The National Rifle Association is burning through its investment portfolio to pay its bills as legal perils increase and revenue from membership dues decline, according to an independent audit reviewed by NOTUS.
In 2024, the 154-year-old gun rights organization liquidated nearly $40 million worth of stock, fixed-income securities and other holdings, per the 41-page audit document prepared by accounting firm Aprio LLP.
By the end of 2024, the NRA’s investment portfolio had shrunk to less than $33 million, down from more than $72 million the year before, according to the audit document, which was included last month as part of the NRA’s tax filing with regulators in North Carolina.
“The NRA has experienced net losses over the past two years,” Aprio auditors wrote. “To reduce debt and provide funding for operations, the NRA liquidated some of its investments in 2024. Expenses continue to be monitored and the NRA has met the cash demands of its operations and expenses as they come due.”
The NRA, which did not respond to a request for comment, reported net assets of almost $16 million at the end of 2024, according to the audit document. Most nonprofits would consider that an enviable reserve.
But for the NRA, it represents a dwindling fortune: At the end of 2023, the organization had more than $22 million in net assets, according to the audit document and the NRA’s most recent tax return.
In 2022, it had nearly $42 million in net assets — the amount of money it has after its financial liabilities are subtracted from its total assets.
The NRA’s work has taken a hit, as the association reported less spending in 2024 than the year before on its publications, public affairs efforts, “field services” and “legislative programs,” the audit document indicates.
Debt also continues to dog the NRA even after selling off many of its investment reserves. At the end of 2024, it reported more than $121.4 million in various liabilities, although that’s down from the nearly $146 million in liabilities it reported in 2023.
The NRA’s income is likewise hurting, particularly with shrinking revenue from membership dues.
In 2024, the NRA reported total member dues of $51.7 million, down from $61.8 million in 2023. In 2022, its member dues figure topped $83 million.
The organization’s annual dues figure routinely soared into the nine figures as recently as last decade.
Despite the association’s troubles, President Donald Trump has maintained a close relationship with the NRA and its leaders during his second term. He recorded videos this year for the group and spoke at its national convention in 2024.
Rep. Lucy McBath, a Democrat from Georgia who lost a son to gun violence and is vice chair of the House’s Gun Violence Prevention Task Force, told NOTUS she wasn’t surprised to hear of the NRA’s continued financial troubles.
“I’m not surprised at all,” she said. “The more that we expose what the NRA has done over generations, the more that we expose the extremist culture of gun violence — what’s happening in every community, every facet of society. There are no more safe spaces.”
As the organization’s financial health continues to worsen, its prominence in the political arena has also declined. The NRA’s Institute for Legislative Action has spent far less on key races than in previous years. The NRA was the single-largest outside donor to Trump’s campaign in 2016, earning them sway with the first Trump administration.
The same can’t be said for Trump’s second term.
“In less than a decade, the NRA has gone from unlimited access to the White House to a white-knuckle battle for survival,” John Feinblatt, president of Everytown for Gun Safety, told NOTUS. “The NRA burned through its credibility with corruption and mismanagement, and now it is hemorrhaging everything that made it powerful: members, money and political clout. This isn’t a temporary downturn, it’s an organization in terminal decline.”
Legal battles in particular continue to place strain on the organization and its finances. For years, the NRA has been embroiled in numerous lawsuits on issues ranging from firearm regulation to internal governance issues.
Giffords, a gun-violence-prevention organization led by former Rep. Gabby Giffords, has sued the NRA over election interference. Those legal proceedings have been ongoing for years.
“The current organization is really a shadow of its former self,” said Adam Skaggs, chief counsel and vice president of the Giffords Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence.
The NRA spends millions on outside lawyers to fight these legal battles. An Everytown analysis of the NRA’s most recent Form 990 tax return states that 21 cents of every dollar of revenue goes toward legal representation.
“[NRA] leadership is certainly projecting a confident image that they’re going to be able to rebuild and will restore the organization to the profile it once had, but if that’s true it’s going to take them a while. And it may be that some of the damage is so lasting that the organization will never achieve the same role in the same influence over our politics and our policymaking that it once enjoyed,” Skaggs continued.
The NRA’s audit document states that the “NRA is vigorously defending the claims asserted against it in these lawsuits.”
It also acknowledged the financial burdens the lawsuits and other governmental matters represent.
“The outcomes of legal proceedings and regulatory matters are often difficult to predict,” the audit states. “A determination that the NRA’s or its affiliates’ operations or activities are not, or were not, in compliance with applicable laws or regulations could result in monetary damages or injunctive relief.”
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