Rebranded US Chess, New 501(c)3 Status and That Old Vision Thing Again

Looking at the organization's present status, all is not as well as it might and/or hopefully could be. Membership is not growing by leaps and bounds. The retention rates are generally not good, especially amongst scholastic members of a certain age. New adult memberships are about seven times smaller than new scholastic memberships. There has been a decline in the number of over the board adult chess clubs. The organization has tried and not succeeded in establishing an active chess playing web presence. Games Parlor was a fiasco and there was a roll out started with an independent partner for a USCF online playing venue in the last days of Bill Hall's ED leadership tenure that went Heaven only knows where. 

Looking at the new (c)3 mission for a moment, two things are not clear at present. First, what will be the relationship between US Chess and the US Chess Trust as it relates to US Chess fund raising down the road? 

Second, our new status is based on having educational programs that are the core of the organization's operation (assuming we want to keep our new charitable tax status and not have it revoked), but it is not clear what IRS qualifying programs US Chess is presently running and what programs are planned in the future to maintain that status. I asked one of our EB members in a recent post in the Issues Forum, for a list of educational programs being run by US Chess. No reply was forthcoming. There is no listing of programs, educational or otherwise, that I've been able to locate on the newly designed US Chess welcome web page or in the interior of the organization's web site. Regarding the latter, it may be there, but as with some other things, may not be easily discoverable. 

501(c)3 type educational programs take money to fund. Whilst US Chess' books are balanced, there appears to be little money available for new educational programs in line with our mission. There are no plans at present to hire, or employ as full-time consultants, marketing or fundraising professionals. 

Ruth Haring addressed much of this in detail in her August 2014 report to the delegates. Ruth wrote: "In looking at our membership numbers over the past year we see modest growth of 2.85%, which was concentrated in the Under 12 category. Good News, Bad News. The good news is we have growth. The bad news is that a large number of our members over 12 drop out every year."

The clear problem that US Chess still faces is that of member retention.
All is far from well in US Chessland in that regard as not much has changed since Ruth's 2014 report. 

Ruth also made the point that we were primarily a tournament based chess membership organization. Per Ruth, "During the last year, the IRS approved the long awaited change in the USCF tax status. The new 501(c) 3 tax status marks an important business shift to a social benefit organization with tax deductible contributions. USCF is at a new milestone and the tax status change also implies a change in the culture of the organization........We learned from the results of the survey [conducted by the ED] that almost 70% of players responding, let their membership lapse because they no longer play in USCF rated tournaments. This fits right in with the information we have about why people visit the website: To look up their rating and find a tournament to play in. It's all about tournaments and ratings." We are still primarily a tournament based organization. 


Despite our new 501(c)3 status, US Chess culture has not significantly changed. We are now approximately three years into a new organizational life as a (c)3 corporation. Where are our new (c)3 based educational programs? What has changed? Not much in a (c)3 program sense. It's that vision thing again. Instead of vision, we have present board members and a former board member going on and on about how the organization's budget is now under control, that we have membership "growth" and increases in rated tournaments. People who attempt to raise legitimate issues and suggest solutions in US Chess members only Issues Forum are treated with hostility driven by that old tournament mentality. When rational argument fails, the attacks based on member's chess ratings are used as a sophistic weapon of choice along with sarcasm and personal insult. All of this is directed at paying members of the organization. That's chess organizational culture at its worst. Past achievement, like bringing stability to the budget, is indeed laudable. However, that's the past. This is now. Leadership vision looks to the future while appreciating the positives of the past. The present board, three years into 501 (c)3 status, has yet to provide the vision needed for the future.