Dollar$ and sen$e and PSA - Photography Society of America, 1992-93 audit report - includes auditor's statement

My annual report to the Executive Committee, delivered in person in Atlanta in September, was based, in large part, on last year's Society operations as I compared the pre-audit data with other years. I want to share that report with you as you study the accompanying audit report for 1992-93.

Measuring Fitness

There are important parallels to be drawn between the contemporary emphasis on the physical fitness of the human individual and the fiscal fitness of human organizations. Both need a well-defined set of goals. Both need to take careful, periodic measurements of their progress. And neither can experience success except when their plans and actions are working together toward their goals.

PSA does very well on the first parallel, for almost from its start PSA's Bylaws have reflected the Society's goals. But the evidence from other measures suggests that we may not be nearly as 'fit' as we would like to think, or as we need to be.

Measuring Up--and Down

Last year's fiscal operations show both pluses and minuses. On the plus side is the fact that the overall picture ended in a surplus, rather than a deficit. The Chapters and Divisions also ended the year in the black. The Lake Tahoe International produced more net revenue than did its two immediate predecessors. And investment income was again up, despite an economy marked by greatly reduced interest rates.

On the minus side, net operations as a whole resulted in the lowest surplus in the last six years. Total receipts were the lowest since 1987-88---causing a severe cash flow problem and a resulting lack of available new cash to invest. Further, for the first time since 1988-89, dues-related operations cost more than the available dues revenue needed to cover them--over $4,000 more. And the 1993-94 budget projects a far more critical shortage in this area.

Measures and Messages

If numbers are to have any meaning for us, it is because they represent messages we need to hear and heed. Dues can be raised, and presumably they will be, soon rather than late. But dues increases tend to be eaten up by the rising costs from which no organization is immune.

In a different time we might look to the increasing numbers of members as a solution, but these aren't "different times." The numbers don't show that we're having much success in attracting large numbers of new members to our ranks. And for many years--ever since 1976, in fact --the numbers have recorded our diminishing ability to hold the interest of those who are already members. True, we have experienced some losses through death, and more recently other losses due to a sagging economy and lost jobs. But the message coming to many of us along with the negative numbers is that far too many of our losses are members who have tried us for a period of time and have found us wanting.

Photography has changed greatly since PSA set out to support its arts and sciences and to further the education of the public therein. What the negative numbers imply is that we have become complacent and ingrown...that we have failed to keep pace with those changes...that the world of photography has gone ahead without PSA's playing the strong role it once did. What the positive numbers suggest is that we have the ability, if we also have the will, to turn things around.

In the final analysis, the magic is not in the numbers, but in ourselves.

COPYRIGHT 1994 Photographic Society of America, Inc.
COPYRIGHT 2004 Gale Group