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Re:Vancouver bans whales and dolphins at aquarium by derefr on Wednesday May 17, 2017 @05:28PM (#14362967)
Your argument is vacuous because you aren't translating between "revenue" and "profit." If that "15% of revenue" was also "100% of profit", then they're doing exactly what you'd expect a non-profit to do. The real questions are:

1. how much un-needed overhead their expenses consist of, beyond the minimum costs required to run the facility;

2. the dollar-amount of donations that reach the relevant causes by having this type of facility operating, vs. the dollar-amount of donations that would be given to the same causes if this facility did not exist, or if it tried to operate on slimmer margins (by e.g. only being a marine-wildlife gift shop or somesuch.)

My own suspicion is that the answer to #1 is "not much", and the answer to #2 is "a far larger amount." (Under the argument: people don't bother to donate money to wildlife preservation if they're not being actively reminded of the existence of wildlife in need of preservation. That "15% of revenue" still likely ends up as a larger absolute dollar-figure than the total amount of donations to the same causes made by all other individuals or organizations in the area.)

Even if you don't agree with my suspicions, I think those two questions are the only good ones to be debating here.

Re:Vancouver bans whales and dolphins at aquarium by jamesgagan on Wednesday May 17, 2017 @05:34PM (#14363013)
OP said "All proceeds are directed back into rehabilitation and education programs." This is not true.
Re:Vancouver bans whales and dolphins at aquarium by mthoms on Thursday May 18, 2017 @12:04AM (#14364723)
Pedantry fail. You know very well what "proceeds go to charity" means.

http://www.businessdictionary.com/definition/proceeds.html

Nearly every non-profit in the world has expenses to cover first.

Re:Vancouver bans whales and dolphins at aquarium by derefr on Wednesday May 17, 2017 @05:59PM (#14363191)
"Proceeds" is a synonym for profits, not for revenues. That was my point: "15% of revenues" might very well be the entirety of the proceeds, making their statement true. You have to do some accounting to prove or disprove that.