Here’s the 2022 Form 990: https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/organizations/452638273/202313179349309051/full. Just permitting and fees are at about $4.5 million. Most of the stuff that falls under “wages” is also not to BMP employees, but rather to law enforcement, emergency services (we also run a full service hospital that does not change for any services), airport, and sanitation (loooots of porto-potty servicing). The costs on all those things has gone up since 2022 also; there’s been an ongoing lawsuit between the org and the Federal government for charging us so much with basically no explanation.
This will be my 20th year going, and I’m in a leadership position on the volunteer side of things. I definitely have a lot of criticism of the organization (and the event), but financial mismanagement isn’t really one of them. They pay the executive staff on the low side of comparably sized 501c3 orgs, especially given the office location in SF. I think Marian is pretty out of touch with the ordinary burner, but she’s not really getting rich off of it.
Burning Man is definitely a problematic fave of mine, but I do think it still has a lot of great things about it. Happy to answer questions as best I can without going into enough detail to ID me specifically.
I’ve never been, mostly because it seemed to have been long since ruined by tech bros by the time I was old enough. so I’ve no skin in the game but even if not “mismanaged” by the standards of large nonprofits, there’s a lot of worthy criticisms of most nonprofits about scoping and growth mindsets and such. I like wikipedia as a project for example but their foundation’s scope has grown so far beyond what it needs to be to effectively run and even grow, wikipedia and related projects. So when the time comes every year for them to beg as though the lights are gonna shut off if I don’t kick ol’ jimmy $5 it rings pretty hollow. Burning man hopefully isn’t that extreme in terms of the ratio between costs to build and run and maintain the core services and the overall revenue, but it might have something similar in kind if not scale? While I understand to some extent the urge to be successful and let more people “experience the magic” or whatever, a corporate-style growth mindset is a bad fit for a community driven event. (edit: Idk, maybe thats the only way to organize it at any large scale in the US under capitalism, but I still think it sucks)
still not sure from briefly perusing that filing if this is accurate:
The vast, vast majority of the ticket revenue goes to permitting and law enforcement.
But I’m definitely out of my depth and don’t care that much.
When they’re in town, yeah (it’s the motel in Gerlach). We also have to build, staff, and maintain a full compound on playa for them to use, complete with a 24 hour/day on-call chef. It’s so fucking insane.
100% agree on the general criticism of non-profits. Burning Man isn’t uniquely bad, but it’s still a dog shit model for doing things.
Yes, lots of people are shitty and dump trash. It’s also true that a lot of us give our time for free to pick that trash up all the way until October–both on playa and by the side of the road–though.
I knew both Bruno and Pat. RIP to both those legends indeed.
Here’s the 2022 Form 990: https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/organizations/452638273/202313179349309051/full. Just permitting and fees are at about $4.5 million. Most of the stuff that falls under “wages” is also not to BMP employees, but rather to law enforcement, emergency services (we also run a full service hospital that does not change for any services), airport, and sanitation (loooots of porto-potty servicing). The costs on all those things has gone up since 2022 also; there’s been an ongoing lawsuit between the org and the Federal government for charging us so much with basically no explanation.
This will be my 20th year going, and I’m in a leadership position on the volunteer side of things. I definitely have a lot of criticism of the organization (and the event), but financial mismanagement isn’t really one of them. They pay the executive staff on the low side of comparably sized 501c3 orgs, especially given the office location in SF. I think Marian is pretty out of touch with the ordinary burner, but she’s not really getting rich off of it.
Burning Man is definitely a problematic fave of mine, but I do think it still has a lot of great things about it. Happy to answer questions as best I can without going into enough detail to ID me specifically.
lmao
is this where they put the piggies up?
I’ve never been, mostly because it seemed to have been long since ruined by tech bros by the time I was old enough. so I’ve no skin in the game but even if not “mismanaged” by the standards of large nonprofits, there’s a lot of worthy criticisms of most nonprofits about scoping and growth mindsets and such. I like wikipedia as a project for example but their foundation’s scope has grown so far beyond what it needs to be to effectively run and even grow, wikipedia and related projects. So when the time comes every year for them to beg as though the lights are gonna shut off if I don’t kick ol’ jimmy $5 it rings pretty hollow. Burning man hopefully isn’t that extreme in terms of the ratio between costs to build and run and maintain the core services and the overall revenue, but it might have something similar in kind if not scale? While I understand to some extent the urge to be successful and let more people “experience the magic” or whatever, a corporate-style growth mindset is a bad fit for a community driven event. (edit: Idk, maybe thats the only way to organize it at any large scale in the US under capitalism, but I still think it sucks)
still not sure from briefly perusing that filing if this is accurate:
But I’m definitely out of my depth and don’t care that much.
When they’re in town, yeah (it’s the motel in Gerlach). We also have to build, staff, and maintain a full compound on playa for them to use, complete with a 24 hour/day on-call chef. It’s so fucking insane.
100% agree on the general criticism of non-profits. Burning Man isn’t uniquely bad, but it’s still a dog shit model for doing things.
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Yes, lots of people are shitty and dump trash. It’s also true that a lot of us give our time for free to pick that trash up all the way until October–both on playa and by the side of the road–though.
I knew both Bruno and Pat. RIP to both those legends indeed.