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Part One of Two

I first became familiar with Steeltown Entertainment due to their involvement with a documentary about Jonas Salk’s development of the polio vaccine.  The documentary has two titles and two different release years, The Shot Felt ‘Round the World (2010) and A Shot to Save the World (2013).  I was at the premiere event at the Regent Square Theater in 2010.  When Jonas Salk’s son, Peter appears on screen and shares that his dad’s reply to “You’re going to make so much money!” was “No, I won’t. This vaccine is like the sun.  It belongs to everybody,” I had tears in my eyes.  When I watched the documentary a few years later, I had tears once again when Peter Salk shared that story.

A person connected to Steeltown was given a producer credit.  As it turns out, another one of the producers was married to the director.  That producer happened to be a family friend of clients of mine.  

I would tell anybody who would listen about this great documentary but nobody had seen it or heard of it.  Steeltown had an office literally 4 ½ blocks from my office.  I would call on occasion to ask about distribution of this important documentary.  The answer I received each time I called was that “…DVD sales are strong on the West Coast.”

Steeltown had come to Pittsburgh with this stated objective: “To creative a vibrant, responsible, and sustainable film and digital media sector in Southwestern Pennsylvania.”

That objective comes from the organization’s IRS Form 990.  This is the document nonprofits must file with the IRS to show revenue, grants received and given, salaries, and other entity expenses.  One of my clients is a CPA and introduced me to Guidestar, a website that records the 990 filings of the nonprofit world.

I teach a unique writing class.  It’s unique because it focuses on the cathartic and ancillary benefits of writing.  A few years after seeing the documentary, my writing class really came together.  I decided—based on Steeltown’s objective and the documentary—that I needed to explore working with the group.  

It took a few more phone calls before I was put in contact with two different employees of the nonprofit.  Each time I tried to set up a meeting at their office or my office—or someplace in the middle of the 4 ½ blocks that separated us, the employees shared with me just how busy they were.  

The “Busy Act” went on for about one year.  There never was a meeting.  At one point, I met a young filmmaker who told me there were odd things happening at Steeltown Entertainment.  When it was announced they were closing their South Side office and relocating to WQED Studios, I decided to look into the “odd” happenings.

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The IRS Form 990s for Steeltown from 2016 to 2018 were available on Guidestar.  Each form lists the previous year’s financials.  Here are the numbers you want to see:

	Total Revenue	Grants Given	Salaries	Other Salaries*
2015	1,016,023	0	774,267	N/A
2016	1,323,096	0	1,249,541	1,099,542
2017	1,174,075	0	838,906	596,137
2018	317,147	0	497,138	402,138

*From Part IX (a) Line 7 of the 990. Year 2015 not available.

Steeltown was a nonprofit in name only (NINO).  Most of the revenue they received from grants, donations and limited programming went to a few people in the form of salaries and benefits.  The entity gave no grants to people—young or old—interested in filmmaking. 

When I look at the revenue for 2018, I tend to think that others knew what was going on at the group.  Possible reason for the drop in revenue.  But that didn’t stop a few people at the NINO from overpaying themselves.

The point to this essay is that you need to be careful when donating money to a group you think is doing good.  NINOs have fooled many people, foundations, and other nonprofits for many years.

I know a person who is involved with two nonprofits.  He takes a salary from neither.  He has stated to me that if you’re running a nonprofit the maximum salary you should be taking is $100,000.

Not all is bad news.  Steeltown was responsible for one important development.  That development will be shared in Part Two of “Whatever Happened to ‘Stealtown’ Entertainment?”