Project Vote Smart

One Common Ground

Philipsburg, MT. 59858-9767

Project Vote Smart is a project for maintaining information on the votes and positions taken by politicians to enable better informed voting. “Vote Smart’s mission is to provide every citizen with easy access to abundant, accurate, relevant information on every politician.” The Defense Department uses its data to keep troops and State Department diplomatic personnel overseas informed. Its primary activities at this point are the continued collection of data, and the updating of the user interfaces to their databases.

Project Vote Smart was originally named the Center for National Independence in Politics, which is still its corporate name, Project Vote Smart being a more self-explanatory name. It is categorized as a 501(c)(3) organization by the Internal Revenue Service.

Their financial statement shows income of $1,476,000, of which $1,352,000 or 92% is from a combination of grants, contributions, and legacies. (The rest includes investment income, capital gains, and fees.) Expenses were $1,350,000, of which $1,179,000 or 87% was for program services, $123,000 of 9% for management and general, and $48,000 of 4% was for fundraising, a good ratio.

The Fund has contributed $530 from the General Endowment. The Fund has not contributed from the Special Endowment, possibly because of eligibility concerns, but providing non-partisan information to voters is a 501(c)(3) activity that is accepted by the IRS.

Bylaw 3E1 states that contributions may be made from the General Endowment for “information available to voters (but only if not oriented in favor of any privileged group).” I recommend that the Fund categorize Project Vote Smart as “eligible and currently nominated” for contributions from the General Endowment. I will propose an amendment to the Bylaws to provide that such contributions may also be made from the Special Endowment.

Respectfully submitted,

Robert McClenon

16 June 2014