Country clubs in the United States are private membership organizations, but the overwhelming majority are tax-exempt 501(c)(7) nonprofits — and therefore legally obliged to publish a Form 990 each year. That filing carries a remarkable amount of operational detail: revenue, expenses, the balance sheet, aggregate compensation, initiation fees. We read all of it.
Twice a quarter we send the people who run private clubs the parts worth knowing — new filings, compensation movement, and the occasional eyebrow-raiser — drawn straight from the public record, with citations.
Every number we publish maps back to a named line in a named filing. Where a value is missing from the source data, it is shown as a dash in muted gold — never as a zero, never as an estimate.
Annual filings lag reality. A FY2024 990 may not be posted until late 2025, and a minority of clubs file as taxable entities rather than 501(c)(7)s — those file no 990 at all. We document these coverage gaps and do not attempt to bridge them.