Staying Fit
In an effort to describe the numbers in the consolidated financial form a little further, you can check out AARP’s complete financial statement audited by KPMG by clicking here, or you can see the breakdown below.
The flow chart is a simplification of the full audited statement available at the link above. To provide some context, we’ve broken out one of AARP’s larger expenses to give you a better idea how we use our resources.
2009 Community Benefits - $251 million
AARP has offices in all 50 states, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands. To keep them running, excluding any advocacy/legislation expenses (which AARP counts under a different category) in 2009 cost $68 million.
Also, AARP runs several programs across the country such as our Driver Safety Program to help people be safer on the road – and get a discount off their insurance if they complete the course. We also sponsor projects like Divided We Fail, an effort with Business Roundtable, the National Federation of Independent Business and the SEIU, that was created to try and bring people and groups with opposing view points together for a constructive discussion on the crises that face our nation. Included in this line-item are also numerous events AARP hosts and sponsors around the country, from career fairs to seminars. In 2009 this cost $55 million.
AARP Foundation runs several programs for people 50-plus (member and non-member alike) such as the AARP Foundation Litigation (AFL) team – a group dedicated to protecting older consumers and making sure older Americans are not discriminated against at their jobs or in their communities. Also, Foundation runs a program called Tax-Aide which helps millions of people file their taxes for free and ensure they do it correctly – and get whatever rebate they can. There’s a lot more included here, such as AARP Foundation’s work on SCSEP, a program that helps us train people to re-enter the workforce, but all of it together in 2009 cost $128 million. This number does not include the cost of fundraising – it’s just what we spend on the programs.
So, as you can see, AARP does quite a bit with what we have – and we try to do as much as possible every day. You can check for yourself how AARP spends its resources at www.aarp.org/checkforyourself. We encourage you to go there and see the full financial reports, but we thought this would be a helpful snapshot of one line item.
