[Nfbmo] More on Heritage for the Blind
James Moynihan
jamesmmoynihan at gmail.com
Thu Oct 31 13:30:29 UTC 2013
Et al
The national office should definitely
Jim Moynihanget involved.
----- Original Message -----
From: <DanFlasar at aol.com>
To: <nfbmo at nfbnet.org>
Sent: Wednesday, October 30, 2013 6:41 PM
Subject: Re: [Nfbmo] More on Heritage for the Blind
> 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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>>
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