History of the NABC's $700,000 debt - UPDATE February 3, 2010
February 3, 2010 - 8:46 PM CST
For nearly 24 hours, loyal ‘Lily Fans’ hung in there through persistent technical difficulties—and even named the endlessly spinning circle that replaced the usual video feed ‘Ringo’. The Wild Earth team worked heroically to pinpoint the problem and re-route the signal around the troublesome area. Lily is temporarily travelling from Minnesota to South Africa and back to a server in Virginia—all without leaving her den! During a brief period last night when the signal was working, loyal viewers were rewarded with the best look to date of the cub and captured it on video for all to see. These sightings will become more and more frequent as the days go by.
Recently we received good questions about how the North American Bear Center could obtain such a huge loan. I decided to tackle that question as the treasurer, the webmaster, and one of the biologists. Those of us involved with the Bear Center wear many hats!
The questioners are right to wonder. Despite an initial half-million in donations, so much more money was needed to build the Bear Center that no bank would consider a loan to finance the dream. The Bear Center had no track record, no income, and no collateral. However, Lynn Rogers believed in the dream, and his wife, Donna, knew how much building the Bear Center meant to Lynn. Together they took what many would consider a crazy risk. They mortgaged their property and depleted their savings to give the Bear Center an unsecured loan of $1,145,000. Each month the Bear Center pays interest on the loan to the Rogers and they in turn pay back the bank. The Bear Center is relying on donations to bring down the principle and decrease the interest payments.
Lynn Rogers has dedicated his life to learning about bears and passing that knowledge on to the scientific community and the public. He is 70 and wanted to move ahead with building the Bear Center before it was too late. The small group of ‘believers’ in the dream grew. People came forward to donate time and materials in an effort to keep the loan down as much as possible. Most of the current staff still donate much of their time. Lynn is a total volunteer and spends most of his time doing one thing or another to make the Bear Center a success. And well he should—if the Bear Center fails, Lynn and Donna Rogers fail financially. They and the rest of us are trying hard to reduce their loan. An angel of a donor gave $350,000, bringing the loan down to the present $700,000. Lily’s fans have helped by donating nearly $50,000 to date. The Bear Center is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization focusing on education and all donations are tax deductible.
The Wildlife Research Institute (WRI) is a separate nonprofit organization. Its focus is research. Like the North American Bear Center, it receives no government money. It’s funded almost entirely by the Black Bear Field Courses it runs each year. The money funds the research operations and hopefully will grow into an endowment to help the organization continue after Lynn dies—that eventuality none of us wants to think about.
The WRI’s research is the kind of long-term behavioral and ecological study seldom attempted by graduate students or government agencies. Most research by state wildlife agencies has more to do with regulating bear hunting than learning about the lives of bears. WRI’s research is unique. No one else does bear research based on trust. The result is unprecedented insights into how bears live. This research is the source of most of the knowledge about bear life. The results are contrary to the many misconceptions put forth by the media and many wildlife professionals. So much of the accepted ‘knowledge’ about black bears has no scientific basis. The continuing research is replacing misconceptions with scientific facts about how black bears live, how they relate to people, and how people can most effectively prevent bear-human conflict.
—Sue Mansfield, North American Bear Center