How Revenue is Spent at the Conservative Partnership Institute(2023)

The Conservative Partnership Institute (CPI) is a tax-exempt, no-profit organization based in Washington, DC that provides assistance in the form of staffing, education, training, incubation, and coalition building for congressional offices and conservative groups.

Formed in 2017, CPI has 7 voting members on its governing board, 4 of whom are independent.

From 2017-2020, CPI was a very small non-profit that raised $2-$6 million annually. In 2021-2022, revenue jumped to $46 million and $36 million, respectively primarily because of an increase in contributions. But expenses did not increase in accordance with revenue as CPI also appears to be focused on saving (at year-end 2022, CPI had $43 million in net assets meaning they did not spend all the revenue they received).

In 2023, revenue dropped by 47% and was reported to be $19 million, which primarily came from contributions, gifts, and grants.

Expenses were $21 million and can be categorized as follows:

• $5 million (26% of revenue):  Compensation
• $4 million (21% of revenue):  Office-Related Expenses
• $4 million (21% of revenue):  Fees for Services
• $3 million (16% of revenue):  Grants
• $2 million (11% of revenue):  Travel and Conferences
• $1 million (5% of revenue):  Advertising and Promotion
• $2 million (11% of revenue):  Other Expenses (i.e. interest, etc)

As illustrated above, the 4 largest expenses for CPI include compensation ($5 million) for the 30 employees, office-related expenses ($4 million), fees for outside services by non-employees ($4 million), and grants ($3 million) which included 11 grants greater than $5,000 to 11 organizations (10 of which were tax exempt, non profits) with the stated purpose “mission and program support,” with the 4 largest grants made to:

• $880,005:  Personnel Policy Organization, Inc, of Washington, DC
• $795,000:  FAIR Elections Fund, of Washington, DC
• $568,500  :  State Freedom Caucus Foundation, of Washington, DC
• $330,000:  Virginia Institute for Public Policy, of Lexington, VA

The most highly compensated employee was James DeMin, the Chairman who received $625,461 followed by Mark Meadows, the senior partner of the organization (that happens to be a corporation) who received $587,531 in 2023.

It is also interesting to note that $2 million was spent on travel and conferences, conventions and meetings, which is a significant sum for a small non-profit.

Using the above information every $100 in revenue was used as f0llows:

$100:  Revenue

-$ 26:  Compensation

-$ 21:  Office-Related Expenses

-$ 21:  Fees for Services

-$ 11:  Travel and Conferences

-$11:  Other Expenses

-$  5:  Advertising and Promotion

-$ 95:  Subtotal:  Organization Expenses

 $  5:  Remaining Revenue

-$ 16:  Grants

-$ 11:  Excess Expenses Over Revenue

As illustrated above, CPI spent $95 out of every $100 raised in 2023 on organization support expenses and $16 million was spent on grants, primarily to domestic organizations, for a total of $111 of expenses for every $100 in revenue reported, with the shortfall ($2 million) covered by the general fund (past savings).

In summary, CPI is a recently formed tax-exempt non-profit that until 2021 raised a few million dollars a year.  From 2021-2022, the organization received $82 million in revenue which they primarily spent on compensating employees, office-related expenses, fees for outside services by non-employees, and grants while managing to accumulate $43 million in net assets (meaning the organization saved a lot of what they raised). In 2023, things changed with revenue dropping to $19 million with $21 million in expenses leaving a $2 million shortfall that was covered by savings.

CPI appears to be primarily engaged in providing conservative staff to like-minded congressional offices and organizations.  To accomplish this, CPI employs about 30 staff, including the former Chief of Staff (Mark Meadows) under Donald Trump, attend conferences, and make grants to Washington, DC-based conservative organizations.

To read the IRS Form 990 (2023), click here.