[nagdu] Why should donors give to guide dog schools?

[Tracy Carcione]

Minh and anyone else interested, Ginger posted the Singer article a while 
back.  A search in the NAGDU archives for Singer ought to find it.
Tracy

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "minh ha" <minh.ha927 at gmail.com>
To: "NAGDU Mailing List,the National Association of Guide Dog Users" 
<nagdu at nfbnet.org>
Sent: Friday, November 08, 2013 2:07 PM
Subject: Re: [nagdu] Why should donors give to guide dog schools?


> Hey Ginger,
>
> That is really interesting. Would it be possible for you to find the
> link to that article and post it here? I am actually reading one of
> Peter Singer's works in my theology class and it would be fascinating
> to bring it up in class to spark some discussion.
>
> Personally, I am of the opinion quality over quantity. Just because
> donors can give money to an organization that helps to cure blindness
> doesn't necessarily mean that it is more valuable than pairing a guide
> dog with a blind person. I know how much more confident and
> independent I feel traveling with my guide dog, and I could definitely
> make the argument saying that she has helped to increase my
> involvement within my college community as well as Boston at large,
> which directly impact my networking and landed me an internship. I
> really don't think you can value one over another.
>
> Minh
> On 11/8/13, Ginger Kutsch <GingerKutsch at yahoo.com> wrote:
>> Ed, thanks for sharing this article. It may be of interest to know that
>> this
>> article was published in response to comments made by Peter Singer, a
>> well-known Professor of Bioethics at Princeton University, who frequently
>> lectures about effective altruism. He recommends that donors put data 
>> ahead
>> of passion and give to organizations that help the most people. He stated
>> "You could provide one guide dog for one blind American, or you could 
>> cure
>> between 400 and 2,000 people of blindness. I think its clear what is the
>> better thing to do."
>>
>> And really, if you stop to think about it, tax payers already pay for 
>> blind
>> people to learn how to travel independently with a white cane. So in this
>> case, it shouldn't be surprising that some might question why thousands 
>> of
>> dollars more should be spent to provide a guide dog to a blind
>> person...especially when some blind people assert that they travel just 
>> as
>> well with a white cane as they do with a guide dog.
>>
>> I would be interested to hear from list members as to why they think 
>> donors
>> should give to guide dog schools. I could easily make an argument for 
>> list
>> members like Mike M. who sacrificed so much for our country -- no amount 
>> of
>> money makes up for what he lost in service to each and every one of us. 
>> But
>> for those of us who aren't wounded warriors, why should donors give money
>> to
>> help us? Said differently, if you were a fundraiser for a guide dog 
>> school,
>> what would you say to convince a donor  to give to your school?
>>
>> Best,
>>
>> Ginger
>>
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: nagdu [mailto:nagdu-bounces at nfbnet.org] On Behalf Of Ed Meskys
>> Sent: Friday, November 08, 2013 10:32 AM
>> To: nagdu
>> Subject: [nagdu] dog guides
>>
>> Precious Eyes.
>> NY Times Friday, 2013_11_08
>> By PAUL SULLIVAN. Paul Sullivan donates to charities for the blind,
>> including guide dog schools.. JENNIFER MURRAY woke after a night out with
>> friends and thought her husband was playing a trick on her. She could not
>> see anything and did not believe him when he said it was daytime.
>> 'It was like a light switch had been shut off,' she said. 'I shut my 
>> eyes,
>> and I blinked. And I tried it again several times. Then I realized the 
>> sun
>> was in my face, and I said, now what?
>> Ms. Murray had been battling to keep what little vision she had since her
>> premature birth in 1978. She had a bit of peripheral vision in one eye 
>> but
>> nothing else. A few years before the day when she lost her eyesight for
>> good, she had an operation to implant a permanent contact lens in her 
>> right
>> eye. It gave her sight such as she had never had before.
>> 'I was giddy for weeks,' she said. 'I could see everything, and everybody
>> was beautiful.
>> I remember thinking life is so colorful and so pretty, and I wouldn't 
>> have
>> taken that back for the world.
>> With her vision gone again, Ms. Murray said she began to withdraw from 
>> the
>> world.
>> Her husband, an Iraqi war veteran, was going through a difficult time, 
>> and
>> life was a struggle. With the birth of their son, Liam, who is now 2, Ms.
>> Murray said she realized she needed to become more independent to care 
>> for
>> him.
>> 'I realized the white cane wasn't cutting it,' she said. 'I was putting a
>> lot of unspoken pressure on my husband and my son, which isn't fair to
>> them.
>> That was when she decided to try to get a guide dog.
>> The mission of all guide dog schools is to create a team, pairing a blind
>> person and a dog to give the person greater freedom and independence. It
>> would seem to be an easy cause for fund-raising.
>> After all, most people melt when they see a puppy -- a big marketing tool
>> for these schools -- and helping blind people lead better lives seems to 
>> be
>> an unqualified good.
>> Yet if the cause is an easy sell, the work is not cheap. These schools 
>> need
>> to raise money and engage volunteers on a very large scale to ensure they
>> have enough resources to pay for the long, costly and often unsuccessful
>> training of dogs. One guide dog takes about two years to train and costs 
>> a
>> total of $45,000 to $60,000, covering everything from boarding a dog to
>> extensive drilling by professional trainers in serving the needs of the
>> blind to a weekslong period acclimating dog to recipient.
>> And about 45 percent of dogs bred by the schools do not make the grade.
>> Those
>> that
>> do are provided free to people who need them.
>> Beyond this, guide dog charities must compete in the wider contest for
>> dollars among nonprofit organizations. The Urban Institute, a research
>> organization that focuses on social and economic issues, estimates that 
>> 1.6
>> million such groups operate in America today, a 25 percent increase in 
>> the
>> last decade.
>> 'We're in competition with every charity and cause that's out there,' 
>> said
>> Eliot Russman, chief executive and executive director of Fidelco Guide 
>> Dog
>> Foundation, in Bloomfield, Conn. 'American Cancer Society, American Heart
>> Society -- everyone is out there telling compelling stories. There is a
>> finite pool of money.
>> 'We've got puppies, but Hole in the Wall Gang has dying children,' he 
>> said.
>> 'What's
>> more compelling? Our donors have to have confidence in management.
>> Mr. Russman came to Fidelco from the advertising world, where his clients
>> included McDonald's and Xerox. And that experience has helped him sell
>> potential donors on Fidelco, known for its German shepherds.
>> Bob Forrester, president and chief executive of the Newman's Own
>> Foundation,
>> which receives its money from the line of foods created by Paul Newman in
>> 1982, and gives money to the Hole in the Wall Gang Camp, said the school
>> fit
>> with the foundation's mission of empowerment. 'We want to help people to
>> rise to whatever their potential might be if that potential is being
>> thwarted by circumstances beyond their control,'
>> Mr. Forrester said.
>> He said that the foundation had given Fidelco $450,000 since 2010 for a
>> program that pairs guide dogs with blinded combat veterans. 'We think
>> broadly that it will be for nine dogs, but specifically we trust and
>> respect
>> our nonprofits to use it well and let us know,' Mr. Forrester said.
>> One of the dogs the foundation's money paid to train is Xxon, a male 
>> German
>> shepherd, who was paired with Michael Malarsie, an Air Force sergeant, a
>> year to the day after he was nearly killed by a roadside bomb in
>> Afghanistan
>> in January 2010. He survived a severe injury that left him blind, though
>> four others in his unit were killed.
>> In an interview last month before running a half-marathon in Hartford, 
>> Mr.
>> Malarsie,
>> 25, said that when he was recovering at Walter Reed National Military
>> Medical Center he decided he wanted a guide dog. 'I made a promise to
>> myself
>> that I wasn't going to let blindness slow me down,' he said.
>> He has three children and said Xxon, with a sweet, gentle face not often
>> associated with the breed, serves a more basic function: He helps him 
>> find
>> his children when they hide from him.
>> Mr. Malarsie's wife, Julie, whose first husband died in the same blast --
>> and who met Mr. Malarsie when she and other widows of those killed 
>> visited
>> survivors -- said Xxon had been just as important for the family as for 
>> Mr.
>> Malarsie. 'He's not relying on me,' she said. 'I know he's safe and taken
>> care of. I know he's not going to wander off. Xxon helped him find that
>> independence and confidence.
>> Like many nonprofits, guide dog schools find big corporate donations hard
>> to
>> attract.
>> The Guide Dog Foundation for the Blind in Smithtown, N.Y., receives
>> contributions from local businesses. One is Marchon, an eyewear company
>> based on Long Island.
>> Donna Rollins, vice president of United States sales operations at 
>> Marchon,
>> said the company became involved with the foundation when the economy
>> faltered in 2008.
>> Marchon was having a party for 5,000 people at a trade show in Las Vegas
>> and
>> decided that, given the times, it should have a charitable component, she
>> said. 'We had a band made up of eye doctors that was going to play, and 
>> we
>> asked our partners to sponsor the band to benefit the Guide Dog
>> Foundation,'
>> she said. That raised $25,000.
>> Instead of having an open bar, the company paid for the first two drinks
>> and
>> charged
>> $5 for additional ones, which raised another $5,000.
>> While the company has continued to promote the foundation at its trade
>> show,
>> the amounts today are lower.
>> Jean Thomas, director of donor and public relations at The Seeing Eye 
>> Inc.
>> in
>> Morristown,
>> N.J., which says it is the oldest guide dog school in the world (founded 
>> in
>> 1929), said the school had had success in setting up lunches at companies
>> to
>> discuss what it does -- dogs in tow -- with employees. Still, she said,
>> three-quarters of Seeing Eye's support comes from bequests and estate
>> gifts,
>> two areas that could be in trouble for all nonprofit groups as younger
>> donors seek to give while they are alive.
>> The
>> Seeing Eye and Guide Dogs for the Blind in San Rafael, Calif., each have
>> endowments of more than $200 million, but they are exceptions among the
>> dozen guide dog schools in the United States. Most rely on individual
>> donors
>> to finance day-to-day operations.
>> One way to raise money is to allow people to sponsor a dog, which 
>> entitles
>> them to name it. At the Guide Dog Foundation for the Blind, this costs
>> $6,000 per puppy.
>> 'We have a lot of ways for donors to come to us,' said Katherine Fritz,
>> director of development at the Guide Dog Foundation, citing events like
>> bike
>> races, walks and runs that typically net about $25,000. A recent golf
>> tournament brought in $185,000.
>> 'A majority of our donations come through direct mail and are from 
>> smaller
>> donors,'
>> she said. 'But we had one woman who gave $25 a year for 25 years and made 
>> a
>> six-figure donation in her estate, and she didn't inform us about it.
>> One thing all of these schools share is the need for hundreds of 
>> volunteers
>> a year to answer phones, give tours or just walk dogs. They also need
>> people
>> to help socialize the dogs in their first year. Called puppy walkers or
>> puppy raisers, these volunteers take the puppy home at eight weeks, teach
>> it
>> the basics like obedience and return it when it is about 14 months old.
>> Roger, 70, and Sheila Woodhour, 68, of Woodcliff Lake, N.J., are on their
>> 29th German shepherd. Fourteen of the puppies they have taken for The
>> Seeing
>> Eye have become guide dogs. Yet Mrs. Woodhour still gets choked up over
>> their first one, Dorsey.
>> 'When I gave up Dorsey I thought no one was going to love her as much as 
>> I
>> did,'
>> she said. But when she later saw Dorsey working, she changed her mind. 'I
>> loved the dog, but I didn't need the dog,' she said. 'I realized it gives
>> them purpose.
>> She and other puppy walkers said the line they hear over and over from
>> people is some version of, 'I could never do that because I couldn't give
>> the dog back.
>> Gail Horan, who raised Xxon as a puppy at her home in Farmington, Conn.,
>> said she and her husband cried all the way to Fidelco the day he was due
>> back. She admitted that in the back of her mind she wondered if he might
>> fail and come back to her.
>> 'That does go through your mind,' she said. 'But you have to remember
>> that's
>> not why you did it. I wish there were words that could tell you how it 
>> made
>> me feel when he passed' the training. These schools also need volunteers 
>> to
>> talk about what they do, with the goal of bringing in more volunteers and
>> donations.
>> Celebrities are part of this. Isabella Rossellini, the Italian actress 
>> and
>> model, and Betty White, the comedian and sitcom star, both volunteer to
>> help
>> schools for guide dogs.
>> Ms. White said she sponsors a dog each year at Guide Dogs for the Blind,
>> and
>> offers to have lunch or dinner with the highest bidder in an auction each
>> year for The Seeing Eye.
>> 'It's a chance for me to say thank you for your support,' she said. 'It
>> means we're all animal lovers, so we have no problem with conversation.
>> Those dinners have fetched $5,500 to $20,000 each over the last five 
>> years.
>>
>> Ms.
>> Rossellini
>> has helped socialize 10 puppies for the Guide Dog Foundation. Seven have
>> become working guide dogs.
>> She has also helped four dogs as they gave birth in her Long Island home. 
>> A
>> fund-raiser there last summer after a litter was born raised $6,000. 'I
>> decided everything I do, whether I give money or I volunteer, I have to 
>> be
>> hands on,' she said.
>> 'I
>> see
>> the rate of success. I see they're useful.
>> She added that, initially, 'I was interested in dogs, but it also makes 
>> me
>> feel good that those dogs go to help people who are visually impaired.
>> Criticism of guide dog charities often is based of the cost of training a
>> dog and pairing it with a person. The failure rate for these animals is
>> high. Dogs mainly wash out for health reasons -- bad eyesight, hip or
>> stomach problems -- and for temperament, such as being too calm or too
>> high-strung. And they can work for only eight to
>> 10
>> years before they retire to become pets. A blind person could need six or
>> seven dogs in a lifetime, which is a considerable expense.
>> 'We have something people can see and understand, but it is certainly 
>> still
>> a challenging fund-raising environment,' Ms. Thomas of The Seeing Eye 
>> said.
>> 'One of the challenges is, what we do has a profound impact on about 265
>> people a year. If you're going up against a charity that feeds one 
>> million
>> people a year, that's a tough comparison.
>> Philanthropic advisers point out, though, that while there are ways to
>> affect more lives with the same dollars, donors might not get the same
>> level
>> of satisfaction out of doing it. 'If where you're giving to doesn't 
>> reflect
>> things that you're interested and passionate about, it won't be very
>> rewarding for you,' said Jim Coutre, partner at The Philanthropic
>> Initiative
>> in Boston. 'Donors have to be honest with themselves.
>> If providing clean water to a village in Africa doesn't resonate with 
>> them
>> emotionally, they're not going to throw themselves into it.
>> He added, though, that people should still be discerning among different
>> nonprofit organizations focusing on the same cause. 'There are lots of
>> different organizations that train these dogs, but they're not all 
>> equal,'
>> he said. 'Some are going to have more impact.
>> The guide dog schools are addressing the high failure rate by improving
>> breeding and training to reduce the number of animals that do not succeed
>> and by finding other uses for them.
>> Mr. Russman said Fidelco dogs that do not make the cut sometimes work for
>> the police departments in Connecticut and New York. A Fidelco-trained dog
>> found a survivor at the World Trade Center site the day after the attack 
>> in
>> 2001. A few years ago, Wells B. Jones, chief executive of the Guide Dog
>> Foundation, said that the group saw a need for service dogs to help
>> soldiers
>> with traumatic injuries. Called America's Vet Dogs, the program has since
>> expanded to help civilians who have served the country.
>> He said the former representative Gabrielle Giffords, who was shot in the
>> head while meeting with constituents outside a Tucson supermarket in 
>> 2011,
>> uses a dog trained through the program to help with balance.
>> 'We had dogs that weren't being used in the guide dog program that could
>> contribute,'
>> he said. 'We viewed that as an opportunity to meet a need using existing
>> resources.
>> Frankly it's turned out to have lots of benefits for us. And it's added 
>> to
>> what we were doing with veterans.
>> Ed Bordley, a lawyer at the Justice Department in Washington who has been
>> blind since age 10, said that after one winter navigating Harvard
>> University
>> as a freshman, he applied for a guide dog in 1976.
>> 'You had these snow banks and people parking their cars on the sidewalks 
>> so
>> there was just a little room to get around,' he said. 'The dog would find
>> the path in the snow banks and walk you around the cars.
>> After graduating from Harvard Law School and embarking on a career that
>> required him to travel, he appreciated the dog more. 'I feel that there 
>> is
>> a
>> dignity to having a dog,' said Mr. Bordley, who is on his fifth dog. 
>> 'When
>> you're using a cane, people grab you and direct you all the time.
>> The dogs also do things a cane or any GPS device could not do. Cliff 
>> Aaron,
>> a lawyer who works in Lower Manhattan and lost his sight late in life 
>> from
>> a
>> hereditary condition, said his first dog, Alto, kept him from getting 
>> hurt
>> the first day they went to work.
>> 'I have to cross Church Street and Broadway every day,' he said. 'I'd 
>> been
>> relying on my hearing or someone to help me. On my first day with him he
>> stopped. I couldn't figure it out. Then I felt this wind go right past my
>> face. I knew right away it was a bike messenger who blew the light.
>> Last month, after four weeks at The Seeing Eye, Ms. Murray was getting
>> ready
>> to go home with her dog, Fuchsia. 'They've changed my life in ways they
>> only
>> think they know, but they don't know,' she said, with Fuchsia curled up 
>> by
>> her chair.
>> Yet she admitted to some trepidation in leaving the school and returning
>> home to what will be a very different life with her dog. She did not know
>> how her life would be changed.
>> 'When I lost my sight, I kind of just sheltered in a bit,' she said. 'The
>> first time I walked down the street with Fuchsia and I felt the wind on 
>> my
>> face, I was smiling like a little kid.
>> Tears of joy ran down from her closed eyes.. PHOTOS: LEARNING THE ROPES:
>> Igloo
>> is
>> being trained at the Fidelco Guide Dog Foundation in Bloomfield, Conn., 
>> to
>> give a blind person more independence. (F1); ONE ON ONE: A puppy gets
>> personal attention at Fidelco.; NEW BEST FRIEND: Sue McCahill of The 
>> Seeing
>> Eye helped Jennifer Murray adjust to a guide dog. (PHOTOGRAPHS BY ANDREW
>> SULLIVAN FOR THE NEW YORK
>> TIMES)
>> (F2).
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>
>
> -- 
> "All men dream, but not equally. Those who dream by night in the dusty
> recesses of their minds, wake in the day to find that it was vanity:
> but the dreamers of the day are dangerous men, for they may act on
> their dreams with open eyes, to make them possible." T. E. Lawrence
>
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