Toast the ANA with your next beer

The American Numismatic Association’s board of governors adopted a 2019 budget that envisions spending and revenue balancing at $5.79 million.

This financial blueprint takes effect Nov. 1 and concludes Oct. 31, 2019.

ANA is the national organization of America’s coin collectors headquartered in Colorado Springs, Colo.

It has a membership of roughly 25,000.

What portion of the budget do you think is covered by dues?

All?

Half?

A quarter?

Would you believe 12.24 percent?

That’s right. Almost 88 cents of every dollar that the ANA spends has to come from some other source of funding.

What do you think those sources might be?

If you guessed conventions, you get a gold star.

Revenue from those is the largest single line item.

It weighs in at a hefty $1,545,000.

That is 26.67 percent of the budget, or 26.67 cents of every dollar spent.

What else comes to mind?

How about sales of advertisements?

Each month The Numismatist is published.

Ads will kick in a projected $446,196 in the coming year.

That’s 7.7 percent of revenue, or 7.7 cents of every dollar.

Fortunately for the ANA, there is an endowment to help support the organization.

There is a line item called “unrestricted fund transfer.”

That totals $811,830.

Another line is the slightly different “unrestricted fund – board approved,” which is $621,495.

You might also enjoy “unrestricted fund – capital.” But it is only $60,658.

It is a good thing ANA has a large pool of money to draw these amounts from.

The ANA says it has assets of $79.48 million and net assets of $76.99 million.

This implies there is some sort of debt of $2.49 million.

Excluding the museum’s collection, the assets total $39.45 million.

Of that number, $22.8 million is stock in the Ben E. Keith Company, a Texas beer distributor.

This stock is an example of the importance of donations to ANA over time.

It was bequeathed to ANA in 1977 when Kenneth Keith died.

However, he had other heirs.

They received lifetime interests in it and, as they pass on, ANA receives half their stock and Texas Tech University receives half.

There are four living individuals left now.

Larry Baber, ANA treasurer, says when they pass on, ANA will receive shares of stock currently worth another $41.7 million.

This is not the only gift ANA has received over the years, but it is the crown jewel.

The budget lists 10 designated funds and two restricted funds that are tied to previous gifts.

So it is easy to see that ANA’s present and future are tied not to its dues structure but to donations made by its generous members.

Buzz blogger Dave Harper won the Numismatic Literary Guild Award for Best Blog for the third time in 2017. He is editor of the weekly newspaper "Numismatic News."