Not every charity has a $30 million budget. Image: Vincent Albanese/Flickr (Creative Commons)
As if we don’t have anything better to do with our money at Christmas time. Anyone else get one of these?
It’s not even a week since the last Jackrabbit arrived, begging us to give them money. Nigerian banking scammers don’t spam me this much.
What “experiences that transform peoples’ lives” will you create with our money, BMOrg? A trip to Amsterdam for “community leader” Crimson Rose?
How’s that transparency coming along?
From: Burning Man <steven.young@burningman.org>
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Related Posts:
All We Want For Chri$tma$ Is Your Money talked about the recent “Special Edition” of the Jackrabbit Speaks, which rather than wishing us a Merry Christmas, was dedicated to us giving BMOrg money, including a cut of our Amazon shopping.
Dear Burning Man… A reader responds to an email from BMOrg soliciting money.
The Art of Giving went through everything Burning Man Project (BMP) has done since they came up with it 4 years ago.
Art World Rocked By Burning Man’s Latest Move looked at the merger between BRAF and BMP, and the poor track record of both charities in giving grants out to the causes they support, versus accumulating cash in the bank and spending it on overheads.
2013 Charity Results looked at the performance of BRAF from the latest IRS filing. We’re still waiting on the 2013 IRS Form 990 for BMP.
Art Versus Money looked at the terribly one-sided Arts Grant contract, that seems to treat artists with contempt.
Charity Versus Tax-Free considers the idea that “non-profit” is not the same as “charitable”, and looks at some of the clauses in the organization’s new Bylaws that don’t seem consistent with Directors running lavish Commodification Camps.
Burning Man’s Gift Economy And Its Effect On Mainstream Society talks about the hypocrisy of BMOrg claiming credit for the charitable efforts of Burners, and pretending they gave financial support to charities that they actually didn’t – including a couple that were substantially funded by myself, and received $0 from BMOrg who promoted them as examples of “all the good Burning Man is doing in the world”.
They’re acting more like a church everyday. Passing the plate and tithing will be next.
All hail St. Larry the visionary and prophet!
I guess I don’t rate high enough (or make enough money, ha) to get one of these special emails. I’m numb to their fundraising at this point, just like with NPR’s (which I donate to every year, I just tune out their pledge drives). As you say, nobody but the BMORG gives a shit about the Burning Man Project. The event is what the whole fucking point is. It’s a spiritual/emotional recharge for those of us who make it out there, and gives us energy and clarity to then go out into the world and do whatever good it is that we come up with. THAT is all we need of spreading “Burning Man culture”. For fuck’s sake.
The BMOrg leadership has many issues. They are a budget based organization, and the firm budget for 2015 is being created presently. There is not sufficient cash from the Burning Man event to pay for their cash out, the Burning Man Project, be fair towards the artists, DPW, and others, and pay the usual expenses of the Burning Man event in despite of the event revenues rising from $12 million to $30 million in the prior 6 years. Larry, Marian, and their mates must request donations and might raise ticket prices, while not providing transparency as to their cash out to donors, while, as the executives in control of the 501(c)3, making the budget decisions as to where to direct the cash, and attempting to remain in near total top down control over the crowd sourced event and Burner community. While they disregard the desires of the Burner community, in the manner of their response towards the Commodification camp issue, directing as few tickets as they might towards the Burner community, and upon many other issues.
Things do not work in this manner. The Project board must make very difficult decisions purposed for the benefit of the Project, the Burning Man event, and the awesome Burner community and culture so Burning Man might grow and flourish into a very bright future.
I think the Burning Man Project is very important to those in Alabama St, but most Burners could care less. We care about the EVENT. They should make the decisions to preserve the integrity of Burning Man. They can fuck up the culture of their new non-profit thing all they want, as long as Burning Man remains the thing we all love, that we’ve all made together with “vast amounts of time, effort, and money” – to borrow a phrase from JT.
After last week’s begging letter I unsubscribed from The Jackrabbit Speaks and all BMOrg email lists after 9 years of being on their list, and attending 8 burns. It was just too much spam and empty drivel to me. I’ve lost that lovin’ feeling…
And you what? It works, they ask and people give.
This type of begging is an art form that had been perfected and I am sure the BMorg have been advised by some of the best about how to beg without giving it a second thought, no matter that they probably have plenty of money already. Just like the fucking Universities asking for money donations every year.
Do you know how much money some University endowment associations have have? IT IS CRAZY. Harvard has 30 Billion Dollars in its endowment AND THEY STILL BEG FOR MONEY EVERY YEAR!! WTF?
A BILLION DOLLARS?! NO… THIRTY BILLION DOLLARS!! And tons of other Universities have Billions and Billions already, but they still have fund drives every year begging for more. Look it all up, look at the numbers, it is staggering. And even with the billions they have already they don’t think twice about asking for more.
I am sure the BMorg have studied all of this and have probably tapped some of the best at the art of begging… and they will ask… and people will give. (Not me, but other people will, for some reason).
Hopefully one day they will give us the transparency they promised, and we’ll get to see how good they are at doing it. From the messages I’ve been receiving in the last couple of hours, this is pissing a lot of people off.
they “appreciate your participation in the community” huh? ahahahaha!!!!
so thats why they out you and block you from commenting on blogs, and ban you from the event? that’s how they show appreciation?
There’s no confirmation yet that they’ve banned me. That would be pretty low of them if they did, just for spending thousands of hours writing stories about all aspects of the event and our culture. I’m taking it as a good sign that they keep hitting me up for money.
However, Danger Ranger has now revealed that they do have a system for permanently banning “undesirables”, something which I had previously been told about but had not been able to confirm.
oops, my mistake. thought I had read something by you stating you had been banned, but glad to hear that isn’t the case. that would be incredibly childish. but their treatment of you certainly isn’t how I appreciate people. although when you think about it, their “appreciation” of artists, photographers, contributers and such isn’t much better, so maybe that is how they show appreciation . . .
I would not put it past the BMP to escort a person off playa while handing them a flyer to donate, however. doesn’t matter where donations come from, right?
Duh, all events have a black list. But don’t worry Burner.me you are not bad enough to endup on that list.
Thanks, I hope that’s the case! I love Burning Man and do more than many to promote the event and explain its values.
Just a note, it would be pretty tough to get truly banned… The only way I see it happening is if you somehow had EA for the time when you can count the cars per hour on one hand. Even then, Gate doesn’t really check IDs, doesn’t care who anyone is, and they don’t have a “banned from entering” list. The closest thing you could do is probably show up to the gate looking ultra sketchy, acting like you have a ton of people in the back of your car, and then you’d get your ticket turned away if they found someone…
Maybe they could mark your ticket purchased through your burner profile as fraudulent? Then, when your ticket would get scanned, it would pop up as invalid… but even then, that would be ballsy to do, because it could easily be circumvented by you exchanging tickets with a friend… and then your friend shows up and it would be like “Huh, he’s apparently carrying an invalid ticket…,” they would try to figure out why, and that would probably be the end of it.
Maybe if you drove up with a big banner saying “I WRITE BURNERs.ME! BAN ME! BAN ME!”
Or maybe if you showed up with guns, fireworks, dogs, plants, knives, and a corpse…
Now I want to figure out how to get banned.
You’re assuming that the “Burner Profiles” play no role in the ticketing system. I don’t think that can be true, given that for the last 3 years in a row they’ve miraculously managed a steady ratio of 40% Virgins. It seems more likely to me that an algorithm is involved in the decision about who gets to buy tickets, and who doesn’t.
Of course, someone on the Access Control List could be gifted a ticket, and without ID checks at the gate, this would be difficult to intercept.