Fund Raising

[tornado]

We all know that Bradley has suffered thru several consecutive bad seasons with the loss of a lot of season ticket holders, ticket buyers, and donations...
PLUS a number of HUGE donations like the Puterbaugh $3 million donation, Hersey Hawkins' big time support, and Robert Turner's $10 million pledge were all sent packing by Joanne Glasser who ran out anyone and everyone she felt threatened by.
And as a private school, we can't tap into the pockets of the taxpayers and pad the Athletic Department's budget with student fees and state money...

The result is that Bradley's Athletic budget is a little cash strapped.
I think they do great with what they have but 5 or 6 consecutive sub-par years on funds has hurt our program,our Athletic & recruiting budget, the ability to offer the extras that the big schools do, and the ability to compete with bigger programs.

So - for anyone who is reading this...(and I know hundreds of Bradley fans read every day)
we need to keep supporting and give more if at all possible...
These guys are 100% committed to winning and we're gonna get there this year.
We just need for all the fans to make the commitment to get this program back to national prominence - and right now, I don't see anyone in the MVC who has any better shot at it THIS SEASON than we do!

Go Braves! and Support our team!

[tornado]

...
PLUS a number of HUGE donations like the Puterbaugh $3 million donation, Hersey Hawkins' big time support, and Robert Turner's $10 million pledge were all sent packing by Joanne Glasser who ran out anyone and everyone she felt threatened by....

wonder if anyone else heard the discussion on one of our local talk radio programs this morning in Peoria...
Here's how it went - this is NOT my story nor my opinion - just relating how the conversation went....

a couple of knowledgeable long-time Peorians & Bradley supporters were discussing the potential reinstatement of Squeaky Melchiorre - and one of them detailed a meeting between Joanne Glasser & a couple of the biggest names & wealthiest people in our community (Maloof & Vonachen) -- about a decade ago - who were trying to personally persuade Glasser - and they were both so offended by her attitude and were insulted that they weren't given the time of day - that they "wrote Bradley out of their wills" which resulted in mega-donation losses for Bradley.
That is interesting - because I have heard that one of the reasons for Glasser's decision to ban Squeaky was she feared the loss of revenue from donors who would pull their donations - and yet it seems that it worked exactly the opposite.

[Wilbery]

Wait Glasser scared away another 10 million from the Turners after they already gave us 7!?!? All those other donations lost are just a complete shames.


Do you know if fundraising for either sports or the University in general has gotten better under Roberts and Reynolds?

[Da Coach]

I haven't seen any reports that suggest an uptick in donations yet, after the huge drops in the final few years of the Glasser regime.
Maybe they have, but at least the hemorrhaging has stopped.

[tornado]

Wait Glasser scared away another 10 million from the Turners ...?

well, the amount of money Glasser cost Bradley will never really be known and the PJS sure won't ever mention it since they were wrapped around her little finger...

Robert Turner quit as Board President over the refusal by Joanne Glasser to be accountable for the huge Bradley financial losses. He had just made a multimillion dollar pledge after already giving $3 million...

http://bradleyfans.com/vb/showthread.php?t=24245

Puterbaugh yanked his $3 million gift over the Glasser decision to fire JL

Others such as Hersey Hawkins, Brian McGough, the Vonachens, McCords, Maloof, and then dozens of members of the Braves Scholarship Society (all giving $20-50K per year) dropped out.

Then add the losses from the multimillion $$ lawsuits, buyouts, and payments made to get rid of the whole corrupt gang & finally hire ethical people like Dr. Reynolds & our new coaches...plus the lost revenue from the massively shrunken attendance & fanbase plus wasteful overspending...

and thus........the total amount of lost revenue directly attributable to Joanne herself could be in the $40+ million range!!
Think about that - think where we'd be if not for those losses!!


The budget issues were completely IN HER CONTROL and were 100% a result of her mismanagement of everything, especially the Athletic Department! - and it all happened right under her nose even while many people and like a few brave members of the Board were questioning what she was doing!

Sadly, the truth will never be fully and widely known as the PJStar has covered for Joanne from Day 1 and never reported the facts that have been reported here and fully documented... There exist documents and reports detailing all of this, and it is provable.

Remember - it was the release and revealing of this very info that swayed the Board members in late 2014 and finally got the Board to move to fire them all and clean house.

[Da Coach]

There are also copies of the "Bradley University Resources Committee Report to Senate", dated April 17, 2014 floating around, which at the time documented massive financial net losses at Bradley of around $6 million yearly by the athletic department alone (almost $20 million total net losses in just a 3 year span from 2012-2014). This was supposed to be kept confidential, but there were a few honest and responsible people who did not want to allow this malfeasance and corruption to be swept further under the rug. I posted some pages from that report here on Bradleyfans back in 2014, and was threatened with legal action by a pompous Bradley representative if I did not remove it. But it did help lead to the actions by the Board of Trustees that began shortly after that report.

Here was one of the pages from that report that I was threatened over. It shows that athletic department incoming revenue (green bar) stayed relatively stable between 2007 (when Glasser took over) and 2014, however, athletic department expenses/losses (black bar) soared to almost double what they were (nearly $10 million per year by 2014!). The net result was overall net losses in the athletic department reaching $6 million dollars per year for 2012, 2013, and 2014.



And this graph shows that most of the financial losses at Bradley could be accounted for by the wasteful overspending in the athletic department under Glaser/Cross. Needless to say, this outraged every other department which were being punished by having their budgets cut, and being asked to cut back on hiring, spending, etc. to compensate for the losses-




I will also say that one of the key members of the Bradley Board of Trustees sought me out after the change in Presidents, and thanked me for allowing and encouraging the fans and alumni to speak freely on the BradleyFans message board, and said the sentiments voiced publicly here and in letters to the editor of the newspaper were crucial factors in getting the Board of Trustees (comprised mostly of strong supporters of Ms. Glasser) to finally move to replace her, the AD, and the coach, and begin a search for their replacements.
There is so much more to this whole story that is known only to a handful of people, because the local media was so derelict in reporting and investigating it. But perhaps it is better to stay under wraps now.

PS- if this post disappears or the images disappear, it's because there are still some people who do not want this information made public.

[tornado]

T... financial net losses at Bradley of around $6 million yearly by the athletic department alone...

you are using figures that were later found to have understated the losses

the real figure for losses in the Athletic Dept were over $7 million!!

http://bradleyfans.com/vb/showthread.php?p=305298#post305298

http://bradleyfans.com/vb/showthread.php?p=302403#post302403

http://bradleyfans.com/vb/showthread.php?p=295963#post295963

[algotrader]

Glasser sucked but how long are we going to cling to complaining about her? Look forward not backward.

Just overall I get really bored with hearing about the finances of schools. Sometimes I feel like every other thread is complaining about some school's finances. I really just do not care that much? I would like to hear about more basketball and recruiting. Bradley fundraising is fine but financial accounting is a subject that almost gets more attention than the team. But hey what do I know?

[tornado]

hey- check back - this is the first time I have mentioned JG in a month...I think that's doing pretty well

[tornado]

Glasser sucked but how long are we going to cling to complaining about her? Look forward not backward....

We must study and remember the past.
Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.
Those who fail to learn from the mistakes of their predecessors are destined to repeat them.
-- George Santayana

[tornado]

Here's an odd lawsuit

University of Chicago is suing the generous Thomas L. Pearson & Family Foundation ...

The University is suing them for not donating enough money even tho they have already donated $23 million

http://www.pjstar.com/news/20180409/university-of-chicago-countersues-over-withdrawn-100m-gift

wow- I sure as heck would be darned careful ever making a pledge to a University if they sue you for not giving as much as they wanted.