990 Forms and "The Lottery"

Here's an image from the 2008 990 tax form filed by the Bouncer Foundation (apologies for the size):

Since this is an education blog, you might safely assume I'm interested in the donations to the two school choice advocacy organizations (Alliance for School Choice and BAEO), the Codman Academy Foundation, or the Business Roundtable. Those might be the safe bets, but I'm not really interested in those donations (for the sake of this post).

I'm mighty curious about the $6,000 donation to the National Board of Review of Motion Pictures (NBRMP). Here's where the Bounder Foundation's funders/directors come into play: Jonathan Sackler (President/Director) and Mary Corson (VP/Secretary/Treasurer) are the parents of Madeleine Sackler, the director of "The Lottery." Jonathan is also on the Board of Directors of Achievement First, but that's not really the focus here.

I looked through the past 990 forms filed by the Bouncer Foundation, and there's no record of the Sackler/Corson family showing a great interest in supporting films of any kind. Mary Corson, however, is on the board of NBRMP.

Six thousand dollars is hardly enough to bribe the NBRMP - they pulled in over $600,000 in 2008 - but it might be a way to curry some favor. And, it probably doesn't hurt to have your mom on the board of a relatively influential movie review board when you're releasing a new flick.