Now first

Recently, TrentonKat spent some time musing about the differences between Trenton Mayor Douglas H. Palmer and Newark Mayor Corey Booker. In last Saturday’s post, she included a link to Mayor Booker’s Newark Now initiative.

A link! To a functioning website! Can you imagine?

Trenton First doesn’t have one of those website things. Guess that’s something they are not spending money on.

After posting yesterday about the somewhat askew operating ratios for Trenton First, we decided to look up Newark Now on the state charities website. We wanted to see what kind of ratios they operate under. We were at first a little saddened, it seems that the latest report available online is for 2007.

Still we went ahead and checked out the numbers.

Newark Now reported revenue of $2,750,549.00 that year. That is more than 60 times the revenue of Trenton First, but of course, Newark is a larger city.

Reported expenses for the year were $2,314,555.00 or 50 times that of Trenton First. In addition, Newark Now appears to have held more than $400,000 (about 15% of its revenue) in reserve.

Trenton First spent every dime it took in, and then a little more.

How did the money Newark Now spend break down?

Over $1.8 million (78%) was spent on programming.

Only 7% ($150,526.00) was spent on management. Newark Now has full time, paid staff, a building, equipment, etc. Trenton First has none of that and spent 20% of its money on management expenses.

Fundraising costs were 15% of Newark Now’s operating budget as opposed to Trenton First’s 68%

Oh, and for the record, Newark Now states on its website that it was founded in 2002. Mayor Palmer’s Trenton First Initiative (full legal name) was filed in July of 1994.

Still think contributing to Trenton First is a good idea?