TRENDS* IN PROGRAM SIZE
AND FINANCIAL INFORMATION FOR
DESTINATION IMAGINATION®
PLEASE NOTE:
The opinions expressed herein are the authors alone.
If you don't want to know
them, I would suggest you don't read them.
I am NOT affiliated with the Destination ImagiNation®
program in any way.
If you desire information about Destination Imagination, click
here
"Destination ImagiNation® is the World's Largest Creative Problem Solving Program for Kids! Over 200,000 students in over 40 countries and most of the United States participate in Destination Imagination®. This popular process-based program helps young people build lifelong skills in creative and critical thinking, teamwork, time management and problem solving." Source: http://www.globalfinals.org/about.htm
After seeing this statement, or similar statements (some say 250,000 and I've even seen 400,000), posted to a number of websites and on Destination Imagination email lists (DINI@yahoogroups.com) for several years without any comment from others who you might expect to know the correct figures, I finally decided to evaluate whether or not this statement is true.
Destination ImagiNation® came into being after settlement of a dispute between OM Association, Inc. and Creative Competitions, Inc. about ownership and control of the Odyssey of the Mind® program.
In 1998, the Odyssey of the Mind® program had approximately 13,644 memberships worldwide (source: OM Association, Inc. Membership Report 1998). At that time, the average number of teams per membership was around 2.2, and the average number of students on team was 6.
13,644 memberships x 2.2 teams/membership x 6 kids/team ≈ 180,101 participants
This is seemingly the source of the "200,000" number that is tossed around.
Since OM Association, Inc. merged with Destination Imagination, Inc. there has been a pretty widely accepted recognition that the program has shrunk. This is partly due to the fact that some Associations remained with the Odyssey of the Mind program, and partly due to a reduction in participation after OM Association, Inc. and Creative Competitions, Inc. parted ways.
According to the 2004 Destination ImagiNation, Inc. Annual Report (page 4), there were 11,532 teams "registered for Team Challenges."
11,532 teams x 6 kids/team
≈ 69,192 participants
(note that there are no longer "memberships" as the pricing structure now
directly reflects "teams")
Summary
69,192 ≠ 200,000
Therefore, it is appears obvious that the Destination ImagiNation® program is either vastly overestimating or overstating the size of the program (by almost a factor of three, 2.89), or has another 130,000 students hiding somewhere in the world that nobody knows about.
I don't personally have a problem with this type of hyping of a program or product, but is should be at least counter-balanced by someone pointing out alternative (and possibly more correct) information. People seem to ask this question a lot, but only the stock answer above is ever given in public. If someone has other available evidence that shows these estimates to be in question, or to be in error, please share it and I'll gladly correct this record.
The figures below represent my personal attempt to estimate and track the size of the Destination ImagiNation® program, and their financial record over the past several years. Nobody asked me to do it, or paid me to do it...I'm just a numbers person with an interest in creative problem solving programs who was involved in Destination ImagiNation® when it first started, but left due to philosophical differences. This work was done for my personal interest and knowledge.
Please note that the program was actually Odyssey of the Mind® (but administered by OM Association) in 1998, a different set of problems (administered by OM Association, Inc.) that were not of Creative Competitions, Inc. origin, but allowed by the court in 1999, and Destination ImagiNation® problems from 2000 to 2005.
The size estimates below were made through a variety of sources, some verified and some not. Attempts were made to utilize multiple sources of information. In some cases the estimates were verified by documents or by people within the Destination Imagination organization.
It is very interesting that while the Destination Imagination program declined so rapidly, the compensation level of officers, staff, and consultants skyrocketed. The correlation between the two is very high, and the relationship is inversely proportional (as # of participants has decreased, compensation has increased). Although Destination ImagiNation® started a number of other programs, this seems (at least in my opinion) to have come at the expense of their core program for kids.
September 2007 Update
I happened to come across this figure, produced by DI, Inc. Seems pretty clear that my estimates were fairly close (ballpark at least) to the actual numbers, which are FAR short of 200,000+.
This next set of charts is taken from DI, Inc. Annual Reports (posted on the Destination Imagination website) and from IRS 990 filings at http://www.GuideStar.org . The numbers above the bars indicate the percent change from the previous year. Numbers are updated to include the 2006 IRS 990 filing.
You can see that although total program revenue has increased reasonably steadily, net assets after 2002 plummeted. Of greatest note, compensation of employees (officers and staff) and consultants has grown 182% from 2001 to 2004 (an average of 31% per year), whereas participation has dropped by approximately 27% over that same time period, and by 60% since 1998. Other notable changes have been large increases in "Board of Directors Expense", accompanied by initial increases, and but more recently decreases in Affiliate Rebates and Program Development. Most recently, this financial situation seems to have let to a drive to increase costs of the core program drastically, with obvious consequences for membership. After some "discussion", it appears that a modest increase was made this coming year (see http://www.idodi.org/downloads/06-07_membership_app.pdf ) -- but who knows what the future will bring?
Through a lot of web searching and some calculation (with some assumptions and estimates), the changes in membership in some individual affiliate programs from 1998 to 2003 was made. In nearly every case observed (with a few exceptions), large declines in program size (estimated number of memberships or teams) were found.
For some areas that post all of their tournament participating
teams, it is possible to actually calculate the numbers with some precision.
New Hampshire is a good example (there are others). Despite the fact that
there is not a competing Odyssey of the Mind® program in New Hampshire,
the NH Destination ImagiNation® program has, and continues to decline.
Not a single year of growth has been observed since 1999. Although it might be
argued that this trend is indicative of the variety of options available to
young people these days, it is interesting to note that Odyssey of the Mind
programs in neighboring states has increased over the same time period.
Numbers are updated to include the 2007 tournament season. Still going
down.
Some evidence suggests that the statement
My personal conclusion is that there are some inherent systematic problems in the Destination Imagination program that have resulted in program decline in New Hampshire. Given that the same is true in many areas where Destination Imagination is offered, the supposition is that the problems are due more to issues affecting all Affiliates (Program-based), and not to problems originating from local Affiliate/Local support. This probably also accounts for the rumors of Destination Imagination Regions and Affiliates considering switching to Odyssey of the Mind. Given the continuing loss of participants and rising costs, it seems that considering alternative programs is acceptable.
COST
Destination Imagination is a non-profit corporation. Odyssey
of the Mind is operated by Creative Competitions, Inc., a tax-paying
corporation. You might therefore assume that Destination Imagination would
be less expensive. However, as you can see below, the cost of participation in
Destination Imagination, beyond one team, is considerably higher than Odyssey of
the Mind..... The example given on the left is for a
single K-12 school.
The national DI membership cost increased again for the
2007-2008 Program Year, to $120 for a single team and $235 for a 5 team-pak.
This comes on the heels of a large increase last year.
DEDUCTIONS/PENALTIES
One of the original precepts of Destination Imagination was that there would be less focus on Penalties. However, when you look in the program materials for 2005-2006, there are a total of 66 references to "deduct..", ie. deduction, deductions, etc. In the corresponding Odyssey of the Mind guides, there are ONLY 41 instances of "penalt...", ie, penalty, penalties. Changing the vocabulary doesn't change the effect.
MEMBERSHIP DRIVEN
Another founding principal of Destination Imagination that was
(and sometimes still is..) touted is that Destination Imagination was supposed
to be "membership driven". This originally meant that anyone involved in
the program could vote for, or run for, a seat on the Board of Trustees.
After several "interesting" voting years, the Board of Trustees changed the
By-Laws of the organization to become a self-perpetuating board. That
means there is no longer a membership vote on who serves as a trustee, and only
those selected by those in power are considered.
As of September 18, 2007, none of the DI, Inc. Board of Trustees Minutes for
2007 have been posted.
PROBLEMS POSTED ONLINE
Yet another founding concept was that problems (Challenges in Destination Imagination parlance) were to be posted online for free, and that only those teams that actually came to a tournament would be required to pay the membership fee. If recollection serves, this lasted one year, and the Challenges are only available for review after purchase.
* Notes: These data were compiled or estimated from mostly publicly available records chosen from a variety of sources, including: personal contacts, DI program webpages, IRS 990 filings (available via http://www.GuideStar.org) and Destination ImagiNation® Annual Reports. These are my best estimates, and numbers are not guaranteed to be 100% accurate as sometimes estimates are wrong and typos or miscalculations could occur. They were collected for my personal interest. In the bar charts showing financial information, the numbers above each bar represents the % change in value from the previous year.
Notes:
Destination Imagination® and DI are registered trademarks of
the Destination Imagination, Inc. program, with information available at
http://www.destinationimagination.org
Odyssey of the Mind is a registered trademark of Creative
Competitions, Inc. with information available at
http://www.odysseyofthemind.org.
Comments and questions to: Tim Perkins at VTOOTM@ACCESSVT.COM