AUTISM SPEAKS 2009 FINANCIALS ARE UP!

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http://www.autismspeaks.org/annual_report.php
http://www.autismspeaks.org/docs/Autism ... t_2009.pdf
http://www.autismspeaks.org/docs/Autism ... 0_2009.pdf

The last few pages of the annual report, from 32, are the financial data. The 990 is the tax form with all the information on it. Let's see what they've been up to. Any more new Rolls-Royces?

Hey thanks for that... reading this stuff is one of my favorite things to do.

I'm going to analyze this document and research what each of the organizations they give money to is using the funds for... and I'll also compile a list of each employee's job function, media presence and salary history. I'll try to share it here when I am finished.

As I said in another thread just now, I went through the tax form and found that they spent more on salaries than they did on helping autistic people (family services) and even their precious research grants, put together.

A very productive year for Autism Speaks!

Spending money on salaries is in itself no sign of anything. Doesn't it matter more what the people they paid were doing?

I think it matters if more goes on salaries than actually helping people, especially since the highest salary is over $300,000...

They appear to have suffered a 31% decrease in their revenue. When you compare their previous year where they spent $27 million on research grants compared to $10 millon in this tax year it appears this is where the revenue loss has impacted on their expenditure.

There has been a slight drop in their salaries as well. Given the nature of the current situation with the global economy this is not really suprising. There holding onto their revenue in uncertain times. Unlike a charity they are not given money with the expectation to spend it or it is taken back at the end of the year (in the case of UK charities)

Also I think on face values salaries are a poor way of criticising a not for profit company.

If you are trying to find dirt on an organisation in their finances then they won't have it on the summaries for all potential investors to see. The devil will be in the detail. For example if we are going to look at salaries. I would be interested in examing their 242 strength workforce.

What roles do these people carry out?
What are their salaries?
How do these salaries compare to the management?
How top heavy is the management of the organisation?
What are their sickness levels?
What are the reasons for sickness? I.e. stress, health matters etc (i dont know US law but in the Uk you can find out such information)
E.t.c

What would be good as well is to find out peoples names whether they are related (i.e nepotism present in the organisation) previous histories if they have ever been dismissed from positions for dodgy circumstances (i.e. gross misconduct)

Bare in mind if you are going to publically criticise an organisation based on statistics you have to be careful not to appear to cherry pick numbers. Arguing over statistics in the media will be a turnoff to whoever is listening unless your a statistician. Look at what the politicians do there the masters when it comes to this sort of nitpicking behaviour.

Well RaquiGirl says she's going to do a bunch of analysis, so let's see what the results of that are. Should be very interesting.

And remember, they don't have a choice about displaying this information, the law requires the documents be made public. I'm sure they'd keep all their accounts secret if they could.

As for their revenue dropping from last year, that's still no excuse when you're talking about ratios of money spent (running costs and salaries, which are absurdly high compared to, say, the NAS vs. actual charitable work), and if you check out last year's document, when they made about $20,000,000 more in revenue, you'll see they didn't exactly do too great then, either - hardly anything was spent on family services, while salaries were even higher.

But there's no arguing over the numbers - they're right there in front of you, from Autism Speaks itself. And they ain't good. Remember the NAS rundown I posted in the other thread? Compare it to this and tell me which is honestly better.

Oh, and I didn't cherry pick anything. I posted links to the entire documents. I dunno where you got that from.

Well said, Laz. This is just a sampling of the analysis I am working on. There most certainly is some nepotism in this company... and based on my preliminary research, the key employees of this company have salaries far over that of the norm for this type of organization. What the money is being spent on is more difficult to find, but it is out there. It's just a matter of doing the research and pulling it all together, which I'm working on. This will take me quite some time, but will be fun for me, as financial regulation and nonprofit tax law is one of my strong interests. Good point also about the health concerns. I know this information is made available to the employer, but I'm not sure if those statistics are made available to the public in the US. I will check on that.

To continue to keep certain key employees and significantly reduce their grants instead of reducing expenses elsewhere is concerning, but not terribly unusual during difficult economic times. Most companies are doing that sort of thing right now. Nonprofits are also less likely to perform staffing cuts in tough times. That said, I don't trust those people and if there's something there, I'll find it. I always do.

Thanks for your vote of confidence, Asp-Z!

Perhaps we can all sue them, for not hiring more people on the spectrum.

Ha! Unfortunately that's not a legal requirement. If it were, this world would be a much different place.

Yeah, if only...

Well there is a critique to be made there. IF they claim to speak for autistic people then why do they not have in place a garunteed interview scheme for any perspective applicatant to their organisation who has an ASD diagnosis?

I guess there response to that would be that they are not a disability rights organisation but a "sympathy" medical model of disability organisation. (well I don't think they literally would say that but thats is essentially what they are)

Also they seem to be outright hostile to any kind of autistic representation on government bodies that cover the issue.

To be fair they do hold a downright fundamentally flawed and illogical medical position. But I imagine any professional who stuck their neck out to point this out to them would face harsh criticism and career setback if they are based in canada and the USA.

Also the UK does have a disability discrimination act in law which prevents an employer from directly discriminating a person in employment or at the interview stage on the grounds of their disability. They also on request are able to make "Reasonable" adjustments to the work place or work practices to help accomdate an individuals disability.

Sounds all good but there are some fundamental draw backs and ways of circumventing this law. It's not nearly as well enforced or as strict as it could be.

For a start the term "reasonable adjustment" can be interpreted by employers to mean "if it costs anymore then employing a non disabled worker then its unreasonable" (not quite as easy as that but it is easy for an employer to grossly exajerate what is reasonable and what is unreasonable because they are not clearly defined in the act.

The act also implies that the person with the disability should be the one to ask for the reasonable adjustments. How many of us know how we could help ourselves in the workplace? I certainly don't and I have no idea what adjustments made in the workplace would help me. If I new what i needed to help myself then I wouldn't need help to begin with? There is slowly a growing consensus that an employer can't simply shrug its shoulders and expect the person with the disability to figure out what would best help them to do their job in the workplace. I guess an analogy of what is being asked is effectively asking a blind person to invent brail.

But again this is not enforced in the act it's implied that the person with the disability is the only one who can suggest adjustment.

It's in serious need of some case law to strengthen it up a bit.

Exactly, and it's stupid. The NAS actually put a statement on their site about the I Am Autism video, because they felt they had to specifically note that they didn't support it and were not affiliated with Autism Speaks (though I can't seem to find it on their revamped site unfortunately, which is a shame). Shortly after, the UK branch of Autism Speaks went and changed it's name to Autistica, I assume to also distance itself from it's US counterpart. Those as*holes didn't down too well here, and I'm very glad.



Unfortunately, in a lot of UK law, not just this act, there is a lot of stuff about "reasonable" this and "reasonable" that which is easily exploited. At least we have legislation for it, though, and the NAS stands up for our rights as well, they have a campaign to get the employment system made fairer for us (look up "Don't Write Me Off" on their site).

Unfortunately, there is no claim that they actually speak for austistic people. They claim to speak out about autism. Their marketing tagline and their name "Autism Speaks" is nothing more than that. Their actual mission statement says absolutely nothing about speaking on behalf of autistic people. Even if they did... legally speaking (at least here in the US) they can't really be held liable for that unless they are lobbying to the government on behalf of autistic people... so far they're only lobbying to government for funding research to help people find a cure and treatment for autism... and as far as I can tell they are staying within their legal boundaries. I have no doubt that they have a team of lawyers who spend all of their time making sure of that.