Burning Man’s Nonprofit Side Hustle
I told you awhile ago that I didn’t think Burning Man Project had a charitable purpose and now the organizers, in a Freudian slip, have admitted it. The Burning Man Project is the 501(c)(3) that puts on Burning Man Festival. We talked about it a little over a year ago. The Festival is an annual party out in the Nevada desert – in Black Rock City — to which thousands of ticket buying pilgrims travel. The culmination consists of burning a 40 foot wooden man standing on a 32 foot platform. Its all sort of of a latter-day hippie’s Hajj, but in search of a different god. In 2023, there were torrential rain storms that ended up turning the dessert floor into a great big mud puddle making ingress and egress impossible. Seventy thousand pilgrims had to sit out in the dessert until the whole place dried up enough for them to pack all their junk and go back home. But there was plenty of weed so other than having to miss some extra days of work back in their real lives, I don’t think anybody really cared.
I talked about it because The Burning Man Project is a 501(c)(3) that a few years ago took in $27 million in donations and $700,000 in revenue, primarily from festival ticket and concession sales. But after the mud bowl in 2023, ticket sales for the 2024 festival plunged and apparently so did donations. Because BMP has put out what the San Francisco Standard describes as an urgent plea for donations. Here is the exact plea:
We are at an inflection point as a nonprofit. On the one hand, global interest is at an all-time high, and the world needs Burning Man more than ever. On the other hand, we are well past the point where ticket revenues from Black Rock City are able to support our year-round cultural work.
A call for your support, this post shares more about our finances, and builds on my prior communications about what’s happening in the world with Burning Man (8/18) and our current financial situation (10/3). The financial information I reference throughout this post is available in full detail here. As I previously shared, the big revenue shortfall causing today’s cash crunch is primarily from 2024 Black Rock City higher-priced tickets not selling as planned. This $5.7M shortfall, combined with a $3M dip in receipts from main-sale tickets and vehicle passes, means that our year-end charitable donation target has essentially doubled to nearly $20M. This needs to happen before 2025 ticket sales and our annual revenue cycle begins in January.
The Pilgrims are none too happy about any of it. They all say BMP should stick to putting on an annual desert hedonism they can enjoy and stop spending money on artsy fartsy educational stuff. The San Francisco Standard summarizes their social media comments and pretty much all of them are blaming BMP’s expansion into other educational and artistic activities.
Across hundreds of blog comments and social media posts, Burners pilloried the organization for what they fear is excessive spending and an undue expansion beyond the original weeklong event in the Nevada desert. Instead of a rallying cry, the plea for donations spurred frustration. . . Over the years, expenses associated with civic engagement and non-Black Rock City programs have increased, as have management, administrative, and fundraising costs. In 2014, those categories comprised roughly 17% of total expenses at $5.3 million; in 2023, they were 25% at $16 million, according to the organization’s financial report. Meanwhile, Black Rock City costs for toilets, medical resources, communications, and government fees increased from $23.3 million to $43.8 million.
BMP’s charitable purpose is said to revolve around The 10 Principles of Burning Man. Reading those principles will provide no exempt purpose enlightenment, nor does BMP’s Mission Statement provide a clue: “The mission of Burning Man Project is to facilitate and extend the culture that has issued from the Burning Man event into the larger world.” I said a year ago that Burning Man Project hardly seems religious or even educational enough to be tax exempt. But, well, it still is officially tax exempt. More power to them.
I am just here to crow about being right for once. Because in a remarkably Freudian moment, the Burning Man Festival Director said this about BMP’s purpose just a few days ago:
In some respects, the current money challenges are predictable growing pains rooted in our transition from an event production company with a nonprofit side-hustle to an arts and culture nonprofit that also performs the annual magic trick that is Black Rock City. We are taking a cue from other cultural nonprofits, such as orchestras and theater companies, and swinging the finance needle away from ticket sales and deeper into philanthropic support now and into the future.
Didn’t I tell you? BMP might be on its way to an organization with a bona fide exempt purpose and that might be why it finds itself in dire financial straits. Charities have to spend money on artsy fartsy things first and throw parties in the desert second if they really want to be tax exempt. It sounds like BMP might honestly be seeking to be “cultural,” though I am still not sure how being “cultural” – in the sense of everybody gettin’ high and partying nekkid in the desert — qualifies as a exempt purpose. If the figures quoted above are correct, BMP is still spending barely 25% on artsy fartsy stuff. That means 75% is spent on the desert party and I still don’t understand what makes that tax-exempt.
Burning Man Project still looks like “an event production company with a nonprofit side hustle.”
darryll k. jones