Charity Refuses Donation Because of D&D Connection

An anonymous reader writes "This year's GenCon Charity Auction raised over $17,000 which they intended to donate to Gary Gygax's favorite charity, Christian Children's Fund. However, the charity refused the donation when they learned of its connection to Dungeons & Dragons." It seems to me all they would need to do is cast remove curse or dispel evil and the money would be fine to use.

Comments

Advanced Bad & Summary

[RobertB-DC]

In their rush to paint Christians as idiots, the editors failed to notice this addendum to TFA:

Christian Children's Fund made the decision to decline the gift from Gen Con, LLC as the request presented to us gave the appearance that CCF (the organization) was an endorser or supporter of a gaming convention, which CCF was not. As many non-profit organizations, CCF is selective in its endorsements or support in order to maintain the integrity of its name and logo. We cannot lend our name to an event for which we have no involvement. This decision should in no way be interpreted as CCF holding an opinion on Mr. Gygax, gaming enthusiasts or the game Dungeons and Dragons.

Some of my fellow faith-mates do make the rest of us look pretty silly. But the non-religious folks apparently have a knee-jerk reaction that would make Dr. Dobson proud.

Re:Advanced Bad & Summary

[Anonymous Coward]

That would be this one.

Re:Advanced Bad & Summary

[Artifakt]

For any non-profit that wishes to preserve 501 status and such under the U S legal code, there are big differences in how to handle money that comes from a private person, another non-profit or a for profit entity. There are also some differences in what has to be done if money was raised by a non-profit organization with an advance agreement, or if it wasn't. This sounds like the convention either advertised that membership would help some money go to the CCF without having an advance agreement, or that there's an issue with whether the convention itself is a non-profit entity, in the full, liscensed, legal sense.
          If the CCF doesn't act this way, they can do more than risk tarnishing their image. They can even lose their legal status as a non-profit. One result of this would be that any retirement funds their employees have set up (403-B's), even if funded all with the employee's own money, aren't legitimate, and all those employees would owe back taxes and penalties and interest on those taxes, for at least the last year, maybe longer. Another result is that the CCF could be sued for back wages 'owed' people who were unpaid volunteers. A third is that they would have to meet equal opportunity hiring guidelines for all those 'employees', and since they probably have no records of having ever given their management staff the necessary guidance as to conducting mandatory nondiscriminatory employee evaluations for those volunteers, they would automatically be guilty under law of discrimination should even a single person bring suit.
      Since it was set up as a non-profit, the CCF has probably not incorporated under the rules of a corp friendly state such as Delaware. They might even face such lawsuits in a state such as New York or California.
      But go ahead, people, make this all about nasty Christians who hate your hobby.
 

Re:Advanced Bad & Summary

[Artifakt]

I've already explained in this thread, the consequences the CCF may have been risking if they took this money. All that depends, of course, on the details of how the convention management organized and publicized the event, which we don't know from the article. There are plenty of cases where a charity has sued over misuse of its name in connection with an unsanctioned event, both to protect its trademarked identity and to distance themselves from any charges that they are party to jointly violating the law regarding charities. The CCF is evidently confident this does not rise to that level, or they feel their reputation as a charity is good enough that they are not at serious risk of being blamed if the convention management has broken the law.
        Given the limited facts in the article, there appears no chance the CCF has broken the law, and some chance that the convention, at least technically, has, although there is no reason to think they intended to derive any profit from their association with the CCF's name, and so most DA's would not want to follow up on it beyond a letter telling them to get their ducks in a row. But go ahead, call them names.

Re:Advanced Bad & Summary

[tlhIngan]

The money doesn't just *poof* disappear because one charity said "No thanks." Last time I checked there is a huge variety of charities that they can donate that money to.

Ah, but the problem is, the people may have donated because they're donating to Gygax's favorite charity. Just because it refused to accept the money doesn't mean that the money can go to another charity.

Even if the CCF name wasn't used, and something like "This donation will go to Gygax's favorite charity", people may be donating under the premise that they're helping Gygax's favorite charity, whatever that may be.

The only option is to refund the money. Even if there's an equivalent charity, some donors may object to that for whatever reason (even if it's "That's not Gygax's charity! I wouldn't have to donated!").

Of course, this is also dependent on whether or not Gen Con recorded the donators and amounts and thus can refund it.

(If you still think "they should just donate it to someone else", what would you do if that "someone else" is PETA? Greenpeace? Red Cross (American or otherwise)? SPCA? Or any one of the many charities that could be even potentially controversial? Like the Discovery Institute?)

Re:Advanced Bad & Summary

[ShakaUVM]

Because misrepresenting (and I'm not saying they did at all, but it's something to be aware of from the perspective of the charity) an endorsement from a charity to solicit donations is what some people might refer to as "fraud".

Right, and GenCon has had a lot of that going around these days. They lost the right to do the Star Wars Celebration conventions after LucasArts donated a bunch of stuff for a charity auction, and then GenCon kept all the money. (The agreement was that they'd donate the "profits", see, and, boy, running those charity auctions sure are expensive.) Yeah, stealing money from kids with cancer... that's GenCon for ya.

Then you also have the back taxes owed to Indianapolis, and then their bungled bankrupcy (Peter A. called it a "Learning Experience) trying to get out of it.

Skeezy.

This summary is already out of date

[mothrsuperior]

From the link:
 

Edit: In response to complaints received, people have been receiving the following explanatory letter.

        Christian Childrenâ(TM)s Fund made the decision to decline the gift from Gen Con, LLC as the request presented to us gave the appearance that CCF (the organization) was an endorser or supporter of a gaming convention, which CCF was not. As many non-profit organizations, CCF is selective in its endorsements or support in order to maintain the integrity of its name and logo. We cannot lend our name to an event for which we have no involvement. This decision should in no way be interpreted as CCF holding an opinion on Mr. Gygax, gaming enthusiasts or the game Dungeons and Dragons.

(Emphasis in bold supplied by me.) At first, I was upset because I thought they were rejecting the money because of its association with D&D. I have changed my position. I have worked with charities and in fact many of them (particularly large ones) have very specific rules about events they will sponsor. Many charities will not sponsor any event that they don't manage themselves. There are many reasons for this and very few of them will have anything to do with moral condemnation of the event organizer.

Nothing to see hear, Move along.

After Reading TFA

[stoolpigeon]

Just to be clear - they did not turn it down because of the D&D connection but because of policies in place about how they filter the funds they take that may make them appear to endorse events they do not control. This is completely normal and sensible. I am sure they would love to have the money - but they aren't going to put themselves into a position that violates policies put into place for a good reason. And to save you the time of a click and page load:
  Christian Childrenâ(TM)s Fund made the decision to decline the gift from Gen Con, LLC as the request presented to us gave the appearance that CCF (the organization) was an endorser or supporter of a gaming convention, which CCF was not. As many non-profit organizations, CCF is selective in its endorsements or support in order to maintain the integrity of its name and logo. We cannot lend our name to an event for which we have no involvement. This decision should in no way be interpreted as CCF holding an opinion on Mr. Gygax, gaming enthusiasts or the game Dungeons and Dragons.