The mood at the Jimmy Miller Memorial Foundation’s Benefiesta fundraiser on September 6 at a large Strand home in Manhattan Beach was, as its names suggested, festive. The Aqualillies performed a dazzling synchronized swimming routine in the rooftop pool. Then alternative rock band Everclear played a set, followed by JMMF volunteer Peff Eick and his guitar teacher Pat Dietz.
Eick is a local Realtor with no experience performing before large crowds, except for the the previous evening when he did a duet at the Greek Theater with headliner and former pro surfer Jack Johnson. Eick owns a house on the North Shore of Hawaii, next door to the Johnson family’s home.
“This is the man who taught me to play guitar and we’re going to play the first song he taught me,” Johnson said as he welcomed Eick to the Greek Theater stage. The song was Jimmy Buffett’s “A Pirate Looks at 40.” At the Benefiesta, Eick and Dietz performed the equally melancholic, though more appropriate “Sons and Daughters.” Eick wrote the song in tribute to the Wounded Warrior Battalion at the Camp Pendleton Marine base.
The Jimmy Miller Memorial Foundation offers ocean therapy to wounded Marines twice a month at Camp Pendleton. The song describes the work Eick, who served two tours in Vietnam, and the other volunteers do with the Marines.
We ride some waves
We talk some stories
Put combat out of their heads
If just for a few hours
We can help them to deal
With the dreams, the fight and the dead.
After the food, drink and music, Colonel Gregory Martin, the first commander of the the Wounded Warrior Battalion at Camp Pendleton, expressed his appreciation to the Jimmy Miller Memorial Foundation and it supporters. Also expressing their appreciation were representatives from the the Richstone Family Center and the Hollygrove and Hillside children centers. The JMMF offers monthly surf lessons and counseling in El Porto to the centers’ at risk children. The evening raised over $125,000.
The following week, when the evening’s afterglow should have been at its brightest, it was all but extinguished. A press release from the U.S. Justice Department announced that Jim Miller had been indicted for embezzlement.
Miller, along with his wife Nancy, son Jeff and several of their oldest son Jimmy’s close friends founded the Jimmy Miller Foundation in 2006 after Jimmy committed suicide, at age 34. Jimmy had been a Los Angeles County Lifeguard and surf camp owner and was struggling with depression.
Following the indictments, Jim Miller proclaimed his innocence and turned down a plea bargain that would spared him the threat of prison. The charges related to an internet company Miller had helped found and was the president of.
The Jimmy Miller Memorial Foundation was not mentioned in the indictment. Nonetheless, questions arose among the tightly knit surf community about the integrity of the foundation’s finances.
The foundation responded, on its website, that Jim Miller had resigned from the JMMF board of directors and that his indictment would not affect the foundation’s work. As further reassurance, the foundation announced that it would publish its forthcoming financial audit on its website.
The foundation’s directors had contracted for an independent financial audit last January, several months prior the the Justice Department press release.
“We asked for the audit because the foundation was growing. We were beginning to solicit grants that require independent audits,” Chris Brown, a JMMF founding board member said.
The audit was completed last week and posted on the JMMF web site.
It was conducted by Tayiika Dennis, a certified public accountant who specializes in non profits at the Beverly Hills firm of NSBN.
“Overall, it’s a fairly lean and mean organization. The standard for small nonprofits is to have 75 percent of the budget going to programs, 15 percent to administration and 10 percent to fundraising. None of their numbers were out of line,” Dennis said.
The audits show the following revenues and expenses over the past four years.
Year Revenue Expenses
2010 $81,000 $104,000
2011 $91,000 $123,000
2012 $254,000 $197,000
2013 $141,000 $150,000
The jump in 2012 revenue is attributed to the first Benefiesta, whose celebrity guests included Navy Seal and “Act of Valor” star Rorke Denver, ocean explorer Jean-Michel Cousteau and waterman Laird Hamilton. The evening raised $130,000.
There was no comparable fundraiser in 2013. But the foundation did receive a $42,000 grant in 2013 from United Health Care Services for work with the Wounded Warriors Battalion.
The largest expense each year, according to the audit, is for “therapeutic services.” They account for about 75 percent of the budget.
According to Dennis, about 60 percent of the therapeutic services budget is paid to Carly Rogers, a JMMF board member, is a licensed, occupational therapist and former Los Angeles County Lifeguard. The JMMF ocean therapy program is based on Rogers’ USC master thesis on ocean therapy and her subsequent, published research on the subject.
Most of the rest of the therapeutic service budget goes to surf instructors and safety coordinators, Dennis said.
General and Administrative expenses range from $12,000 to $15,000 annually and go largely to advertising and printing. The foundation has no paid staff, Dennis said.
The financial statements list loans from directors, ranging roughly from $7,000 to $20,000. Dennis said the loans were from multiple directors and used to tide over the foundation during cash flow crunches.
Brown said he hoped the audit would put to rest concerns raised by Jim Miller’s indictment, about the foundation’s finances.
“We go to Pendleton twice a month and help at risk kids twice a month. I can’t think of an organization that does more with less,” Brown said. ER
