The Independent Dealers, Vendors, Industry Media and Members of the BTA From: Ray Stasieczko, Host Of The End Of The Day With Ray!

by ray stasieczko September 02, 2026

To: The Independent Dealers, Vendors, Industry Media and Members of the BTA From: Ray Stasieczko, Host Of The End Of The Day With Ray!

Dear Friends,

As you all gather in Kansas City to mark the historic 100th anniversary, the BTA community has much to celebrate. A century of service is a remarkable testament to the resilience, innovation, and integrity of the independent dealer channel. The business relationships built in these rooms have sustained generations of families, and that legacy is something you should all be proud of.

It is also precisely because of my respect for this legacy, and for the hard-working men and women who fund it, that I am writing this letter today. True institutional health requires us to occasionally step back from the celebratory noise and examine our governance with the same operational and financial clarity you all apply to your dealerships. When we look closely at the modern financial architecture of the BTA associations, several objective numbers and systemic omissions raise serious questions about the association’s current trajectory and the stewardship of the members’ collective trust.

The Financial Disparity: Balancing Assets against Mission

Every business owner understands that a healthy balance sheet requires reserves. However, a public non-profit network operates under a distinct mandate: its primary purpose is active community support and distribution, not the perpetual accumulation of capital. Publicly available Form 990 tax filings reveal that the association is sitting on over $11.3 million in combined total assets distributed across three separate non-profit arms:

• The Business Technology Association (Main Entity): Holds $9,240,830 in total assets. This includes a $1.2 million receivable from an interest-only-bearing mortgage note on the building the association SOLD over a decade ago, with the supermajority of the remaining balance held in market securities.
• The BTA Scholarship Foundation: Holds $1,064,161 in total net assets.
• BTA Southeast: Holds $998,000 in total assets. Within this single regional entity, $205,000 sits in non-interest-bearing cash, while $532,136 is actively invested in publicly traded securities.

 

When we audit how these pooled resources are deployed relative to their stated missions, the disparity becomes glaring. For example, the BTA Scholarship Foundation's signed federal tax ledger documents show that total annual scholarship distributions to individuals were capped at an anomalously low $4,000.00 Or 0.4%

When a charitable fund distributes less than 0.4% of its total wealth to its scholarship cause supporting members' children, we must ask an objective operational question: Is the foundation functioning as an active public charity, or has it transitioned into a passive investment pool? To put this in perspective, the multi-entity BTA network collectively spends approximately $50,000 every single year in Wall Street investment advisory and portfolio management fees just to maintain its pooled asset cushion. In effect, the association spends significantly more capital maintaining its investment relationships than it does distributing educational aid to our own community's families.

The association’s leaders and the industry’s media highlight the nearly $2 million in awarded scholarships over the last 40 years. However, I have never seen or heard of a press release regarding the total amount paid to its asset managers over that same period.

Controlled Narratives: The 40/60 Split as a Lesson in Legacy Media Alignment

When independent businesses and individuals donate to a dedicated fundraising campaign for military veterans, the baseline assumption is philanthropic immediacy. Instead, only 40% of collected funds are awarded as scholarships annually, while a staggering 60% of every donated dollar is withheld to build an investment portfolio. In the wider world of non-profit governance, withholding the supermajority of campaign principal to invest in the market is highly unusual. Especially considering the scholarship fund is sitting on over twenty years of the last 40 year average payouts.

This layout creates a profound structural blind spot: What happens to the previous years' collected 60% pool of invested assets if the scholarship for veterans is eventually taken over by another industry fundraiser or an industry charity 501(c)(3)?

Like many mature industries, our sector's legacy media outlets rarely, if ever, engage in investigative research, functioning primarily as marketing institutions rather than independent newsrooms. Over time, a community can become numb to this reality, assuming that because mainstream trade publications remain silent on underlying anomalies or anything controversial, everything must be completely in line.

Unfortunately, elements of this mainstream media will actually allow their platforms to work cohesively with peer networks, transforming into amplified distraction centers. By flooding the channel with coordinated messaging, they actively help the actors involved overwhelm the industry with distractions to smooth over important questions that haven’t been asked in decades, or to create alternative realities, hoping that if anyone is looking independently, they stop and believe the controlled narrative over any isolated journalist who refuses to participate in their network of copy & pasted collaborative messaging.

Balancing Association Oversight and Media Objectivity

For a century, the association has thrived on strong leadership, powerful personalities, and deeply impactful charitable work that deserves full recognition. However, whenever any organization undergoes a major leadership transition after nearly five decades of concentrated advisory influence, it presents a natural inflection point. This is the time to objectively reevaluate all past governance, relationships, and policies to ensure total clarity and modern transparency. Without this routine review, a deeply entangled layout can inadvertently blur the lines between independent trade association oversight and external commercial networks.

Why BTA Members Should Care! WHY IT MATTERS!

This letter is not an attack on the past or on a charity event; it is an appeal for the association’s future. If we have learned anything over the last century, it is that transparency is the ultimate safeguard of institutional legacy. When public financial disclosures reveal significant asset liquidations executed at a loss, automated cash sweeps that bypass liquid accounts, and an asset retention structure that keeps a supermajority of donor capital investments out of view, the membership has an absolute right to demand clarity. The association’s members deserve to know exactly where those assets reside, who manages the underlying interest loops, and whether the public charity's principal is performing work for private enterprises or for the community it was intended to serve. Without this baseline visibility, the essential separation between non-profit mission and commercial interest simply ceases to exist.

As you sit down at the anniversary sessions this week, I encourage you to talk to your fellow dealers in the hallways. Look past the marketing flyers and focus on the math. A century-old association belongs to its members, not to a permanent inner circle. All the association’s members should be fully informed of the association's assets, whether those assets are current receivables or receivables on an interest-only-bearing loan on a building the association sold over a decade ago, stock market securities, or cash on hand. As well all association members should be fully informed of all costs associated with running the three separate entities. Including asset management fees, or contracts for service fees.

When looking at the scheduled zero on the 990 tax filing of the scholarship fund and not seeing anything mentioned regarding the historical super low payout ratio 0.4% . That situation highlights why there should be more members educated on the associations financials and tax filings.

When the governance system of any non-profit association is decades old sometimes details get lost and boards can become a governance based in blind trust. The BTA board members are volunteers and are running businesses the balancing between the two can become exhausting sometimes causing a comfortable complacency.

There really should be a complete state of the union where all the associations members are educated on the financials and tax returns. Especially where the associations assets are so massive in comparison to revenues and distributions. This openness is even more important when long tenured governance is replaced as today nearly the entire staff of the BTA is at or very close to retirement.

All of these things are public information, and like so many things people rely on others if allowed to. When members of any association rely strictly on decades-old governance policies, the door can easily open to surprises. If one day the association decided to position itself for a sale or merger, its members should be fully involved and understand all assets and possible scenarios. As we are all witnessing, the industry is consolidating and even its non-profits will find themselves questioning their futures.

Let's suggest that after 100 years, the most honorable way to celebrate the association’s history is to demand full transparency, complete forensic accountability, and a comprehensive independent audit of the association’s asset sheets, its governance, and how its leaders align with other organizations to ensure a complete understanding of any potential conflicts of interest.

Thank you for your time, your dedication to the industry we all love, and your willingness to take a closer look at the numbers. Enjoy the centennial milestone, and let's ensure the next 100 years are built on an unassailable foundation.

Enjoy the celebration and safe travels.

Ray Stasieczko Host of, The End Of The Day With Ray!

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