deathquaker ([info]deathquaker) wrote,
@ 2008-10-31 08:06:00
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Current mood: angry
Entry tags:gaming

CCF Rejects Dirty Gamer Money
Apparently, in honor of Gary Gygax, Gen Con raised $17,000 to donate to his favorite charity, the Christian Children's Fund. They rejected the donation because of course gamers are Satanists. Was it sent accidentally to the Crazy (Jack T.) Chick Fund instead?

To paraphrase Sir Walter Scott, "You show me a gamer who is not a Christian, then I will show you a Christian who is not a Christian."*

Rich "The Giant" Burlew has the story here: http://www.giantitp.com/index.html#MZvsP18xmNXpVDwvCRQ

For those of you not clicking on the link, GenCon decided to send the funds to Fisher House, which supports military families. Burlew suggests any other gamers wishing to honor Gary with a donation, or just support a good cause, donate to PlanUSA, who also assists the poor and offers child sponsorship, much like CCF, but without the prejudice and corruption.

My church used to sponsor a child through CCF. I will certainly make sure my extended religious community makes sure to avoid supporting this organization in the future.

Wamba in Ivanhoe: "Show me a Jew who is not a Christian, and I will show you a Christian who is not a Christian."


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They're denying it of course
(Anonymous)
2008-10-31 01:55 pm UTC (link)
They're saying the reason they turned down the money was because of improper use of their logo.

http://regansravings.blogspot.com/2008/10/reply-from-christian-childrens-fund.html

(Reply to this) (Thread)
Re: They're denying it of course
[info]deathquaker
2008-10-31 04:22 pm UTC (link)
Thanks. The reply you got reads to me like they're embarrassed to be associated with gamers. So they're still insinuating there's guilt-by association.

I'm also fairly certain most mainstream Christian groups these days don't give a rat's donkey about D&D. So claiming they'd ultimately get more losses is insane.

'Course I been thinking about it, and I remembered why my church STOPPED giving to CCF. After hearing that the organization was reported by places like Consumer Report for not sending enough of their donation to their actual cause, we wrote them a very friendly letter (trust me, Quakers are masters of tact) saying basically, "Hi, could you give us a little more information about specifically, how you use your donations to help our sponsored child? COuld you please let us know how much x, y, and z costs?" No response. We sent another letter. No response. Another. No response STILL from them, but suddenly our monthly letter from our sponsored child became weekly, even every few days, with increasingly urgent notes like, "I LOVE my sponsors, THANK YOU SO MUCH for your money, please do not leave me El Sponsoros." (When we had never threatened to leave, we were just asking for more information.) "Giving benefit of the doubt" is pretty much hard coded into our crazy religious-like brains, so finally going, "Okay, these people are fishy and we can't give them money any more" was hard but if WE came to that decision, I imagine more cynical folks would not think much of them.

So all the better they don't have the $17,000. Hopefully that money's really helping other people now.

(Reply to this) (Parent)

[info]sapphireblue
2008-10-31 04:56 pm UTC (link)
My family sponsored thru CCF when I was growing up, but I don't know how that all played out. I just wrote the occasional letter and got a response.

Since moving to MD, I've sponsored a child through Children International. They've done a pretty decent job, from what I can tell. But when her sponsorship ends (when she turns 18), I'll probably take a break. If I ever pick it back up again, I'll also check out PlanUSA.

-sb

(Reply to this)


[info]minmorton
2008-11-01 12:15 am UTC (link)
I've written a querying email which I am now amending in the light of the response they sent you to ask more pertinent questions so thanks for that!

Min

(Reply to this) (Thread)
Updates and Responses
[info]deathquaker
2008-11-04 03:23 pm UTC (link)
Let me know what you receive.

To you and others:

The responses others have received from CCF vary, but the general story seems to be that GenCon asked CCF to be its official charity (which meant CCF's name would be published on the program somewhere), CCF found out the monies raised would in part come from sales of D&D products, and they declined becoming the official charity because of wanting to be cautious about which organizations/lifestyles they wanted to "endorse." They claim it violated their endorsement policy, but I haven't seen a description of that policy.

It's important to note the clarification that CCF didn't actually refuse donations, they just didn't want to be listed publically as the organization GenCon was sponsoring for their charity fundraising. So it's important to note that someone didn't show up with $17,000 and they turned them away.

On the other hand, WHY they refused still seems to boil down to not wanting to be publicly associated with gamers.

(Reply to this) (Parent)

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