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$50,000 per month for telephone services, or $480,000 to $600,000 annually. It costs the National Office 18 cents to send a one-ounce first-class letter. In 1980 alone the Executive Director's office received over 20,000 pieces of mail of which approximately 14,000 required a written reply. All of our other departments and divisions have to answer an inordinate number of inquiries,not to mention the forwarding of information to our branches. On top of the aforementioned expenses, we have to pay salaries of approximately 140 employees, which include fringe benefits, salary increases and cost-of-living adjustments.

The national, regional, field and other NAACP offices must also purchase basic office supplies, which , as each of you know from your experience running your branches, youth councils and college chapters, have increased approximately 25 percent over the last 12 months.

I use these illustrations to graphically point out to you the enormous costs necessary for running a national volunteer organisation.

One of the most frustrating experiences I have had as Executive Director in the past four years has been trying to build the Association's membership base. I notice in my travels in city after city across the country that ofttimes there are a thousand or more people at a branch's banquet in a town where the branch has less than 200 members. I have asked, I have begged I have implored, I have beseeched our branches to include a minimum membership in the cost of admission for freedom fund affairs. But for some reason known only to God and them, in most instances our units have refused to adopt this simple, well proved and workable approach which could dramatically increase our membership in hundreds of cities, towns, hamlets and villages. I am convinced that there are those in our ranks who are unalterably opposed to having branches with a large enough membership base where they may lose control. This attitude has stymied our growth as a mass membership based Association and has impeded our progress as a civil rights organisation.

There are some branches that refuse to forward to the National Office its rightful share of net proceeds from fund-raising activities in the name of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored people. I am not now talking about those branches that have sought and received permission to retain a share other than what is prescribed by the constitution. But, rather, about those that raise $30,000, $40,000, $50,000 or $100,000 and send to the National Office $5,000 or $10,000 and feel that they have done their fair share.

We have branches on our rolls that merely maintain 50 members, do not meet on a regular basis, may or may not hold fund-raising affairs and are not heard from in the community, but whom we are forced to communicate with on a regular basis. Over 425 NAACP branches as of May 15 of this year have between 50-99 members. Close to 200 have 50 or less. It costs us just as much to mail a letter to a branch that has done nothing and plans to do less, as it does to send information to those [[start 2nd column]] branches that are active and are doing the work of civil rights.

We also have the problem of getting our units to respond to appeals for assistance. We should have the ability and the right to expect that when a letter, telegram or call is placed by the Washington Bureau asking for a letter to be sent to a Congressman or Senator, that 100 per cent of our branches would reply. Unfortunately, in to many instances this has not been the case. 

We asked our branches to take a simple proclamation to their Mayors on May 17, 1980. Many of our units responded favourably to our request; but some of our branches could not find [italics] one person [end italics] who could or would go to City or Town Hall to present to the Mayor, his assistant or the third assistant to the janitor, a proclamation which we paid to have printed and paid to have mailed to them.

This year we called upon our units to assist us in a national, public, fund-raising appeal-National NAACP Freedom Tag Day. We merely asked them to get some volunteers,to to the shopping centers or wherever our people would be on Saturday, June 13, or the following Saturday if the weather would not permit solicitation on that day. Many of our branches took the, designed their own materials, used their creativity and surprised even themselves with the responsiveness of the general public. Some took our suggestion and made special appeals to their churches on Sunday. 

Unfortunately, some of our units felt that soliciting was beneath their dignity or that they could not do two things at once. Simply put, this attitude has succeeded in destroying many of our units. If we do not ask for help and support from those whom we serve, then we should not be surprised when none is forthcoming.

As you are aware, the NAACP, as distinct from the Special Contribution Fund (SCF), is in the midst of a serious financial deficit. For the last few months, I have been working with Jesse Turner, our national treasurer, in order to find out precisely where we are financially. There are, as I indicated earlier, many reasons for the deficit.

Ultimately, however, we will have to look at the basic membership fee. With the large number of units that we maintain and the cost inherent in servicing our membership, it becomes obvious that the $2.40 which the National Office receives from our principal adult membership is insufficient to provide the services we render. We conducted an extensive study of our current membership structure. Based on that analysis,we discovered that the raw (the basic) cost of processing a $1.00, $2.00 or $5.00 membership card in 1980 was $1.87. This is the basic raw cost. Not included in this figure are the other costs, such as a portion of my salary, the salaries of our field and regional staffs, an apportionment of the lights, rents, telephones, etc., Staff travel expenses connected with membership generation and other ancillary costs related to membership production. When these expenses are included, you can see how we are literally going out of business through the back door.

The United Negro College Fund did an interesting study approximately four years ago. Its cost-accounting revealed that if it attempted to give a receipt and retain for its records recognition of gifts of less than $5.00, it suffered a net loss on each such contribution.

"Our Klan Watch has produced detailed reports from branches on Klan activity and other terrorist activities aimed at blacks across the nation."

It is obvious that we are in this untenable position also, only our situation is worse. If we think in terms of the fact that we also render services to our branches, provide a membership card, print promotional materials, membership applications, etc., from the money received for memberships, we are, indeed, in a much worse position.

EXAMPLES
1. Senior Membership $5.00--$2.40 to National Office.
2. CRISIS Membership 10.00--4.00 to CRISIS 2.00 to National Office.
3. Minimum College Chapter Membership 2.00--1.00 to National Office
4. Minimum Youth Membership Ages 17 - 21 $2.00--$1.00 to National Office.
5. Youth Membership w/CRISIS
Ages 17 - 21 $4.00--$3.00 to National Office. Includes card cost.
6. Minimum Junior Youth Membership $1.00--$0.50 to National Office.

Clearly, from the statistics cited above it is not possible for us to stay in business with $5.00 memberhips and below. What we are recommending is that the five ($5.00) dollar membership class be eliminated and that a minimum membership for adults be $10.00 which would include [italics] The Crisis [end italics] magazine. Further, we recommend that the minimum youth membership be moved to $5.00 and also include [italics] The Crisis [end italics] magazine.

This action if approved would:

1. Provide each member of the Association with a subscription to the official organ of this organization, The Crisis magazine.

2. Give us the capability to communicate directly wih our membership on key issues such as voting rights, desegregation cases, housing and other programmatic activities.

3. Increase our Crisis circulation potentials to improve the magazine and, by so doing, lift it from its current deficit posture.

4. Fill the void created by many of our branches' inability to communicate with their membership successfully.

5. Use The Crisis to transmit membership cards and eliminate many expensive steps including mailings which the NAACP is forced to bear.

You have noticed, no doubt that we are in the process of upgrading [italics] The Crisis [end italics]. Even in its present form we have been able to attract additional advertisers to our magazine. We pro-

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