[Nfbk] Disappointed

[Briley O'Connor]

Dear Kevin and List:

I appreciate the reminder to share the link. You are correct that
sometimes, usually unintentionally, people get busy and forget. However,
there are two thoughts that I have in response.

First, we would all do well to remember that these list archives are public
and searchable by Google…ergo anyone can see our conversation amongst
ourselves. While I appreciate that you feel comfortable with everyone and
we all know how to take what you say, a response like that could
potentially appear angry and disrespectful to someone who doesn’t know us
personally. It is certainly not a problem to discuss controversial issues
on a list such as this, but we should all watch the tone of our
communications with one another.

Secondly, out of fear that it would unnecessarily cause conflict, I was
planning to keep my feelings about this current fundraiser to myself.
However, since you brought it up, I am not comfortable with this particular
fundraising effort. GoFundMe is certainly a legitimate and innovative way
to raise funds for worthy causes, such as the NFB of Kentucky. However, I
struggle with the idea of raising funds specifically for convention costs,
because we do not have scarce funds as your e-mail suggested; we have well
over $60,000 in available funds and even more in a restricted, scholarship
account.

I do not have any issue with raising money to help the blind of Kentucky,
but we should save our GoFundMe leverage for programs that truly would be
difficult to fund purely out of the money that we have available. We can
very comfortably afford convention, whereas multiple BELL programs or other
seminars (say, a non-visual techniques seminar for seniors who are losing
vision) would make a connection with the public and thus procure more
funds. A state convention is a worthy and great event, but for someone who
has never come before, the benefits are nebulous.

In short, people are more willing to shell out $20, $30, or $100 to help
blind children read or teach seniors how to cook independently than they
are to help a bunch of blind folks stay at a nice hotel for a weekend.

To be clear, I understand the importance of convention and I want to help
send people to it. I just don’t think that we should do it this way.

In summary, perhaps some are not sharing because they have similar
feelings. I am not saying that I will not share the campaign at all, but it
is something that I have been thinking through.

Thank you for opening the discussion.

Briley

On Fri, Jul 31, 2015 at 3:53 PM, Kevin Pearl via Nfbk <nfbk at nfbnet.org>
wrote:

> I'm very disappointed in how much sharing is happening. We are trying to
> raise funds to help get people to State Convention. We have a campaign on
> Go Fund Me and we have been asked to share the link to the web site far and
> wide. Share it on social media: we all have different connections in this
> area. So we ALL need to share it early and share it often. Share it with
> people via email, text, smoke signal, by any means you have.
> If you can't be bothered to spend a few minutes sharing a link with
> friends, family and colleagues, then how can you have your hand out taking
> scarce funds from the organization?  Obviously this doesn't apply to all of
> you. But if you aren't putting out the effort, I suggest you step it up.
>
> These opinions are my own. Your milage may vary and thats OK.
>
> HERE IS THE LINK TO SHARE:
>
> http://www.gofundme.com/zd9h8g8
>
> With respect,
> Kevin Pearl
>
>
>
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