The AIDS Walk, AIDS Ride, and AIDS Marathons Tug at Our Heartstrings; But Where Does the Money Go?

TheLastWatch Analysis July 2003 Warning to AIDS Walk Participants SFAF's Unfair Distribution of AIDS Walk Funds Analysis of SFAF's Fundraising Event Overhead/Expenses Media Coverage AIDS Walk ASO's Held Hostage? AIDS Walk Needs Revamping AIDS Walk Money Drops $400K

In short order, TheLastWatch will post to this page proof that money raised during an AIDS Walk donated with a restricted purpose was violated by the San Francisco AIDS Foundation. That proof consists of two fundraising checks made out to other endorsees (to the San Francisco AIDS Emergency Fund — a separate non-profit organization from SFAF — and the Breast Cancer Emergency Fund) that were cashed by SFAF. SFAF will stop at nothing to latch onto money, up to and including using funds restricted for one purpose for other uses. Taking money earmarked for breast cancer survivors may have been the lowest, meanest thing SFAF has ever been caught at. Then again, TheLastWatch could be wrong; maybe SFAF has done even more despicable things we haven’t been privy to. How does TheLastWatch know of this?  Why … they were checks written by this web site’s owner, which goes to show that having your bank return cleared checks in your monthly bank statement is always a good idea.

If you are a donor to the San Francisco AIDS Foundation, you may think money raised by its various fundraising schemes is shared equitably with smaller AIDS service organizations in the Bay Area.  You may also believe that the money you’ve helped raise will be spent assisting people with HIV/AIDS in San Francisco and the surrounding the Bay Area.

In both cases, you’re probably dead wrong.

Indeed, an organization that monitors non-profit organizations, CharityNavigator.org , has given the San Francisco AIDS Foundation a rating of only two stars (out of a possible four stars) based on SFAF’s own tax returns.  This charity rating service knows what it is talking about and how to read tax returns.  Before anyone donates another penny to SFAF, donors have an ethical obligation to check out what Charity Navigator has to say about SFAF.  TheLastWatch is hopeful that Charity Navigator will utilize information on this web site when it next rates SFAF.

July 2003 Warning to AIDS Walk Participants
SFAF released its July 2003–June 2004 Budget in June 2003.  The budget calls for reducing "Community Grants" (e.g., funds shared with 30 smaller beneficiary AIDS Service Organizations [ASO's] from AIDS Walk fundraising) by $1.1 million dollars. SFAF’s July 2002–June 2003 budget listed Commumity Grants at $1,423,766; SFAF’s July 2003–June 2004 budget listed Community Grants at only $393,268, and indeed that is all that was shared with the smaller ASO’s after the AIDS Walk held in July 2003.  No matter how many walkers your agency or team had last summer, the 30 smaller ASO’s in the Bay Area received $1 million less in funding from SFAF’s so-called “grantmaking” to the very communities it purports to serve.

Note: As of July 19, 2003, SFAF’s website, shamefully, has not posted its current budget for FY ’03–’04 on-line, as it may not want you to see it before you donate to AIDS Walk 2003.

Recommendation
If you want to ensure that funds you’ve rasied for the AIDS Walk, AIDS LifeCycle, or AIDS Marathons sponsored by SFAF are shared equitably with smaller Bay Area ASO’s, donate directly to your preferred local agency!   Reputable organizations worthy of your support are the AIDS Emergency Fund, the Breast Cancer emergency Fund, and Project Open Hand, among others.  For a list of additional organizations, see the Take Action page on this web site.

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SFAF’s Unfair Distribution of AIDS Walk Funds  July 2001                               Top
	This report, first written before AIDS Walk 2001, examines how funds raised for so-called "“Bay Area Beneficiary” AIDS Service Orgznizations (ASO’s) was inequitably shared across a five-year period.  Some data has been updated as of August 2003, and an expanded re-write is in progress. SFAF wants it both ways: It claims its feud over the AIDS Ride was because Dan Palotta used the “grantee model” rather than the “beneficiary model,” but SFAF uses the grantee model itself to award smaller AIDS service organizations participating in AIDS Walk “grants” that SFAF then reports to the IRS in support of their claim of being tax exempt.  Learn more…   This report’s companion appendices are contained here.   [Note: This report will be updated before the June 2004 AIDS Walk.]
Analysis of SFAF's Fundraising Event Overhead/Expenses  August 2003   Top
	The fundraising event overhead analysis will be expanded in early 2004 when additional material becomes available from the California Attorney General’s Registry of Charitable Trusts.   Please check back for an update. This spreadsheet illustrates AIDS fundraising event producers have a vested interest in keeping their lucrative production contracts, because the events are big business.  Two of SFAF’s long-time, and current, third-party commercial fundraisers have spent $21.27 million on expenses and returned only $43.29 million to the sponsors in the thirteen years since 1990.  Without commentary, this file shows the percentage of funds returned to the sponsoring agency can be as little as 52 percent of gross revenue.  Indeed, for some fundraising events, MZA Events (co-founded by (Craig Miller and Richard Zeichik) and Walk-the-Talk Productions with Zeichik as president) have returned less to SFAF as a percentage of gross revenue than did Dan Palotta of Palotta Teamworks (remember the nasty legal battle over the California AIDS Ride betwen SFAF and Palotta over competing events?), but SFAF prefers to keep this fact out of the media so as not to frighten potential contributors. Learn more …

Media Coverage

AIDS Walk ASO’S Held Hostage?  Guest-Opinion, Bay Area Reporter, August 21, 2003                                                                                                                              Top
	Prompted by an editorial and a related news article in the July 24, 2003 issue of the Bay Area Reporter, this follow-up guest opinion piece explores other aspects of donor and beneficiary fatigue resulting from the inequitable allocation and sharing of funds raised by SFAF at its annual AIDS Walk with the 30-plus smaller participating “beneficiaries” (they’re not actually beneficiaries, they are “grantees” held hostage by the unilateral grant-making decisions of SFAF and the Horizon’s Foundation; as grantees, these smaller agencies have no control over excessive event expenses). SFAF wants it both ways: It claims its feud over the AIDS Ride was because Dan Palotta used the “grantee model” rather than the “beneficiary model,” but SFAF uses the grantee model to award smaller AIDS service organizations participating in AIDS Walk “grants” that SFAF reports to the IRS to support their tax exempt status.  Learn more …
AIDS Walk Needs Revamping  Editorial, Bay Area Reporter, July 24, 2003             Top
	This editorial prompted the guest opinion piece directly above.  In this editorial, the B.A.R. concludeds that “… the disparity in [allocation of] AIDS Walk funds [to the 30-plus smaller] community organizations is so troublesome.” The editorial also notes that “… the money allocated for needle exchange should be cut,” and that it’s time the process of distributing AIDS Walk revenue be revamped..  Learn more …
AIDS Walk Money Drops $400K  Lead Article, Bay Area Reporter, July 24, 2003    Top
	This article reports on the July 2003 San Francisco AIDS Walk, noting that of $3.1 million raised (down by $700,000 since 2000), only $370,000 will “reportedly” be shared with the 30-plus beneficiary organizations who had loaned SFAF their good names in order to draw participants to the fundraising walk.   Distrubingly, SFAF’s spokesman Redge Norton is quoted saying “AIDS Walk San Francisco is the only AIDS Walk that provides money through a grant process.”  This is precisely the problem: Smaller AIDS agencies should not be held hostage to the “grantee model” SFAF dictates using its unilateral grantmaking decisions.  The participating ASO’s should be full partners afforded equitable revenue sharing via the “beneficiary model,” in order to have a voice regarding event overhead expenses, which the grantee model deprives them of.  For further discussion of this key issue, see the AIDS Walk ASO’s Held Hostage? guest opinion piece above.  Learn more …

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Copyright (c) 2004 by Patrick Monette-Shaw.  All rights reserved.  This work may not be reposted anywhere on the Web, or reprinted in any print media, without express written permission of the author.  E-mail him at pmonette-shaw@earthlink.net.