The Hanover Institute, like many other Dartmouth alumni blogs, websites and organizations, is "dedicated to educating Dartmouth College alumni about important events at Dartmouth." Unlike many other grassroots efforts, though, the institute has been incorporated as a non-profit organization and solicits donations from Dartmouth community members and other interested parties -- an unusual two-thirds of which pay the salary of the organization's president, John MacGovern '80.
MacGovern founded the institute in 2002, he said, after a series of events over the previous 15 years left him dissatisfied with the way the College treated alumni.
A vocal opponent of the present Association of Alumni leadership and Dartmouth administration, MacGovern works to provide an alternative view for College alumni.
"It costs money for the Hanover Institute to provide these services to Dartmouth College alumni," the organization's website states. In 2004, for example, it cost $63,774 of the $73,880 that the organization received. All revenue, according MacGovern, is collected through donations.
According to the Institute's tax forms, MacGovern spends 40 hours a week on Institute work, noting that it is "my primary activity at the moment," he said.
For his work, MacGovern received a board-approved compensation of $42,000, which amounts to 56 percent of all the money the Institute took in during 2004 and 66 percent of its expenditures. MacGovern's salary was the organization's largest expense, followed by mailings, which accounted for about 16 percent of the total revenue.
"At the moment it's just a modest salary that's not an issue," MacGovern said.
The Institute's other board members, according to the organization's tax returns, received no monetary compensation in 2004.
MacGovern says that while he consults with board members for major decisions, he is far more involved in the day-to-day work of running the Institute than the board members are.
Howard Grabina, a New York accountant with the firm Schooler, Weinstein, Minsky and Lester, has worked with nonprofits similar in size to the Hanover Institute.
"Forty-thousand is not unreasonable, but not when [the organization] is only collecting 75. It should be no more than ten or 12 percent," Grabina said. "It doesn't sound right."
According to the 2005 Report on Wages in New Hampshire's Nonprofit Organizations, a survey published by the New Hampshire Center for Nonprofits, the directors of organizations whose budgets are under $250,000 make an average of $39,279 a year. Mean executive compensation in the next bracket, organizations that make from $250,000 to $500,000 a year, is $41,404.
"As far as I know, it seems to me that [MacGovern] spends most of his time, most of his working days, on Hanover Institute work," said Frank Gado '58, who has donated money to the Institute and recently agreed to serve on its board. "It doesn't seem to me to be a lot of money for what he does."
The Institute's website was last updated on March 22 and MacGovern says that there are no major new projects pending at the moment. According to Gado, the Institute is currently trying to collect 650 signatures to petition for an amendment to the alumni constitution. The Institute has vocally supported the candidacies of independent alumni trustees and opposes the newly proposed alumni constitution.
"Our job is to make it so that all alumni are heard, not just those that get to Hanover, or those that have been tapped on the shoulder by the insiders at Blunt Alumni Center," MacGovern said.
In October 2005, for instance, during an election for a representative to the Executive Committee of the Alumni Association, MacGovern attempted to use vote proxies which he had collected from alumni around the country. The Association does not allow proxies, and when they refused to count the votes MacGovern had collected, he sued the College in November 2005.
Gado has worked with MacGovern on several projects, including drafting an amendment to the current Alumni Association constitution that requires Association meetings to follow Robert's Rules of Order, a guidebook of parliamentary procedure.
Regardless of MacGovern's salary, Gado does not expect to be paid as a member of the Institute's board.
"I have not, nor has anyone else on the board that I know of, received a penny, nor have I asked for it," Gado said. "I haven't even asked for reimbursement of my expenses."
Another alumni organization, the Alumni Governance Task Force, which has been deeply involved in crafting a newly proposed constitution for the Alumni Association, also does not compensate its members. Jim Adler '60, a member of the AGTF, says he has paid out-of-pocket to fly to some meetings.
"The Hanover Institute is not in a place to do good works in the community," Adler said. "They are founded to put forward a point of view, which they're absolutely entitled to do. They have every right to do that whether they're a nonprofit or not, but just because some nonprofits have paid directors, I frankly don't think that would apply to something like the Hanover Institute."
However, trustee Peter Robinson '79, who was supported by the Institute during his and Todd Zywicki '88's candidacies and has donated money to the organization over the past few years, thinks it is doing important work.
"In my judgment, simply keeping alumni informed and giving alumni an opportunity to participate in the life of the College represents an accomplishment," Robinson said. "The general pressure of the Hanover Institute has been towards greater openness ... and believe me, I'm all for that."
