The brand new director of the National Rifle Association has announced a plan for how the group will attempt to recoup the massive financial hit it took in 2023 after losing $35 million.

The brand new director of the National Rifle Association has announced a plan for how the group will attempt to recoup the massive financial hit it took in 2023 after losing $35 million. The whopping amount of lost revenue comes as the group suffered a steady five-year decline in member dues.

In a 2023 tax audit, which was obtained by the Mirror U.S., the NRA’s total revenue from members fell to $61.8 million. The number comes after an audit in 2013 revealed that the group had made a whopping $223 million from membership dues.

“They’re going to put emphasis on three areas and they’re hiring more, NRA director John Richardson told the Mirror US during the group’s annual meeting in Georgia. “So it’s going to be hunting, reemphasize hunting. They’re doing stuff like making sure that if you need hunting safety certification, you can do it online.”

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According to the 68-year-old, the NRA is planning on making several shooting competitions across several states to be open only to members of the association, thereby incentivizing people to join in order to take part. “So reinvigorating through competition, they’ve just released what they call the America’s Rifle Challenge, where you’re using AR15s,” Richardson added. “They have stage one and stage two, but stage one is open for anybody. It’s not overly competitive, but it is competitive.”

The North Carolina native added that the NRA also plans to “reinvigorate” the one hundred percent clubs, a club where you had to be an official member of the NRA in order to be a part of it. “If we can get them to come back, that’s an easy win,” Richardson said. “You’re not having to sell to somebody who’s never bought your product. You have somebody who’s already bought your product and now you’re just trying to get them to buy it again.”

Richardson also said that under his care, membership dues would not go to paying for “buying custom suits” or paying for private jets, as they had done for the previous NRA CEO, Wayne LaPierre. “It’s board policy that for all staff, board members, et cetera, that we fly Coach,” Richardson stated.

“And the NRA’s compliance commitment to members published this year, there was like two or three private flights, one of which was not approved, and was noted that maybe one or two exceptions were made for somebody to fly first class. And it was for medical reasons only,” said Richardson. “And you’re really going to have to push to be able to fly other than the coach. If you want to fly first class, we’ll pay for coach, but you’ve got to pay the difference.”

Richardson also revealed that he was hoping to bring the organization back to working with both political parties. “I would love to see it,” he said. “There’s two issues here.”

“The first issue is somewhere along the way, the NRA tried to move into more conservative social issues away from just the Second Amendment. I’m of the opinion that I don’t care what your other political beliefs are as long as you pro-gun, pro-Second Amendment,” Richardson said. “And there used to be a lot of pro-Second Amendment Democrats.”

“So when they try to appeal more to social conservatives, they start losing Democrats. They stopped endorsing Democrats,” he explained. “The other part of it is within the Democratic Party itself, the ability to find a pro-gun, pro-Second Amendment Democrat is harder and harder and harder.”

According to Richardson, In North Carolina there were several pro-gun Democrats, but once they started losing primaries, the NRA started pulling their support. “The more left progressive wing of the Democratic party was very adamant, you have to do this, and if you don’t, we’re not endorsing you.”

When asked how the NRA would go about opening up discussions with Democrats, Richardson said that he would approach the Libertarians. “I think you’re going to have to go to Libertarians first, who want no interference, and you do a pro-gun message, safety of the family, whatever,” he said.

“But you don’t go to CPAC,” Richardson added, referring to the Conservative Political Action Convention, which took place earlier this year. “If you have a stronger pro-gun Democrat versus an incumbent Republican, sometimes maybe you should endorse the Democrat. I think if they saw that, that might change things a little.”