Founder and CEO of Count Me In Corporation Terry Drayton announced the organization is continuing its work to secure investors or a sale so the company can repay the $5 million it owes to 220 sports organizations across the country.

“My only objective is to raise the funds needed to pay back every club we owe money – every penny,” he said.

A number of sports clubs have filed lawsuits against CMI, claiming they never received registration money, and the state Attorney General’s office confirmed more than 30 complaints.

Drayton said that CMI has made a series of poor decisions over the years regarding staff, systems and programs.

According to Drayton, the company can fully account for every penny the $5 million shortfall, noting the funds were slowly used over the past eight years to pay normal operating costs for the Bellevue company.

Drayton said when he became aware of the problem about two years ago, he brought in outside financial experts to help understand the extent of the financial issues.

“We had to do a ton of things including re-keying almost seven years worth of financial records before we could understand the extent of our financial situation,” he added. “We got that done in May 2008, and I then stepped in full-time to try to fix the shortfall through a planned $10M equity offering.”

Late last year, CMI voluntarily changed its business model and no longer handles money on behalf of its clients. Instead funds flow directly to the clubs so they are always under the clubs’ compete financial control.