Debate year to debate year, obviously, it goes up. There is a now a lot of security required, and it didn't used to be. In 2016 an individual debate cost just shy of $2 million, which, as those of you who are television experts know, is extremely inexpensive television.
We raise our money from any sources that would be permitted for us as a not-for-profit organization under the Internal Revenue Service designation that we qualify for, so essentially our fundraising is done the same way that an educational or a religious entity would do it. We raise the money from foundations, corporations, and sometimes individuals, and the money for each debate itself.... We have held almost all of them on college and university campuses, given the fact it's very consistent with the educational purpose of the debates. When we go to a campus, that campus is asked to raise the funds that their debate will cost. Those funds are paid to the commission and in return we pay all the bills.
The budget varies depending on how much money we can raise in an individual debate cycle. We like to have a cushion so that we're enabled to do some educational work and, increasingly, to do the inspiring work we're doing with a 32-member network of international debate organizations that are all NGOs, many from emerging democracies that want to start their own debate traditions, having watched the U.S.