Nominated for the NRA Board (again)

What is the over/under on how long my nomination is considered?

I am still the only unelected candidate from the 2022 election cycle, and I stand ready to fill any board vacancy. I plan to attend the September Board committee and Board meeting in Tyson Corner, VA, this September.

Several NRA members nominated me to serve on the NRA Board for the 2023 election cycle. I am honored to be considered and will submit my paperwork today. Note that this is the third consecutive year I have been nominated. I was rejected for the past two years by the Nominating committee.

The paperwork for a nominee requires the usual biographic and demographic information for a board candidate. The About page has a good summary of what I submitted for those questions.

There are a couple of questions and my answers that are worth sharing here.

Potential as an NRA Director

1. What do you see as NRA’s major challenges? (list in order)

   1. Reinvigorate membership

      1. With all of the new gun owners in the country over the past several years and the Bruen decision moving the may issue states to shall issue, NRA membership should be increasing, not decreasing. Membership will not increase until there is transparency and accountability and the NRA gets back to providing service to members.

   2. Evolve to the 21st century - move away from 19th-century publisher strategy

      1. While the NRA publications are important to members, the publication-centric mindset on service to members needs to evolve. the untapped potential members need an information-age-centric model where communications are valued. Fundraising communications dominate the channel and cause members to tune out or turn off.

   3. Board to implement cost-benefit-based risk management

      1. Tens of millions of dollars of members’ money are spent (wasted) on legal strategies with limited, if any, potential for success (for example, the Chris Cox litigation spending $6M to defend a $2M matter). The Board needs to mitigate the “whatever it takes” legal spending and stop rubber-stamping prolificate spending

   4. Refocus the board’s efforts on strategy and policy

      1. Outside of the excellent work by the ILA, there is little strategy discussed in any of the committee or board meetings over the past three years. All of the time is spent on tactical matters or watching the show-and-tell reports by management and staff. Board time is valuable and should be spent on strategy and policy.

2. How can you use your talent and experience to help the NRA attain NRA goals and objectives?

   1. Too many on the NRA Board have a “go along to get along” approach. Boards need dissenting opinions and rigorous debate to execute their fiduciary responsibilities properly. Rather than being castigated as “the enemy within,” the board needs to acknowledge that there are real issues with declining membership, declining revenue, declining confidence in management and the board, and the tunnel vision of the ongoing litigation to the detriment of the membership. I stand ready to serve as that foil.

3. Please make any additional comments

   1. From the board and committee meetings I attended, the board operates as a house of representatives, not a governing board. The board's valuable time is consumed with tactical activities to the detriment of strategy. The board has created an echo chamber where needed differing opinions and rigorous debate are silenced.

      There needs to be a clear strategic plan that identifies and focuses on the NRA's distinctive competencies & focuses on the assets of the organization for the benefit of the members.

      There need to be term limits and succession planning for the board and management. The board is focused on representing constituencies and, quite frankly, name recognition rather than building a board with the needed skills and experiences to govern the organization.

      The board needs to refocus the organization on serving the membership, determining and focusing on what "only the NRA can do," and partnering/collaborating with other organizations, particularly those at the state level. The lack of coordination hurts our members.

I’ll post updates as they are available.