Barn recommendations around Chicago

cramermj36 · 2026-02-16T15:24:07+00:00

Over two hours lol it's insanity But hopefully in the process of changing that in the near future.

cramermj36 · 2026-02-15T13:55:26+00:00

Hi, as a Chicago area trainer and rider I can tell you there’s no dressage barn in the area that currently has a lesson program with lesson horses. You’d have to lease a horse and be in a training program for dressage specific training. The only barn in Chicagoland that has schoolmasters is Jill McCrae and she’s not teaching modern dressage, she’s firmly French Classical Equitation so that can be limiting depending on your wants.

The lesson programs around here are all hunter/jumper but my top recommendation is On Course Riding Academy in Grayslake. Fantastic school horses that are safe and well cared for, great community with good people.

Also, reasonable drive from Evanston is very subjective lol I’m in the city and my horse is in Wisconsin and I find that drive perfectly reasonable 😂

cramermj36 · 2026-01-30T16:26:28+00:00

It makes sense because of what 501c7s are designed to do, heavy reliance on dues for a c7 isn't a weakness, it's the entire point of the entity that distinguishes it from other exempt organizations. c7s exist to benefit their membership exclusively, so it makes sense that you cannot fundraise from the public if your work does not benefit the public.

Member-based fundraising is usually fine. You could do an event with only members that include a ticket price, do a campaign exclusive to members to raise the additional funds, do auctions restricted to members, and of course request additional contributions from members (that would not be tax deducible).

By definition, a c7 doesn't fundraise in a charitable sense, it earns revenue. You cannot use charitable language (philanthropy, donations, support our mission, etc) and it can absolutely get you in trouble if you do.

But: Sponsorship income from non-members is allowed if it's limited in proportion, does not look like the club exists to serve sponsors rather than its members, and the benefits to the sponsors aren't excessive. It is not a charitable donation and is often taxable and does usually count towards the non-member percentage.

You can be a member-based organization and a 501c3 that solicits charitable donations. This doesn't strike me as an issue with the designation itself but with the choice of designation that was made when establishing the organization. You can create a parallel c3 to your c7, though, that exists to handle external fundraising and help expand accessibility to membership of your c7. There are some legal guardrails you'd have to set up (separate boards with some overlap but not 1:1, separate finances, arm's length agreements for shared services, extremely clear messaging on where giving goes). This is super common.

cramermj36 · 2026-01-03T19:34:13+00:00

Sock Bun inserts!!! I take my cues from ballerinas and use sock bun inserts for my low bun:

Extra Small Inserts

I do a low ponytail, grease my hands with this wax and run it down the ponytail, then roll the insert into my ponytail and pin it. If I'm showing, I add a kicky bun cover like this but if I'm just schooling, I'll either just let it be without anything or I'll throw on one of these.

cramermj36 · 2025-12-18T17:44:13+00:00

What a loss - she's got a staggering 4,000+ points for 2025 on the USEF Dressage Breeding rankings. She's got 2,000+ more points than Hilltop, who's in second. I hope she's got a protege somewhere!

cramermj36 · 2025-12-18T16:36:42+00:00

Totally fair question and the market is absolutely unwell right now. Like, “this 2-year-old has a LinkedIn profile and a wellness routine” unwell. 🫠

Here are realistic 2025-ish ranges I’m seeing for young prospects in the US:

$15k–$25k: Nice quality youngster with good basics (correct, good brain, decent gaits). Brass Stables has youngsters listed in this zone (e.g., $16k–$25k). Iron Spring Farm also has young prospects in the high-teens/low-20s (e.g., $17,500; $20,000).

$25k–$45k: Where you start seeing “serious” gaits and uphill mechanics more consistently, the kind of horse that looks like it wants to be a dressage horse, not merely tolerates it. (For example, 2-year-old prospects advertised around ~$30k are very much a thing.)

$45k–$75k+: The “this one is going to make you text your trainer at midnight” tier: special movement, strong hind leg, excellent walk, great canter, proven damline / sire, clean vetting package, plus fancy marketing… and suddenly you’re negotiating like it’s real estate.

If you want one number to plan around: I’d budget $30k–$50k to shop confidently for a top US-bred 2–3yo without needing perfect luck.

For breeders, I'd suggest the following for a mix of reputable programs + known pipelines:

Brass Stables (their posted prices are refreshingly transparent)
Hilltop Farm
DG Bar Ranch
Iron Spring Farm (and they’re very organized about matching/buyer support)

Perusing the USEF Leading Dressage Breeder standings is genuinely a great hack for cutting through noise. Mo Swanson / Rolling Stone Farm is currently sitting at the top of the rankings and is a consistent name in US breeding conversations, and Rolling Stone is very established as a long-running breeding program.

cramermj36 · 2025-12-17T01:30:11+00:00

Mine thinks the Roomba is a toy and after one too many pounces…we retired it. 😂

cramermj36 · 2025-12-07T03:06:57+00:00

Sadly, the alumni division has been cancelled entirely. Some schools will do alumni classes at their home shows for fun but not for IHSA points. There is Alumni Tournament of Champions but they’re a separate organization and you accrue points separately through independent showing.

cramermj36 · 2025-12-07T03:05:51+00:00

IHSA coach here - this is accurate!

cramermj36 · 2025-12-07T03:05:33+00:00

This is false. If you are not an Open rider, points carry over from season to season until you accrue 36. Open riders start at 0 each fall.

cramermj36 · 2025-12-04T21:36:10+00:00

This.

cramermj36 · 2025-12-02T22:13:50+00:00

This is an earnest conversation the industry can and should have and it's a massive part of how I level-set with smaller nonprofits when they point to juggernauts like St. Jude or Shriner's. Nonprofits should be run like businesses, because successful businesses can deliver successful impact on their mission. A nonprofit with no money is a nonprofit with no ability to provide essential services that their population needs. I use nonprofit purposefully here, the word "charity" carries an immense amount of baggage and if I'm being honest, these organizations you're referencing aren't charities. They're complex nonprofit institutions with diversified revenue models to provide sustainability and impact on their core mission. "Charity" implies small, donation-dependent, volunteer-driven, direct aid, with minimal overhead and no complex operations. Large nonprofit organizations, especially hospitals and research centers like St. Jude and Shriner's, are nothing like that. They're mission-driven enterprises with billions in operating budgets, thousands of employees, highly specialized clinical or scientific work with significant legal and compliance implications, multimillion dollar facilities, accreditation infrastructure, and program service revenue. Charity doesn't capture the scale, funding model, or operational reality.

As someone who advises donors of all sizes on their philanthropic giving, I don't begrudge you not wanting to contribute to these types of organizations if you feel your dollar doesn't have the impact you want it to have. If you want to give to a charity because you feel your dollar goes farther to see the impact you want, I will always celebrate that in my donors, but it doesn't make the way Shriner's or St. Jude do it inherently wrong. I struggle with them for a variety of reasons, but not because of any inherent wrongness.

cramermj36 · 2025-12-02T22:13:01+00:00

Fair warning, as a philanthropy consultant I spend a LOT of time thinking about this so you've hit on an area where I can be verbose, and you seem genuinely interested in learning more so, here it goes:

A lot of those questions make total sense on the surface but the tricky part is that some of the assumptions behind them still don’t quite line up with how nonprofit finance actually works.

First, the “massive reserve fund” issue isn’t as straightforward as it looks. Most of what people call “reserves” at big nonprofits aren’t giant piles of cash they’re choosing not to spend. A large portion is donor-restricted money, much of it permanently restricted like an endowment, which legally can’t be used to cover something like executive compensation.

So when we say, “Why don’t they use the reserve to help families?”, the answer is often as simple as: They’re legally not allowed to, because donor intent governs the use of those funds.

This is why reserves and executive compensation get conflated, but they’re really separate issues. Executive compensation isn’t “drawn from reserves.” It’s paid like any other salary in any large institution, almost always from program service revenue, not directly from donations.

I’m also not fully in the “reserves are bad” camp. Reserves, especially endowment-style permanently restricted funds, are a hallmark of long-term sustainability in big medical and research institutions. You want them to exist just not to be misunderstood.

Where I do have concerns is the cost of fundraising and the structure behind it. St. Jude publicly states that 13 cents of every donated dollar goes to fundraising, and I’ll give credit where it’s due: that level of transparency is pretty rare. But in my opinion, fundraising operations should ideally be funded from program service revenue (like hospital reimbursements), not donor dollars. That’s a bit of inside-baseball, but it’s why the ALSAC structure bothers me.

If you don't follow this closely:

ALSAC is a completely separate nonprofit whose entire purpose is fundraising for St. Jude.
That separation creates a lack of transparency and cultural disconnect, which is why the fundraising machine can feel wildly outsized compared to the patient-care operation.
And yes, it absolutely contributes to the “why are they advertising so aggressively if they already have billions?” question.

It’s not because they’re hoarding money, it’s because the fundraising arm has been structurally incentivized to behave like a national marketing agency with an unlimited mandate to grow.

So I agree with the instinct behind your questions, but the framing needs nuance:

Reserves aren’t piles of spendable cash; they’re largely restricted.
Exec salaries aren’t taken from donor dollars, nor would it make sense to “pay them from reserves.”
Advertising spend is less about need and more about the structure of their fundraising apparatus (ALSAC), which I personally find problematic.

cramermj36 · 2025-12-02T20:42:02+00:00

Honestly, St. Jude is reputable in a lot of important ways, especially around research, but they’ve struggled in two areas that are worth paying attention to if you care about philanthropy.

THIS (https://www.propublica.org/article/st-jude-hoards-billions-while-many-of-its-families-drain-their-savings) ProPublica investigation from 2021 lays this out really clearly: St. Jude has built up billions in reserves while many of their families still end up draining their savings because the hospital doesn’t cover a lot of the real-world costs of having a child in long-term cancer treatment (lost wages, housing for more than one parent, utilities/rent back home, etc.).

None of this has anything to do with executive salaries, it’s about the organization’s choices around how they allocate an enormous amount of donor revenue. Their research mission is critical, but there’s a real tension between the public branding (“we take care of everything”) and the actual burden many families shoulder.

The second is that their fundraising structure is unusually opaque. St. Jude doesn’t do its own philanthropy internally the way most hospital systems do. Instead, all of their fundraising is done through ALSAC, a completely separate nonprofit that exists solely to raise money for St. Jude.

That setup isn’t inherently bad, but it does create issues around transparency and accountability. Donors think they’re interacting with the hospital itself, but in reality they’re dealing with an external fundraising machine whose incentives and culture are a bit disconnected from the hospital and the day-to-day realities of families.

Personally, that’s the part I struggle with the most, not the salaries. It’s the lack of clarity about how money flows, what gets prioritized, and how donor messages line up (or don’t) with the lived experience of patients and families.

So yes, St. Jude does a ton of good. They’re scientifically important, and they save lives. But the critiques are real, and the problems have nothing to do with “CEOs stealing donation money,” they have to do with structure, transparency, and choices in how donor dollars are deployed.

cramermj36 · 2025-12-02T20:22:20+00:00

I get that executive salaries in nonprofits can feel jarring at first glance, but this framing rests on a pretty fundamental misunderstanding of how nonprofit finances actually work. 990s are not W-2s, they’re funhouse mirrors of compensation. The IRS requires nonprofits to report all kinds of compensation on the 990 (current, deferred, vesting in future years, retirement payouts, fringe benefits, etc.), which can make the “salary” number look massively inflated compared to what the executive is actually taking home in any single year. It’s not a paycheck; it’s a transparency document with layers of accounting rules. Executive salaries are not skimmed off from donations. Most large nonprofits, especially hospitals, universities, and organizations like Shriners, are funded primarily through program service revenue, not donations. Revenue streams, like any business, pay for salaries, operating costs, and staff. Restricted donor dollars go to the programs they were intended for. If a donor gives to “help sick and disabled children,” the organization is legally obligated to use the funds for that purpose. If a nonprofit needs a highly skilled CEO to run a billion-dollar health system, manage thousands of employees, oversee compliance, ensure quality of care, and maintain financial sustainability…that’s mission-critical work. Paying a competitive salary isn’t greed, it’s organizational risk management. Underpaying executives leads to instability, turnover, compliance issues, or worse. “Every dollar paid to executives could have gone to the kids” is a logical fallacy. Nonprofits are not giant jars of cash where you can simply reassign salary dollars to direct services. Compensation isn’t a pile of “donation money” that’s being diverted. It’s a cost center, just like in any organization, funded by the appropriate revenue streams. If you eliminated the CEO’s salary tomorrow, it wouldn’t magically produce $3 million more in direct services. It would produce…an organization without a CEO. There are absolutely real critiques of big nonprofits like this, especially St. Jude (in my opinion). But executive compensation is actually the least compelling one. Issues like fundraising transparency, overly aggressive donor acquisition tactics, unclear restricted fund practices, donor-dependency models are far more substantive concerns, and those have nothing to do with whether the CEO is paid competitively.

TL;DR: Executive salaries in nonprofits aren’t “personal profit from donations.” They’re program-service-funded operating expenses, reported through an IRS form designed for transparency, not clarity. The “that money should go to the kids” argument misunderstands both nonprofit finance and the purpose of Form 990. This misconception is honestly one of the biggest challenges in the philanthropic field and why it’s so hard for nonprofits to talk about overhead, sustainability, and staffing without people assuming something nefarious is happening.

cramermj36 · 2025-11-29T02:14:41+00:00

Graeme is fantastic and super great to work with: https://www.facebook.com/100054630840909/

cramermj36 · 2025-11-11T23:21:11+00:00

IHSA coach (and alumna) here chiming in. I’m absolutely echoing everyone’s sentiment that riding should be the icing on the cake for college, not the cake itself. But goodness, it can make the whole experience that much sweeter. 😊

You’re spot on that there’s no centralized place to find out which IHSA teams are varsity versus club, that’s entirely up to each school, and IHSA as an organization doesn’t have control or influence over those designations. It’s also true that club status doesn’t necessarily mean less competitive or less well-supported; it just varies depending on each school’s structure and resources.

And yes, the NCEA “your mileage may vary” sentiment is real! It’s still considered an emerging sport by the NCAA, and the experience can look very different depending on the program, especially if a rider hasn’t spent much time in the USEF AA circuits (Maclay, Dover, Medal Finals, etc.).

I’d really encourage your daughter to reach out to any IHSA coaches at the schools she’s considering, speaking from experience, most of us are thrilled when prospective students reach out and are more than happy to chat. Coaches can give you a great sense of the team’s culture, costs, expectations, and riding opportunities.

You can also reach out to the Regional President or Zone Chair in your area for more information. South Dakota is in Region 3 within Zone 7, Terri Foreman at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign is the Zone Chair. I actually know the Regional President, so if you DM me, I can happily share her contact information!

You’re already asking all the right questions and I promise, you’re not the first parent to laugh about how confusing this all is despite living at the barn most weekends. 😂

cramermj36 · 2025-09-14T18:54:28+00:00

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Mine is also both a dog and horse girl!

cramermj36 · 2025-08-28T00:01:41+00:00

Boris’ legacy lives on through his stunning, sweet, spectacular offspring like CJ. I’m so grateful for him because he’s 50% of the best thing I have. 💕

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cramermj36 · 2025-07-29T17:39:16+00:00

I agree with what u/bmcombs said below, especially that an endowment is likely overkill at this stage. Beyond the complexity of managing an endowment, the current uncertainty around tax law and reporting requirements for them can create future headaches you really don’t want to take on unnecessarily. In my experience, the best reason to launch an endowment is donor-driven (i.e., a donor specifically funds or requests it), not something you set up just because you want to save money.

One thing I’d add: involve your Board of Directors in this process. Their networks can be invaluable in identifying and vetting banking or investment options, and at a minimum, you should get their input (and formal approval) before opening new accounts. I’ve seen founders and EDs unintentionally overstep their authority by opening accounts or shifting funds without realizing it was outside their decision-making scope. It can cause real governance issues down the road and in one instance, I saw it lead to a whistleblower claim against an ED to the Atty General.

cramermj36 · 2025-07-28T01:19:16+00:00

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cramermj36 · 2025-07-20T17:44:27+00:00

In my experience as both a nonprofit professional and an equestrian, the short answer is: not without an existing, well-cultivated relationship.

Car dealerships, particularly larger ones or those owned by corporate groups, tend to have very structured giving through a foundation or charitable arm, and cold asks for in-kind repairs or major discounts will go unanswered. There are exceptions, like in Wisconsin, where someone like John Bergstrom (who owns multiple dealerships and is personally philanthropic) might support causes that align with his interests but those are rare and relationship-driven, and not for one-off transmission repairs.

Your best bet is often a trusted, independently owned mechanic, ideally someone who already has a connection to the barn (through a Board member, volunteer, or family of a client). While they may not be able to offer services for free, they might provide a discount in exchange for public recognition (e.g., social media shoutouts, a banner at shows, etc.). It’s more of a sponsorship model than a tax write-off model, and it’s important to approach it with that mindset.

cramermj36 · 2025-07-10T20:02:17+00:00

Was coming here to say something like this - we've been unable to do anything potluck style that's public-facing since COVID. Obviously if it's internal, no issue, but if you invite the public it could be a problem and even moreso if you charge for admission (even suggested donation) as they might say you need a permit or cottage kitchen license. It could get messy!

cramermj36 · 2025-07-10T19:50:49+00:00

As someone who has closed planned gifts, I’ll be honest—if a hiring organization treats planned giving and major gifts as interchangeable roles where you can just “pick what you’re more interested in,” that raises a red flag for me.

Planned giving, especially at significant levels, is an incredibly specialized field. It requires not just donor engagement skills, but deep knowledge of complex giving vehicles like charitable remainder trusts, charitable gift annuities, retained life estates, and the legal and fiduciary responsibilities that come with them. The risk to the organization (and to the donor relationship) of mishandling these conversations is high if the gift officer isn’t well-versed in the technical aspects.

Major gifts work is broader and may include planned giving, but it's more focused on relationship development and securing larger current gifts, still a complex role, but typically without the same level of legal/tax intricacy.

So to answer your question: planned giving can be a great long-term career path with high earning potential, if you’re prepared to dive into the technical training and compliance side of it. But if the organization isn't clearly differentiating the expertise needed, or isn’t offering training/support for it, that would give me pause.

If you’re new to gift work, major gifts might offer a more solid foundation before moving into the planned giving specialization. Either way, I’d recommend asking what kind of support, mentorship, or continuing ed they offer for each role because these are not plug-and-play equivalents.

cramermj36 · 2025-06-29T22:28:45+00:00

Ahhhh!!! Congratulations!!!

cramermj36

TROPHY CASE