nobody wanted to be on the committee any longer.

I always thought that the NRA Rep was just suppose to keep a committee from doing something against the rules or laws and to make suggestions, but not him. He ignored us for many years until we starting becoming the highest net producing committee and then he started coming in on the banquet night and taking over. He angered many customers by changing the rules on the games right in the middle of the games and threatening the wives of the committee members on what they were doing when the committee had decided otherwise. We actually lost thousands of dollars when he decided to get involved.

[SRichieR]

If Quest1's story isn't from Alabama, most of it could be. We lost the largest banquet in the state due in part to the NRA Store. I wasn't part of that Committe, but, the one I was with didn't do a banquet this year either. Lots of reason like Tornado relief in our area, but, the beurocratic, poorly implemented and unnecessary NRA Store had it's effect on committee members' attitude. Mine too!
Final reports were always required. Information on what was spent and where was available in the past. Offenders who didn't file reports or a used the privedge should have been dealt with. Don't tell me the NRA didn't know or couldn't know what was purchased, how much was purchased from where and at what price. NRA - READ THE REPORTS! No one else to blame!