Report of the OAH Treasurer

Gale E. Peterson

In the fiscal year ending 30 June 2002, the Organization of American His torians obtained better financial results than it has for some time. As shown in Table 1 (in Adobe PDF) on this page, the budgetary surplus amounted to $124,000 when only a break-even budget had been projected and following a $22,000 deficit the previous year.

Even better, the good news was spread across a variety of categories:

• Institutional membership income was $17,000 above the previous year. While there continues to be a gradual reduction in the number of institutional subscribers, a revised fee structure implemented over the previous year, charges higher rates to large, research institutions than, for example, small public libraries. This innovation became necessary when the Journal of American History became widely available online through the History Cooperative and is generating greater revenue.
• Individual membership income increased $32,000 above the previous year, returning, and slightly exceeding, the amount obtained in fiscal 2000.
• Advertising has shown impressive growth over the past three years, fueled in large measure by increased annual meeting program advertising. Looking at the category as a whole, there has been a 50 percent increase in advertising revenues, from $147,051 in 2000 to $211,514 in 2002.
• The joint annual meeting in Washington, D.C., with the National Council on Public History enjoyed high registrations, as full an exhibition hall as the hotel's space permitted, and several sponsors for special events. Even though expenses came in $27,000 above budgeted levels (largely because of the growing cost of audio-visual and computer-projector fees), the $97,000 net income from the annual meeting was $20,000 above the budgeted figure.
  
• Finally, attention should be given to income earned from special grants and collaborative projects, a category of increasing significance to the OAH's operating budget. Over the past several years, the OAH has obtained several contracts from the National Park Service to plan conferences or to bring historians to park sites where they look at the interpretive program, meet with park service staff, and suggest approaches by which current scholarship can be incorporated into programs. While a valuable effort in its own right, as it brings academic and public historians together in a collaborative effort, in 2002 the OAH earned nearly $40,000 above expenses from these contracts.

A less bright aspect of the OAH's financial picture in 2002 was its investment portfolio. Like everywhere else, the market value of the OAH's investments declined. In looking at the changes in value reported in Table 4 (in Adobe PDF), it should be kept in mind, however, that a substantial amount of income was transferred into operations during the year. The transfers included $68,789 from the General Endowment Fund ($20,000 of which supported a portion of the costs of studying the feasibility of a capital fund-raising campaign tied to the OAH's centennial in 2007), $28,315 from the Fund for American History, and $14,726 from the Prize Fund.

During the past year the executive board's Investment Committee worked with the staff in evaluating the performance of the bank that has long managed the organization's portfolio. No longer the National Bank of Commerce, the Lincoln, Nebraska bank, where William D. Aeschbacher (acting as the Mississippi Valley Historical Association's Secretary-Treasurer) first opened up a 'rainy day' fund, is now a Wells Fargo bank. While comfortable with the quality of the investment advice and performance of the bank, in April the board approved a major change in its investments. Instead of owning a variety of individual stocks and bonds, the OAH has moved its portfolio into a variety of mutual funds that will give it much broader exposure to the stock and bond markets. This approach should both minimize risk and benefit the performance of its investments in the future.

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