The Financial Health of Our Organizations: NCBTMB

Note: For the past few years I have done a series of reports on the financial status of the non-profit organizations that represent the massage therapy profession. I obtain this information from Guidestar, a financial information clearinghouse for non-profits. The organizations can provide their Form 990 (Return of Organization Exempt from Income Tax) to Guidestar, and if they don’t, the IRS does it for them. I will state for the record that I am not an accountant or a financial analyst; I just report what I see (and maybe offer a few opinions). I usually get asked the question every year why I am not reporting on ABMP. Associated Bodywork & Massage Professionals is a privately-owned for-profit company, and they are not obligated to release their financial information. Non-profits are on a different filing schedule than the rest of us, and there is variance amongst them in when their fiscal year ends. The deadline for filing is the 15th day of the fifth month after the end of their fiscal year. An organization can also request and receive up to two 90-day extensions, and due to the number who haven’t filed yet for 2011, it appears that some of them have done that.

The National Certification Board for Therapeutic Massage & Body... has filed their 2011 Form 990 in a timely manner so I’m going to start with them this year. I’ll be following that up with my report on the Federation of State Massage Therapy Boards. The financial status of these two organizations are intertwined for one reason: since it’s introduction in 2008, the MBLEx has taken a substantial market share of the entry-level exam market away from the NCBTMB. For many years, the NCBTMB exams were enjoying a monopoly, except for the few states that require their own exam.

In 2008, the first year that the MBLEx was available, the NCBTMB’s revenue from exams was in excess of $6 million. By 2011, that had dropped to $3,380,813. Instead of a monopoly, they had a 47% share of the market. I confess that I was expecting it to be even less, since the Federation has relentlessly encouraged their member states to use the MBLEx exclusively. I think the fact that the NCBTMB has retained as much as they have is proof that plan has not yet come to fruition. The income at the NCBTMB from people recertifying dropped by a little over $5k, and sales of their exam guide were down about $17k. Sales of their mailing list also took about a $20k hit this year. READ MORE...