Riderchick: notes on what MSF history is and isn’t

How I found out and confirmed its tax status—and MSF’s action to disguise

I had discovered MSF’s tax status through the IRS shortly before the historic interview with most of MSF’s staff in August of 2004. At the end of the interview, as we were walking out together, I casually asked Tim Buche, the president of MSF, if MSF was a 501 (c) 3—a charitable education and/or safety organization or some other category. He hesitated then said it was a 501 (c) 3. I asked him if he was sure. He hesitated again and affirmed it—it was a 501 (c) 3. I decided not to push it at that time as I assumed he had misspoken. It had been a four hour interview, after all, and we all were tired and, while I thought it was curious, I didn’t see any percentage at that point to open up another issue as we were leaving.

I went home and transcribed the interview and began to put together the article for MCN. And I also began to verify what MSF employees had said through checking documents and contacting other sources. Time and time again, what had been said or insinuated by an employee of MSF didn’t measure up to the facts—or logic. Still Dave Searle and Fred Rau had originally decided to present MSF’s side in the trouble in training and so that’s how I wrote first the article.

Now Tim had asked me to send me the article for him to look over it. That is a violation of journalistic principles and yet, in an effort to show our peaceful intention, we from MCN had agreed I would do that. And I did and sent a version that pointed out where all the contradictions were to MCN at the same time. While Tim (and whoever) was looking over the article, so were Dave and Fred as well.

Tim called me about the article and was on speaker phone—though he didn’t tell me who else was in the room. I recorded that conversation with his permission. He liked the article (the one that was only from MSF’s pov) and asked me to makes some changes. Most of the changes were things that could be construed by readers as confirming industry’s role in controlling MSF. He also asked me not to include some things at all—of which one was a very sexist remark. He said his wife would get very offended if he had said that and so please change it. Maybe his wife would—but so would a lot of women (and maybe a few men) if it had been published.

Towards the end of the conversation, I asked Buche again—as if I had forgotten what he said—what kind of non-profit MSF was. I was trying to give him a chance to correct himself, give him the benefit of a doubt. He again said it was a 501 (c) 3. I asked him if he was sure it wasn’t a 501 (c) 6. He immediately found a reason why his attention was needed elsewhere for a moment and he put me on hold. He then came back and said that he had made a mistake—it was the National Motorcycle Safety Fund that was the 501 (c) 3 and not the MSF. And that was a real turning point for me because I knew what NMSF was—and how much it earned already.

NMSF was created decades ago as a way that non-motorcycle manufacturers could donate money (or products) to the cause—though not to MSF itself. And very little is donated—in 2007, for example, total revenues were under $30,000. Almost nothing happens with NMSF in any year. In 2003 and 2004, for example, helmet manufacturers had made irregular helmets (safe but not pretty) available for a mere $10 each to training programs—and it was channeled through NMSF. In 2007, they had about half the revenue left over at the end of the year—that’s how busy it is now—and was back in 2004.

Otoh and for example, MSF’s total revenue in 2007 was over $11,809,185 (of which almost $8 millon were earned through offering rider training and just over $3 million was donated by the manufacturer members). And I knew about how wildly different the revenue and activities were.

Now, if you want to believe that Buche could get a tiny, basically non-active excuse of a fund mixed up with a multi-million dollar trade organization that we had been intensively discussing for hours—well…can I interest you in buying my shares of Enron?

The only public references to MSF’s trade group tax status

The only reference I have been able to find to MSF’s true status—that of a 501 (c) 6 trade organization appeared in the September, 1988 issue of Motorcycle Product News in an article, “Interview with Alan Isley, On Trade Associations”. Isley states, “All of the associations are “not for profit” national trade associations; but they represent slightly different membership within the general motorcycle/ATV business.”

At any rate, shortly after that phone conversation with Buche where he finally had to admit it was a trade group, he went to the Motorcycle Riders Foundation Meeting of the Minds in St. Louis. In the talking points that Buche distributed to participants—and for the first time ever—MSF included what the tax status. Just slipped it in after “non-profit”. They have not done so again.