John,

The National Rifle Association’s finances are in freefall. It recently sold off more than half of its investments, liquidating a total of $45 million. What happened? Years of corruption and mismanagement have taken their toll—and CREW has been at the forefront of exposing it all.

We obtained an audit and tax filing that showed the NRA’s already plummeting revenues reached a new stunning low. Last year, we reported the group’s income from members had already fallen in 2022 to depths not seen since at least the early 2000s, which is the furthest back we are able to track.

The new audit, completed in July 2024, shows the NRA’s total revenue from members in 2023 fell to $61.8 million, a fraction of the nearly $223 million the group brought in from members a decade before in 2013.

John, to put it simply, the NRA’s overall income—not just from members, but from all sources—is so low that it amounts to less than what it brought in just from members in four of the previous ten years.

From uncovering legal fees to investigating questionable financial practices, our work has helped reveal the cracks in the NRA’s foundation. But this isn’t just about one organization. It’s about holding powerful institutions accountable for unethical behavior and ensuring they answer to the public, not special interests.

Looking back to 2004, CREW could not find a single year when the NRA’s reported income from dues fell below $100 million, except for 2022 and, now, 2023.

While data for 2024 is not yet available, a note in the audit hints at a developing financial crisis at the organization this year.

The crisis is brewing because the financial strains the NRA faces aren’t just on the revenue side. On the spending side, the organization is still bleeding money in legal fees. Of the more than $214 million the organization spent in 2023, $43.1 million—or more than 20 percent—was devoted to “legal, audit, and taxes.” That’s a roughly ten-fold increase over the legal outlays the group reported in 2017, for example, when it spent just $4.3 million.

And despite the financial woes, the new tax filing shows that, in 2023—his final year running the organization—the NRA’s Executive Vice President Wayne LaPierre pulled in a $1.2 million salary, consistent with recent years’ filings.

John, CREW has a long history of fighting for accountability for the NRA. In 2020, we filed a complaint against the NRA with the Internal Revenue Service asking the agency to investigate whether the group violated its tax-exempt status by making payments for the private benefit of its Executive Vice President, Wayne LaPierre, and his family. Before that, we filed IRS and FEC complaints based on the NRA’s tens of millions of dollars in illegal, undisclosed political spending.

Thank you for standing with us in this fight,

CREW HQ