# One More Dollar, One More Game: Inside Project Pinball with Daniel Spolar

**Source:** Kineticist  
**Type:** article  
**Published:** 2026-03-27  
**Beat:** Pinball

**URL:** https://www.kineticist.com/news/project-pinball-interview

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## Analysis

Colin Patterson of Kineticist conducts an extensive three-hour interview with Daniel Spolar, founder of Project Pinball, a 501(c)(3) charity that places pinball machines in children's hospitals, Ronald McDonald Houses, retirement communities, and other facilities. The article details Project Pinball's origins (sparked by restoring a donated Spider-Man machine at a Florida children's hospital in 2011), operational mechanics (including raffle fundraising model, full-price machine purchases from manufacturers, ~$10k net cost per placement), financial structure (~$853k revenue, $104k combined executive compensation, $600k in reserves), and Spolar's philosophy of sustainable growth focused on capacity rather than ambitious targets. The piece also addresses community criticism and online controversy surrounding the charity's practices and finances.

### Key Claims

- [HIGH] Project Pinball has placed 85 machines across the United States from Seattle to West Palm Beach as of the interview date — _Daniel Spolar stated this directly to Colin Patterson; confirmed by reference to machine #85 dedication in Denver on March 10_
- [HIGH] The average net cost to Project Pinball per machine placement, including all associated expenses (shipping, insurance, contracts, background checks, administrative overhead), is approximately $9,782 to $10,000 — _Daniel Spolar provided this calculation directly: 'We say it's actually $9,782. That is on average. So we say 10,000 because it's a clean number.'_
- [HIGH] Project Pinball uses a 50/50 raffle model with 200 entries at $130 per entry for Stern Limited Editions, $95 for Premium, and $70 for Pro models — _Daniel Spolar explained the pricing structure: 'The standard is 200 entries, scaled by machine cost: $130 per entry for a current Stern LE, $95 for a Premium, $70 for a Pro.'_
- [HIGH] Project Pinball purchases all machines at full manufacturer cost with no donations or discounts, explicitly refusing to ask manufacturers for preferential pricing — _Daniel Spolar stated: 'We have to buy them just like everybody else. I have a business background and I'm not going to put my friends out of business.'_
- [HIGH] Daniel Spolar took zero salary from 2013 (incorporation) until 2021, and now receives $25/hour based on a 40-hour week set by the board, currently totaling $52,000 annually — _Daniel Spolar confirmed: 'Daniel took zero salary from 2013 until 2021, when his CPA finally convinced him to start. The first year he was paid $23,200. The current rate is $25/hour based on a 40-hour week, set by the board.'_
- [HIGH] Project Pinball has zero liabilities, combined executive compensation of $104,438 on $853,000 in revenue, with reserves of approximately $600,000 — _Colin Patterson reports based on Spolar's interview: 'The organization has $0 in liabilities, budgets two years out, and ran a deficit in 2023 — the reserves are what kept it going.'_
- [HIGH] Sierra Vermillion, Director of Operations, has been identified as Spolar's successor and has been groomed for the role over six years, beginning as a volunteer out of college — _Daniel Spolar confirmed: 'When I asked who would actually execute it, Daniel confirmed: Sierra Vermillion. He's been grooming her for the role for over six years.'_
- [HIGH] Project Pinball's Charity Navigator rating is 3-star (81%) and GuideStar/Candid rating is Platinum; Charity Navigator flags insufficient independent board members (2 of 5, recommends 3) and lack of independent audited financials — _Colin Patterson reports: 'Project Pinball has a 3-star (81%) rating on Charity Navigator and a Platinum rating on GuideStar/Candid... Charity Navigator flags two issues: no independent audited financials and insufficient independent board members (2 of 5 members classified as independent).'_

### Notable Quotes

> "She asked, 'Do you know where we're going today?' And he said, 'Yeah, we're going to the hospital. I just want to play pinball.'"
> — **Daniel Spolar (recounting story of a parent whose child began voluntarily attending hospital treatments after pinball machine was placed)**
> _Core narrative demonstrating the therapeutic impact of machine placements on pediatric patients; proof-of-concept moment for Project Pinball's mission_

> "You would touch it like this and your finger would be black as midnight."
> — **Daniel Spolar (describing the condition of the original Spider-Man machine at Golisano Children's Hospital before restoration)**
> _Vivid description of the origin story; establishes the condition and neglect of the initial machine that sparked Project Pinball_

> "Easy math. So it's $130 because the machine is $13,000 plus we have shipping involved with that, and plus we have fees that no one sees — for the marketplace and for the platform service."
> — **Daniel Spolar (explaining raffle entry pricing structure)**
> _Transparency on operational costs; directly addresses community questions about fundraising mechanics_

> "I have a business background and I'm not going to put my friends out of business, so to speak. You can't go there with a hand out and say give me, give me, give me — because if they're generous to a fault, it's going to really put them in financial difficulties."
> — **Daniel Spolar (explaining why Project Pinball refuses manufacturer discounts)**
> _Reveals business philosophy and ethical reasoning; explains relationship with manufacturers_

> "Keep trying and you'll reach your super jackpot."
> — **Dan Coyle (written for Project Pinball machine plaques; one of five plaques created before his death)**
> _Example of community member contributions to the charity's mission; shows emotional investment of pinball players_

> "There's people out there that want to flick matches while we go by and they want to be disruptive. They have no idea how hard we're working to build a sustainable charity that could help these families because they never put themselves in this situation."
> — **Daniel Spolar (responding to online criticism)**
> _Reveals frustration with online critics; frames criticism as coming from lack of direct experience with charity work_

> "Thank you very much. That's one more dollar than what we had a moment ago."
> — **Daniel Spolar (standard response to donors apologizing for small donations)**
> _Core philosophy of incremental progress; encapsulates 'one more machine' approach central to charity's identity_

> "I would invite all of these people that took information out of context or had bad behavior to join us in the moment of the dedication and see [it] from our standpoint."
> — **Daniel Spolar (challenge to online critics)**
> _Direct call for critics to witness operations firsthand; emphasizes transparency and willingness to engage_

> "How many machines do you think that we should be doing?"
> — **Daniel Spolar (responding to suggestion of setting higher placement targets)**
> _Reveals philosophy that capacity constraints are the limiting factor, not ambition; challenges reporter's assumptions_

> "Next time you're building a narrative from a 990 filing, consider picking up the phone first. Daniel's number is on the website. He'll answer."
> — **Colin Patterson (closing statement to readers)**
> _Meta-commentary on journalism and charitable accountability; emphasizes Spolar's accessibility and transparency_

### Entities

| Name | Type | Context |
|------|------|---------|
| Daniel Spolar | person | Founder and chief operator of Project Pinball; general contractor by trade who rediscovered pinball after his children left home; incorporated Project Pinball in August 2013 and filed for 501(c)(3) status the same year |
| Colin Patterson | person | Chief pixel pusher at Kineticist; lifetime gamer who became passionate about pinball after playing 1979 Joker Poker; interviewed Daniel Spolar for this article; contributes to This Week in Pinball and New England Pinball League |
| Sierra Vermillion | person | Director of Operations at Project Pinball; earned $52,438 annually; came to Project Pinball as volunteer out of college and was hired by Spolar on a road trip; groomed as successor to lead charity after Spolar; nicknamed 'the mother' for taking care of organization members |
| Project Pinball | organization | 501(c)(3) charity incorporated in Florida in August 2013; places pinball machines in children's hospitals, Ronald McDonald Houses, rehabilitative services, retirement communities, and special needs schools; has placed 85 machines as of interview date; has $853,000 in revenue and $600,000 in reserves |
| Jimmy Schneeberger | person | Child who died of cancer; his parents donated a 2007 Stern Spider-Man machine to Golisano Children's Hospital in his memory, which became the catalyst for Project Pinball's founding when Daniel Spolar was called to restore it in 2011 |
| Dean Grover | person | Pinball programmer who coded Spider-Man Home for Stern and many other games; met Daniel Spolar at PAPA in 2011; had suffered serious illness in youth with lifelong health effects; loaned personal Iron Man machine to Project Pinball for Children's Hospital Colorado placement; subsequently donated it permanently after his death; had one-of-a-kind Spider-Man Home prototype |
| George Gomez | person | Stern designer; informed Daniel Spolar that Dean Grover had coded Spider-Man Home |
| Lyons Classic Pinball | company | Colorado-based pinball business that raffled Dean Grover's one-of-a-kind Spider-Man Home prototype after his death |
| Stern Pinball | company | Pinball manufacturer; Project Pinball purchases machines at full cost; provided production decals at cost for Dean Grover's prototype restoration |
| Marco Specialties | company | Aftermarket pinball parts supplier; photoshopped and custom-cut front panel for Dean Grover's Spider-Man Home prototype restoration |
| Dan Coyle | person | Pinball player known to Daniel Spolar; diagnosed with terminal cancer; attended tournament days before entering hospice; wrote five inspirational plaques for Project Pinball machines before his death; one plaque placed at Stanford Children's Hospital |
| Andrei Massenkoff | person | World champion pinball player who works as a child life teacher; donated personal Mandalorian machine to Project Pinball for Stanford Children's Hospital placement |
| Brian Benway | person | Local St. Louis supporter who helped place a Stern Star Trek machine at a children's hospital in 2014, providing Project Pinball's proof of concept |
| Ronald McDonald House | organization | Charity partner; Project Pinball places machines at Ronald McDonald Houses in its network; Dean Grover's restored Spider-Man Home prototype dedicated as machine #85 at Ronald McDonald House in Denver on March 10 |
| Golisano Children's Hospital of Southwest Florida | organization | Hospital where the original Spider-Man machine was donated by Jimmy Schneeberger's parents in 2008; machine received 21,332 plays before breaking; restoration of this machine sparked Project Pinball's founding in 2011 |
| Children's Hospital Colorado | organization | Received Dean Grover's Iron Man machine from Project Pinball; machine later donated permanently by Grover's widow with commemorative plaque |
| Stanford Children's Hospital | organization | Received a Project Pinball machine placement after four years of relationship-building; received Andrei Massenkoff's Mandalorian machine; received one of Dan Coyle's five plaques |
| Charity Navigator | organization | Charity rating platform that gave Project Pinball a 3-star (81%) rating; flagged two issues: no independent audited financials and insufficient independent board members (2 of 5, recommends 3) |
| GuideStar/Candid | organization | Charity transparency platform that gave Project Pinball a Platinum rating based on self-reported transparency |
| Fanthem.io | company | Third-party raffle platform service used by Project Pinball; charges fees that are deducted from raffle gross |
| Spooky Pinball | company | Pinball manufacturer; created sold-out Beetlejuice machine referenced as high-demand example |
| PAPA | organization | Professional and Amateur Pinball Association; tournament event where Daniel Spolar met Dean Grover in 2011 |
| This Week in Pinball | organization | Pinball industry publication; Colin Patterson contributes to it |
| Kineticist | organization | Media outlet founded and operated by Colin Patterson; published this interview article |

### Topics

- **Primary:** Project Pinball's operational model and fundraising mechanics, Charity finances, transparency, and accountability, Project Pinball's founding origin story and proof of concept, Community stories and impact narratives (Dean Grover, Dan Coyle, etc.), Online criticism and community controversy
- **Secondary:** Leadership succession planning and organizational sustainability, Manufacturer relationships and full-price purchasing policy, Charity governance and board structure

### Sentiment

**Neutral** (0)

### Signals

- **[community_signal]** Project Pinball's 85 machine placements across five facility types (children's hospitals, Ronald McDonald Houses, rehabilitative services, retirement communities, special needs schools) represents significant community reach and partnership infrastructure (confidence: high) — Daniel Spolar confirmed 85 machines placed from Seattle to West Palm Beach; multiple dedicated placements described with specific locations and facility partners
- **[business_signal]** Project Pinball operates with healthy financial reserves ($600k), zero liabilities, and sustainable 50/50 raffle model generating ~$10k net per machine placement after all costs (confidence: high) — Colin Patterson reports: '$853,000 in revenue, $104,438 combined executive compensation, $600,000 in reserves, $0 in liabilities, budgets two years out'; Spolar confirmed 'average $9,782' net per placement
- **[industry_signal]** Project Pinball's explicit policy of purchasing all machines at full manufacturer cost without discounts reflects ethical business approach and protects manufacturer profit margins; Stern and Spooky Pinball actively support charity through parts donations and machine placements (confidence: high) — Spolar stated: 'We have to buy them just like everybody else... I'm not going to put my friends out of business'; Stern provided production decals at cost for prototype restoration; Spooky Beetlejuice mentioned as high-demand example
- **[community_signal]** Online criticism of Project Pinball exists regarding financial practices and salary transparency, but community response has been overwhelmingly supportive; Spolar acknowledges critics and invites direct engagement while framing criticism as 'noise' (confidence: high) — Spolar stated: 'There's people out there that want to flick matches while we go by and they want to be disruptive'; also said 'I think our public really had opinions about that, of staunch support'; board has sought legal counsel about online criticism
- **[organization_signal]** Daniel Spolar has formal succession plan in place with Sierra Vermillion identified and groomed for role; two-year daily structure transitioning to monthly then quarterly planning provides operational continuity framework (confidence: high) — Spolar confirmed: 'I have a legacy plan in place for my departure. I have a two-year plan that's like a daily structure'; Colin Patterson reports 'grooming her for the role for over six years'
- **[business_signal]** Charity Navigator rating reflects governance concerns: Project Pinball lacks independent audited financials and has insufficient independent board members (2 of 5; recommends 3); board currently in transition with two members departed and two new members being vetted (confidence: high) — Colin Patterson reports Charity Navigator flags 'no independent audited financials and insufficient independent board members (2 of 5 members classified as independent, below their recommended 3)'; Spolar acknowledged board transition with members departing and new members being vetted
- **[personnel_signal]** Daniel Spolar took zero salary from 2013-2021 (8 years), now receives $25/hour ($52k annually) set by board; total executive payroll ($104,438) represents 12.2% of $853,000 revenue; Spolar regularly works more than 40-hour weeks and has personally attended every dedication (confidence: high) — Spolar stated: 'I never worked a 40-hour week in my whole entire life. It's always been more than that'; Colin Patterson confirms 'Daniel took zero salary from 2013 until 2021' and 'personally attended every single dedication'
- **[product_strategy]** Project Pinball uses scaled 50/50 raffle model with tiered entry pricing ($130 for Stern LE, $95 Premium, $70 Pro, 200 entries per machine) borrowed from church/volunteer fire station fundraising structures; has resisted pressure to increase entry caps even for high-demand machines (confidence: high) — Spolar explained: 'The standard is 200 entries, scaled by machine cost: $130 per entry for a current Stern LE, $95 for a Premium, $70 for a Pro'; also stated 'They've resisted pressure to increase the cap, even for high-demand machines like Spooky Pinball's sold-out Beetlejuice'
- **[community_signal]** Pinball community figures (Dean Grover, Dan Coyle, Andrei Massenkoff) actively participate in Project Pinball through machine donations, contributions, and volunteer work; stories demonstrate deep emotional investment of players in charitable mission (confidence: high) — Dean Grover loaned then donated Iron Man machine with permanent plaque; Dan Coyle wrote five inspirational plaques before death from cancer; Andrei Massenkoff (world champion) donated personal Mandalorian machine and works as child life teacher
- **[organizational_signal]** Project Pinball operates with deliberately constrained growth model focused on 'one more machine' rather than ambitious expansion targets; constraint is organizational capacity (2 salaried employees, volunteer network, Spolar's personal dedication attendance) rather than demand or ambition (confidence: high) — Spolar responded to expansion suggestions: 'How many machines do you think that we should be doing?'; Colin Patterson notes 'The constraint isn't ambition, it's capacity. Two salaried employees, a network of volunteers, 85 machines spread from Seattle to West Palm Beach'
- **[market_signal]** Project Pinball's raffle pricing reveals market values for current Stern machines: LE models valued at ~$13,000 base cost, with tiered pricing suggesting Premium at ~$10,000 and Pro at ~$7,000, consistent with current retail pinball machine pricing (confidence: high) — Spolar stated: '$130 because the machine is $13,000' for LE, with pricing scaled to $95 for Premium and $70 for Pro, indicating perceived value hierarchy across Stern tiers

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## Transcript

Like what you're reading? Get pinball news, analysis, and deep dives delivered to your inbox. Colin is the chief pixel pusher at Kineticist. He's a lifetime gamer who became enamored with pinball after taking in a family copy of the 1979 classic Joker Poker (the EM version). Since then he's bought, sold and repaired many machines, competed in all kinds of tournaments, and contributes to This Week in Pinball, the New England Pinball League, and Pin-Masters of New England. Previously, Colin spent over a decade working in marketing for agencies and tech startups. He also started and ran a music blog, happy hour website, and wrote a regular craft beer review column for Central Track in Dallas. Once aspired to be an artsy film director. What follows is a mix of narrative and Q&A. The stories that most people haven't heard, and the business questions that keep coming up, answered in Daniel's own words. But after sitting with this for a while, what I keep coming back to is how routine it all was. It was dense and info-packed — nearly three hours of material — but it was also just a pretty normal conversation about a small, mission-driven organization and the person running it. Personally, the mechanics of how the business works are the more interesting part. The origin story has been told before. Here's the version Daniel told me. Around 2011, Daniel Spolar was called in to look at an inoperable 2007 Stern Spider-Man machine in the Chrissy Brown Hematology and Oncology Unit at Golisano Children's Hospital of Southwest Florida. The hospital had been trying to find someone to fix it for over nine months. The machine had been donated around 2008 by the parents of Jimmy Schneeberger, who died of cancer as a child. They wanted to give something back to the hospital where their son received care. Their son loved superheroes. Spider-Man had just come out. Nobody maintained it. For roughly two and a half years, kids, parents, siblings, and staff played it until it broke. The play counter read 21,332. Then it sat — filthy, dark, heading for a janitor's closet. "You would touch it like this and your finger would be black as midnight." Spolar, a general contractor by trade who had rediscovered pinball after his kids left home, rallied the local community to restore it. But it took convincing. The machine was hospital property. It had to go through a board. 21,332 plays on a single machine, in a hospital, with zero promotion and zero maintenance. The demand was real. The question was whether anyone would build something around it. Spolar wasn't sure. He'd stepped away from pinball for 18 years while raising three kids, then dove back in hard. He worried he was too close to pinball to see clearly. "I wasn't sure if this was a viable idea for a charity, which is a scary thought. We know that they're putting in consoles and PlayStations and all this stuff. Am I too close to pinball?" He incorporated Project Pinball in Florida in August 2013, filed for 501(c)(3) status the same year, and started funding the whole thing out of pocket. The original plan was five machines in five Florida cities. Then he found out Florida had 11 major cities with children's hospitals. "All a sudden I found out there was 11. So I'm like, 'Oh, okay. We got to take this serious.'" It wasn't until 2014, when the charity placed a Stern Star Trek machine in a St. Louis children's hospital through a local supporter named Brian Benway, that Spolar had his proof of concept. Two months after the placement, a parent emailed. Her son, who knew his outpatient treatments would make him violently sick for days afterward, had started fighting going to the hospital. Then one morning she couldn't find him. He was in the van, dressed, waiting. "She asked, 'Do you know where we're going today?' And he said, 'Yeah, we're going to the hospital. I just want to play pinball.'" Most of what Project Pinball does happens behind closed doors. HIPAA prevents sharing photos and videos from dedications without lengthy media releases the charity doesn't want to impose. Daniel says that's the whole point: "It's not about us. It's about placing a pinball machine that's going to be beneficial." The result is a charity whose best evidence of impact is largely invisible to the public. Here are some of the stories Daniel told me that I found most interesting. Dean Grover was a pinball programmer — he coded Spider-Man Home for Stern (and many others). But he rarely talked about it. Daniel met him at PAPA outside Pittsburgh in 2011. A friend of Daniel's was going around with a camera, asking people what they thought of the idea of putting pinball machines in hospitals. Dean got on camera and shared, unprompted, that he'd suffered a serious illness when he was younger — treatment that caused lifelong health issues. Daniel didn't know any of this until he was editing the footage. "Dean never said, 'Poor me' or anything like that. He was just happy to be there." Later, Dean walked up to a Spider-Man Home at a PAPA event and started playing it, walking Daniel through the nuances of the game as he went. He never mentioned that he'd written the code. Daniel didn't find out until a later conversation with Stern designer George Gomez. Dean eventually loaned his personal Iron Man machine to the charity for placement at Children's Hospital Colorado. When his health declined and he passed away, he and his wife donated the machine permanently. A plaque was placed on it. The community story doesn't end there. Dean had a one-of-a-kind Spider-Man Home prototype — no decals, missing boards, a front panel that was completely different from the production version. After his death, Lyons Classic Pinball in Colorado raffled it. A guy named Mike bought half the entries and won. He called the charity and said he wanted to restore it, but it was incomplete. Stern provided production decals at cost. Marco Specialties photoshopped and cut a custom front panel to fit the prototype's unique speaker and ball launch placement. That panel was completed about a week before my interview with Daniel. On March 10, the prototype was dedicated as machine #85 at the Ronald McDonald House in Denver — Dean's second machine in the charity's fleet. Dan Coyle was a pinball player Daniel knew from the community. When Coyle was diagnosed with terminal cancer, he didn't withdraw. He showed up at a tournament days before entering hospice to say goodbye to his friends on his own terms. Daniel recalls him saying: "No one gets out alive and, you know, this is my time." Every Project Pinball machine gets a plaque — something inspirational for the kids and families who play it. Daniel asked Coyle if he'd be willing to write one. He tried to downplay the ask. Coyle came back and said it was really hard to limit himself to one, so he'd written five. "He ended up coming up with five of them. And he just was putting words out there. And the great touch that he put on it, it was pinballesque — 'Keep trying and you'll reach your super jackpot.'" One of those five plaques ended up at Stanford Children's Hospital — a recent placement that took four years of relationship-building to secure. Andrei Massenkoff, a world champion pinball player who also works as a child life teacher, had donated his personal Mandalorian machine to the charity for that placement. Daniel asked him to pick one of the five. Not every placement is in a children's hospital. The charity has five focus areas, or phases as Daniel describes them: children's hospitals, Ronald McDonald Houses, rehabilitative services, retirement communities, and special needs schools. The older electromechanical machines go to retirement communities — they can't meet the UL and ANSI safety standards required for hospital environments, but they're perfect for an audience that remembers them. One of Daniel's favorite dedications was in the Ozarks. A Surf Champ EM machine. As he wheeled it through the retirement community toward the cafeteria, residents started streaming out of their rooms and falling in behind him. He described the scene to Sierra Vermillion, his Director of Operations, and she said: "Oh my god, you're the pied piper of pinball." "That was one of the shortest dedications I ever did because they didn't want to hear me talk. They wanted to play." This is where the community's questions tend to focus. Rather than paraphrase, here's Daniel in his own words on the topics that come up most. "Easy math. So it's $130 because the machine is $13,000 plus we have shipping involved with that, and plus we have fees that no one sees — for the marketplace and for the platform service. The raffle platform is not something that we govern. It's done for us by a third party. "Essentially, if you look at the quick math, all we did was we took 100 entries, made it 200 to make it 50/50. First hundred is break even and then the other part of it is something that we could use for our program." The standard is 200 entries, scaled by machine cost: $130 per entry for a current Stern LE, $95 for a Premium, $70 for a Pro. They've resisted pressure to increase the cap, even for high-demand machines like Spooky Pinball's sold-out Beetlejuice. The one exception is show-associated raffles for older EM machines, where they'll expand the pool. An important detail: Project Pinball buys its machines at full cost from manufacturers. No donations, no discounts. Daniel is firm on this: "We have to buy them just like everybody else. I have a business background and I'm not going to put my friends out of business, so to speak. You can't go there with a hand out and say give me, give me, give me — because if they're generous to a fault, it's going to really put them in financial difficulties." So the math on the raffles, honestly? Not that bad. At 200 entries and $130 a ticket on a $13,000 machine, the gross is $26,000. After the machine cost, shipping, platform fees (Fanthem.io), and marketplace costs, the margin funds the program. It's a 50/50 model borrowed from church fundraisers and volunteer fire stations — the same structure Daniel grew up watching. "We say it's actually $9,782. That is on average. So we say 10,000 because it's a clean number." That covers not just the machine but shipping, insurance, contracts, background checks for volunteers, Zoom meetings with hospital administrators, and the ongoing maintenance commitment. The hospital never receives a bill. If the hospital renovates and needs the machine moved, the charity moves it. If a machine needs restoration, the charity pulls it, places a loaner, and gives the location a choice of which to keep when the original is restored. "I think just calling it cash is kind of crude. It makes me feel like I'm Uncle Scrooge riding in the vault counting my gold coins. For one, it's not my money. I'm simply a steward of the charity. "We're not sitting on what you would call cash just sitting there, but we are holding reserves. As you build a company, you have to be flexible. I did businesses in the past and you have to make sure that you have working capital for a downturn." When asked directly what the $600,000 is made of — how much is cash, how much is machine book value — Daniel pointed to functional reserves, heritage funds, and a financial advisor helping with growth, but didn't give a precise breakdown. The organization has $0 in liabilities, budgets two years out, and ran a deficit in 2023 — the reserves are what kept it going. Daniel took zero salary from 2013 until 2021, when his CPA finally convinced him to start. The first year he was paid $23,200. The current rate is $25/hour based on a 40-hour week, set by the board — not by Daniel. "I never worked a 40-hour week in my whole entire life. It's always been more than that." Total payroll for the organization is two people: Daniel at $52,000 and Sierra Vermillion, Director of Operations, at $52,438. Combined executive compensation is $104,438 on $853,000 in revenue. Project Pinball has a 3-star (81%) rating on Charity Navigator and a Platinum rating on GuideStar/Candid. The two platforms measure different things. Charity Navigator uses an algorithmic assessment that includes governance standards; GuideStar Platinum is based on self-reported transparency. Charity Navigator flags two issues: no independent audited financials and insufficient independent board members (2 of 5 members classified as independent, below their recommended 3). Daniel says the board includes himself and Sierra as non-independent, with the remaining three being independent community members. In a follow-up, he shared that the board is currently in transition — two members have departed since last fall and two new members are being vetted to replace them. The target is a functioning board of five. On the audit question, Daniel is direct — and this is where I'd push back if I were advising him: "We don't have to though. It's not a requirement. That's another expenditure. If we could put that in the program, I don't see a need for that. We're open book." He's right that an audit isn't legally required at this revenue level, and I told him as much — spending $10,000-$20,000 on an audit when that money could place another machine is a real tradeoff. But "open book" and "independently verified" aren't the same thing, and an audit would probably make a lot of the recurring questions go away. Whether that's worth the cost is a judgment call. The questions are bound to continue till there's more on paper. This isn't a question the community is asking, but it's one I think about a lot with passion-driven pinball businesses — what happens when the person who is the operation steps away? "I have a legacy plan in place for my departure. I have a two-year plan that's like a daily structure. That way, someone could pick up in my thought pattern. For the first two years you have a daily plan and then after the third year it goes to monthly and then for the fourth and fifth years it goes into quarterly." When I asked who would actually execute it, Daniel confirmed: Sierra Vermillion. He's been grooming her for the role for over six years. She came to Project Pinball as a volunteer out of college, and Daniel hired her on the spot during a road trip after overhearing her talking with his assistant. She's been nicknamed "the mother" by people in the organization because, as Daniel puts it, she just takes care of everybody. Daniel isn't plugged into social media. He's not following all the podcasts. "You'll see me disappear because I don't care to share what spaghetti dinner I had on Thursday." Someone else manages Project Pinball's accounts. He's on the road. So when the noise reaches him, it comes filtered and delayed, which makes the frustration sharper when it lands. "There's people out there that want to flick matches while we go by and they want to be disruptive. They have no idea how hard we're working to build a sustainable charity that could help these families because they never put themselves in this situation." His response to critics is consistent and firm: come to a dedication. See what we do. Then ask your questions. "I would invite all of these people that took information out of context or had bad behavior to join us in the moment of the dedication and see [it] from our standpoint." He confirmed the board has sought legal counsel about the online criticism and is considering further action as needed. He framed it as a business decision, not a personal one — "the board considers it noise, their words not mine." I asked him what accusations he found most laughable. He pointed to the salary criticism — people who found his $52,000 annual compensation on the 990 but didn't mention the eight years he ran the charity out of pocket without taking a dime. The community response to the noise, for what it's worth, has been overwhelmingly in Daniel's favor. He noted this himself: "If you go to these noise generators, I think our public really had opinions about that, of staunch support." In prior interviews and across Project Pinball's messaging, the same phrase keeps coming up: one more machine. That's the goal. Not a number, not a target — just one more than last time. I pressed him on this. Why one more machine? Why not set a crazy audacious goal — 20 placements a year, 40 more machines in two years? He turned it around on me: "How many machines do you think that we should be doing?" I didn't have a number either. His point was simple — the constraint isn't ambition, it's capacity. Two salaried employees, a network of volunteers, 85 machines spread from Seattle to West Palm Beach, and he's personally attended every single dedication. It's not a flashy philosophy. It wouldn't make for a great startup pitch deck. But after almost three hours with the guy who's driven the Escalade for hundreds of thousands of miles (and counting), I think it might be the only honest way to run a charity like this — small enough to still care about every dollar, stubborn enough to keep showing up in hotel rooms with bikes wedged against the bed, transparent enough to sit on a Zoom call for three hours with "pinball media" and answer whatever gets asked. When people walk up to the Project Pinball booth at a show and hear the pitch, some of them reach for their wallets. They pull out a dollar and apologize for not having more. Daniel's answer, every time: "Thank you very much. That's one more dollar than what we had a moment ago." The questions will keep coming. They should. Any charity at this revenue level should expect them. But the next time you're building a narrative from a 990 filing, consider picking up the phone first. Daniel's number is on the website. He'll answer.

_(Acquisition: web_scrape, Enrichment: v4)_

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*Exported from Journalist Tool on 2026-04-13 | Item ID: 98254b68-9f33-4eba-8dea-afd1f7a0db8c*