[Nfbmo] More on Heritage for the Blind
DanFlasar at aol.com
DanFlasar at aol.com
Wed Oct 30 23:41:50 UTC 2013
All,
All media outlets are required to provide a certain amount of
'public interest' programming - which can include pitches from charities. Radio
and TV stations aren't going to pull an ad because we say so - they'll need
some proof - and the best way to go about that is through the Attorney
General. What we have now is citations of successful suits against Heritage
for the Blind in New York, Ohio and Pennsylvania. Strong evidence, and it
might make the case but not until the AG is made aware of it. I wondered
in my earlier post whether the National NFB should get involved, which
would mean dealing with the IRS - no easy feat. These guys need to be taken
down but it will be a long process. In the meantime, we'll all have to
work state by state.
More later.
Dan
In a message dated 10/30/2013 2:43:54 P.M. Central Daylight Time,
randycarmack at gmail.com writes:
Gene,
I hate to rain on your parade but my fear is that they might already be
confused between our legitimate cause and the other organization.
Can't we just rally support from the radio stations to get them to pull
the advertisements from these other guys? Just a thought.
Thanks,
Randy Carmack
On Wed, Oct 30, 2013 at 2:03 PM, Gene Coulter
<escoulter at centurytel.net>wrote:
> One note of caution---
> If we go after Heritage for the Blind and there is publicity folks on
the
> street may get us confused with them and we might loose donations of both
> cars and cash.
>
>
> -----Original Message----- From: James Moynihan
> Sent: Wednesday, October 30, 2013 8:38 AM
> To: NFB of Missouri Mailing List
> Subject: Re: [Nfbmo] More on Heritage for the Blind
>
> Gary et al
>
> As I see it the main problem with Heritage for the Blind is that the
> average
> listener can not sort through the confusion. The public could donate
cars
> to our vehicle donation program which is legitimate. I think we should
> make
> an effort to have the atgen scrutinize Heritage for the Blind.
>
> Cordially,
>
> Jim Moynihan
>
> ----- Original Message ----- From: "Gary Wunder" <gwunder at earthlink.net>
> To: "'NFB of Missouri Mailing List'" <nfbmo at nfbnet.org>
> Sent: Tuesday, October 29, 2013 5:18 PM
> Subject: Re: [Nfbmo] More on Heritage for the Blind
>
>
> Hello, Dan. Thank you for sending this to the list. I read the
information
>> you sent, and if this is in fact Heritage for the Blind, perhaps we have
>> more of a case than we thought. We have looked at this before and have
>> concluded that, while it is highly unethical, it may not be illegal.
>> Certainly ABC news does not claim to verify the accuracy of all of its
>> commercials. Heritage for the Blind runs commercials here at least six
>> times
>> a day. Gene Coulter has verified that the number called can lead to
>> several
>> different numbers.
>>
>> As far as I can tell the only thing they do is operate a website which,
in
>> turn, makes referrals to other websites and uses the publications of
other
>> organizations. I think that what Jim's friend says is quite correct
about
>> the fact that you can enjoy tax-exempt status based on the proclaimed
>> purpose of your organization and not on any in-depth study about how
your
>> organization's funds are spent. Of course, I should observe here that a
>> number of people would complain if the Internal Revenue Service focused
>> more
>> on the objectives of the organization. Some of you will remember that
they
>> are currently in trouble for showing bias against very liberal and very
>> conservative organizations, the thought seeming to be that the mission
>> statement should be the only thing used to determine whether or not an
>> organization should be tax exempt.
>>
>> I don't really know where to take this now. The best information I get
is
>> that what they are doing is not against the law. If we could cause the
>> Missouri Atty. Gen. to have a different view, this probably would be a
>> good
>> thing for blind people and for those wanting to donate to us. The
>> unfortunate consequence of this kind of activity, however, is that it
>> subjects all of us to extra scrutiny and this scrutiny translates into
>> extra
>> time we have to spend making sure that we document the good that we do.
>> You
>> may remember that a disgruntled woman who was once one of our members
>> reported to the Atty. Gen. that we raised money only to give gifts to
>> ourselves. It turns out that her allegation revolved around the fact
that,
>> instead of giving flowers to those in the hospital, we were taking the
>> money
>> we would have spent on them and giving it as a gift card. We had to
>> demonstrate to the Atty. Gen. that these expenditures represented a
small
>> percentage of our program services and that we were not raising money
for
>> the purpose of giving it to ourselves.
>>
>> I welcome your ideas.
>>
>>
>>
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: Nfbmo [mailto:nfbmo-bounces at nfbnet.**org
<nfbmo-bounces at nfbnet.org>]
>> On Behalf Of DanFlasar at aol.com
>> Sent: Tuesday, October 15, 2013 9:19 PM
>> To: nfbmo at nfbnet.org
>> Subject: [Nfbmo] More on Heritage for the Blind
>>
>> Hi all,
>> I've been following through on the "Heritage for the Blind" issue and
>> found that it is only one instance of a large group of similarly
unknown
>> 'charities' all related to a New Jersey religious sect called the Oorah
>> in
>> New Jersey. I'm sending a link that refers to a St. Louis
Post-Dispatch
>> story from last year which details a lot about Oorah based ona
deceptive
>> charity called "Kars4Kids". The New York Attorney General identified
>> "Heritage
>> for the Blind" as being another front for the Oorah sect. As the
article
>> below notes, donations to these websites have little if any relation to
>> services for the blind.
>> Note that all these false charities seem to all have IRS
certification
>> for their non-profit status, but there are numerous stories from the
>> Better
>>
>> Business Bureau noting that they received little or no requested
>> information from these 'charities'. The question is, what do we do
about
>> it? I
>> don't think we need to spend any money, get any lawyers or anything
like
>> that,
>> but a note to the Attorney General might make a difference. And to
the
>> point, since this is a national problem, is it something the national
NFB
>> should get involved in? Should the NFB call out "Heritage for the
Blind"
>> as
>> a fraud, and if so, how?
>>
>> Here's the link - it's a pretty disheartening story.
>>
>>
http://kars4kids-scam.**blogspot.com/<http://kars4kids-scam.blogspot.com/>
>>
>> Dan
>>
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