The Autistic Self-Advocacy Network (ASAN) has published yet another flyer with questionable math. For the rebuttal of the other points, see this post.

Now, let’s take a look at that 1.6% figure. According to Autism Speaks’ 2017 990 form, they gave away $1,355,073 in grants in the Awareness, Family Services, Advocacy program.

They also spent a total of $42,861,302 that year.

1,355,073 / 42,861,302 = 3.16%.

As we can clearly see, this is not 1.6%. But I think I finally figured out how they arrived at 1.6%. I think they looked at the Schedule I part of the form.

First, let’s sum up all the grants labelled Family Services.

17,500 + 9,000 + 5,130 + 15,000 + 7,500 + 5,040 + 5,487 + 7,000 + 8,000 + 9,000 + 60,000 + 5,980 + 6,000 + 5,440 + 404,535 + 6,000 + 7,000 + 5,250 + 6,000 = 594,862.

Now, we add the two financial assistance grants.

594,862 + 48,433 + 57,600 = 700,895.

Take this and divide by the total expenditure.

700,895 / 42,861,302 = 1.63%.

However, this is clearly wrong. As stated in Part II of Schedule I, only grants of more than $5,000 are reported in this section. By taking only figures reported in this section into account, ASAN disregarded $654,178 in grants.

ASAN should know how this part of the form works. Their own 2017 990 form also has a discrepancy between the figure reported in program grants and the figure in Schedule I.

Again, ASAN has used a very strange definition of “helping autistic people and families”, which in this case seems to mean non-scientific grants of more than $5,000. Let’s use this silly metric for a moment.

20,000 / 682,845 = 2.93%. That’s not much better than AS’ 1.63%.

Now, let’s give both charities the benefit of the doubt and just use the figure reported under Part III Section 4a.

25,500 / 682,845 = 3.73%. That’s still not much better than AS’ 3.16%.

This metric used by ASAN is so silly that even they are crap at it. But most importantly, it ignores the entirety of AS’ science grants. Surely scientific research helps autistic people and their families?

Let’s do some proper math! (1,355,073 + 6,717,284) / 42,861,302 = 8,072,357 / 42,861,302 = 18.83%.

AS spent 18.83% of its budget in grants. ASAN spent 3.73%. Consider this fact.