The Financial Health of Our Organizations: FSMTB

This is the second in my series on the financial health of the non-profit massage therapy associations.

What a difference a year has made to the Federation of State Massage Therapy Boards. In the 2007 fiscal year, the FSMTB’s Form 990 showed gross receipts of just over $43,000. The 2008 shows those revenues as exceeding $355,000. Looks like it was a good year, and the expectation is that income will continue to grow as more boards join (there are currently 33) and more students take the MBLEx.

2007 income for the Federation was below the upper limit for filing Form 990-EZ, a shorter, less detailed form, so some line-by-line items appear on the 2008 filing that were not on the earlier form.

As expected, when business grows, so do expenses, but there’s nothing earthshaking there. The FSMTB has to date had only one paid staff member, Debra Persinger, the Executive Director. When I attended the FSMTB annual meeting last month, it was announced that an employee was going to be added now that finances permit, and that Persinger was going to receive a well-deserved raise. Persingler’s 2008 salary was reported as $105,000, plus $13,000 in contributions to an employee benefit plan. Read More....