Interesting piece on Livestrong

[MacRoadie]

Some very impressive trolling on this thread. Wonderboy has judged his fan base well. Spend millions, deliver nothing, but run a good marketing campaign and they will eat it up.....they come running to be used.

I don't know RR. If this is the best his money is buying, then they need to figure out which bogus expense to inflate further next year so they can buy some more competent help.

 

[thehog]

Game, set, match.

Nice one. Good work.

Like other "idiots", he probably went straight to the LAF Financial Information Page and viewed the most current filing available there:

2009 LAF Form 990.

He probably then looked on Page 8 of that document, which looks something like this:

and has a date stamp in the lower left of 02-04-10.

This shows Ulman's 2009 W2/1099 reportable compensation as $285,000. As his 2010 W2/1099 hasn't been filed yet, nor can the 2010 990 Form have been filed yet by the LAF (it is basically a "tax return" for an organization exempt from income tax, and as such is filed after the end of the reporting tax year), I'm not sure what you mean by "this year's 990". The 2010 990 form won't be filed until 2011.

Then again, I could be wrong...

 

[Ferminal]

You're missing the point people, it's about apples and oranges...

Perhaps someone could explain to me how there is a difference in these "fruits" and why one must pay a much higher proportion of its "revenue" to its top employees? If you just compare the top 3, one of these fruits pays over 6 times more than the other in terms of wages/revenue.

At the end of the day, you just don't no where your money is going when you donate to LiveSTRONG (wages, lobbying, transport, Haiti etc). I will always donate where I know a great proportion will be going directly to research, care and support. Its disingenuous to suggest that LiveSTRONG is somehow not a charity and a bad organisation, but at the same time its also disingenuous to in any way suggest that it isn't second rate to no doubt dozens of cancer charities in all of our home countries.

 

[Barrus]

Did livestrong give money to Haiti? Why did they do that? Did the distater there have anything to do with cancer?

 

[thehog]

Did livestrong give money to Haiti? Why did they do that? Did the distater there have anything to do with cancer?

No Lance Armstrong donated 200,000USD to Hati but Livestrong were kind enough to donate the money to him. Lance issued the press release.

I need to get myself a charity.

 

[Ferminal]

Did livestrong give money to Haiti? Why did they do that? Did the distater there have anything to do with cancer?

http://livestrongblog.org/2010/01/1...mpaign=Feed:+LivestrongBlog+(LIVESTRONG+Blog)

 

[thehog]

http://livestrongblog.org/2010/01/1...mpaign=Feed:+LivestrongBlog+(LIVESTRONG+Blog)

Didn't Lance also donate to StillerStrong?

 

[Barrus]

http://livestrongblog.org/2010/01/1...mpaign=Feed:+LivestrongBlog+(LIVESTRONG+Blog)

This is really absurd, siphoning money from one charity to the next. If people wanted to give that money to Haiti instead of Livestrong they would have donated to another charity, stick to what you are getting your money for

 

[Anonymous]

The percentage of times a fanboy is right about Mr. Armstrong or foundation has to be reaching the lower single digits at this point. Impressive thread. I feel more aware of cancer than ever before.

 

[Race Radio]

Did livestrong give money to Haiti? Why did they do that? Did the distater there have anything to do with cancer?

Silly question. Livestrong is about raising AWARENESS. What better way to raise awareness of the Armstrong brand then a big donation to a cause that has nothing to do with cancer?

 

[thehog]

[/B]

Where can I find their resumes? How do you know they have questionable experience? They must have some of the right people in place since we are discussing the charity and how much they are able to raise.

!

Linkedin is a good start. They're all there. There's one person there who switched careers from a routine job elsewhere did one year as a independent contractor at Livestrong and then becomes an EVP on 200k per year! Good money if you can get it.

I think some lines get blurred at charity and non-profit. Both these terms hints that all is good. But the Floyd Fairness Fund was non-profit. Charity and non-profit may mean you’re not turning a profit but it can also mean you’re spending everything that comes through the door on whatever you like.

Chairty Navitgatotr which rates Livestrong is now moving to examine charities further which should put Livestrong under the spotlight further. I'd be interested to see where there rating goes next year.

http://www.philanthropyuk.org/Newsa...edtoCharityNavigatorcriteriatoreducedonorrisk

‘Transparency’ and ‘accountability’ added to Charity Navigator criteria to reduce donor risk

By Laura McCaffrey, Added: 07 July 2010

US website Charity Navigator is expanding its analysis of charities to include assessment of accountability and transparency. From this month, donors will be able to find out if a charity follows ethical and best practices and if it makes it easy for donors to find critical information about the organisation.

“Smart donors should require evidence of accountability and transparency from the charities they support,” says Ken Berger, president & CEO of Charity Navigator. “They should require this evidence because charities that are open about their performance and follow best practices in areas such as governance and donor privacy are less likely to engage in unethical or irresponsible activities and, as a result donations to such charities are a less risky investment."

Charity Navigator will examine set accountability and transparency criteria for each of the 5,500 US charities on its database. These will be based on a charity’s website and their newly expanded Form 990 – the tax return filed by non-profit organisations. The information will be posted on the website, but each charity’s overall rating will not take into account the results of this deeper analysis until the data has been collected for all the charities on the database, which should take around a year.

“Charity Navigator was created with the goal of advancing a more responsive philanthropic marketplace, in which donors and the charities they support work in tandem to overcome our nation's most persistent challenges. We are thrilled to go beyond our financial ratings and take our analysis to the next level. By reviewing each charity’s commitment to accountability and transparency, we can help donors make even smarter giving choices,” says Berger.

 

[thehog]

“Charity Navigator was created with the goal of advancing a more responsive philanthropic marketplace, in which donors and the charities they support work in tandem to overcome our nation's most persistent challenges. We are thrilled to go beyond our financial ratings and take our analysis to the next level. By reviewing each charity’s commitment to accountability and transparency, we can help donors make even smarter giving choices,” says Berger.

Very good article here:

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/27/b...r=2&src=busln&scp=3&sq=Stephanie Strom&st=cse

Charity Navigator, perhaps the largest online source for evaluating nonprofit groups, recently embarked on an overhaul to offer a wider, more nuanced array of information to donors who are deciding which organizations they might help.

Its reinvention coincides with the growing need of nonprofits to provide more — and broader — information about themselves and their impact in an effort to wean donors off a reliance on administrative-cost ratios and other financial metrics that have traditionally been used to assess charities.

Charity Navigator had been using a system of awarding one to four stars to charities based mainly on financial measures, like how much organizations spend on fund-raising and the ratio of their administrative costs to their overall revenue.

But that focus, on an organization’s expenses in particular, rankled its critics, who contended that choosing a charity based on its administrative costs was a poor way of making sure donations did the most good. “We weren’t very popular,” conceded Pat Dugan, the multimillionaire founder of Charity Navigator. He said he had started the organization out of his own frustration in finding the right charities to support.

“Covenant House, the United Way, Hale House, all that kind of bad stuff,” Mr. Dugan said, rattling off three prominent organizations scarred by scandals of various sorts. “While I wanted to do something good with my money, I didn’t want to throw it down a rat hole.”

Sean Stannard-Stockton, a consultant on philanthropies, said, “Charity Navigator became the de facto standard, and in some ways, that was detrimental to the nonprofit sector.”

“By focusing on administrative costs,” he said, “it encouraged donors to steer resources toward organizations pushing everything into the cause rather than investing in people with expertise, new technology and other things that make a nonprofit strong.”

Over all, there is a trend toward new ways to measure a charity’s effectiveness in delivering services or results. Over the next three years, Charity Navigator plans to add evaluations of a nonprofit’s accountability and transparency to its ratings, as well as research on its impact and research by other organizations.

 

[Race Radio]

Chairty Navitgatotr which rates Livestrong is now moving to examine charities further which should put Livestrong under the spotlight further. I'd be interested to see where there rating goes next year.

http://www.philanthropyuk.org/Newsa...edtoCharityNavigatorcriteriatoreducedonorrisk

‘Transparency’ and ‘accountability’ added to Charity Navigator criteria to reduce donor risk

Charity Navigator has already commented on the multiple conflicts of the Demand Media deal.

"This blurs the lines between the foundation and its charitable mission, and the personal gain of its founder,'' said Ken Berger, president and executive director of Charity Navigator. "It's mixing two purposes in a way that smells of a conflict of interest. The most precious thing a charitable organization has is the public's trust, and things like this put a ***** in that.''

 

[Semper Fidelis]

Most of these people have weird backgrounds. Almost all of them have little to no experience in charity organisations. It was like they were plucked from somewhere and placed into an executive position so they'd just shut up and not ask any questions.

I would not go so far to say that the top paid employees were picked because the LAF wanted to shut them up. Maybe they were picked because some of them have shared the same disease and for some reason gained some type of respect or friendship from Lance Armstrong. So he picked them and they get flat paid. (for example his boy “college” or “brewer”) they are his friends so one would expect they are in the hookup. My opinion on what I find wrong with the entire charity or charities in general is that they end up operating much like a profit corporation not like a charitable organization.

 

[thehog]

I would not go so far to say that the top paid employees were picked because the LAF wanted to shut them up. Maybe they were picked because some of them have shared the same disease and for some reason gained some type of respect or friendship from Lance Armstrong. So he picked them and they get flat paid. (for example his boy “college” or “brewer”) they are his friends so one would expect they are in the hookup. My opinion on what I find wrong with the entire charity or charities in general is that they end up operating much like a profit corporation not like a charitable organization.

Profit organisation without the need to turn a profit!

Good to hear nepotism is alive and well.

 

[Race Radio]

I would not go so far to say that the top paid employees were picked because the LAF wanted to shut them up. Maybe they were picked because some of them have shared the same disease and for some reason gained some type of respect or friendship from Lance Armstrong. So he picked them and they get flat paid. (for example his boy “college” or “brewer”) they are his friends so one would expect they are in the hookup. My opinion on what I find wrong with the entire charity or charities in general is that they end up operating much like a profit corporation not like a charitable organization.

Armstrong does not have friends, he has employee's. Smart move to pay John....too bad for Lance it did not work for long. Funny how few of those friends......er, employee's, are willing to lie for the boss anymore.

 

[Semper Fidelis]

Armstrong does not have friends, he has employee's. Smart move to pay John....too bad for Lance it did not work for long. Funny how few of those friends......er, employee's, are willing to lie for the boss anymore.

It is strange how John was not around ,,,,,,,,all of a sudden. I would guess your correct about the "friends vs employee's".

Check this out.

You guys all missed this (or maybe not). I am selling my pinto and catching the next Trailways silvereagle to Austin. I have to open up a copy print shop! If Ginny’s is going to think she has the market cornered, well I have some bad news for her! Glenny’s is about to hit Austin.

 

[Semper Fidelis]

No Lance Armstrong donated 200,000USD to Hati but Livestrong were kind enough to donate the money to him. Lance issued the press release.

I need to get myself a charity.

The comments in that blog are awesome. My favorite is this “That’s why I love this organization! Rock On and LIVESTRONG Lance”

Don't get a charity, start a copy shop next to Mellows Pelota.

 

[VeloCity]

[/B]So you don't care what a person's motivation is,

If it leads to the exposure of liars and frauds who have financially benefited from duping the public into believing the lies and buying into a mythology, no, I really, really don't care one bit what one's motivation is.

Don't get me wrong, I have little sympathy for Landis, but I have little for Armstrong (or Bruyneel or Contador or any other doper), either - they're all big boys, they knew what they were doing, and they knew the potential consequences. That it's now coming back to haunt them is just too damn bad.

 

[kurtinsc]

Silly question. Livestrong is about raising AWARENESS. What better way to raise awareness of the Armstrong brand then a big donation to a cause that has nothing to do with cancer?

Just out of curiousity... where has the LAF ever said they were about building awareness?

This gets repeated over and over again... mainly because Lance said his original return to cycling was about building awareness. But as far as I know, the LAF has always been about helping cancer survivors.

The Haiti thing is a very poor decision by the charity. It's not what the money was donated for, and is an example of them going against their stated goal.

The LAF has some very helpful programs. I've friends and relatives who have been helped by the information and assistance they provided. Not suprisingly, the guy going through testicular cancer was most complimentary of the help they provided.

Much of their fundraising is tied into Lance's name and the "livestrong" brand. The relationship with the "for profit" website is very vague, but my guess is it's not much like what is characterized here. Both Lance Armstrong AND the LAF were given ownership stakes in demand media. The LAF for the rights to the "livestrong.com" name, Lance for providing content to the website.

How much ownership in demand do the LAF and Lance have? Who knows? It's not publicized. I'd be shocked if it's more then a couple of percent each, but I suppose it is possible. I think the idea that Lance had some plan to direct people to the .com and away from the .org is a bit far fetched... but I suppose until demand media goes public we'll never know.

 

[MacRoadie]

Just out of curiousity... where has the LAF ever said they were about building awareness?

This gets repeated over and over again... mainly because Lance said his original return to cycling was about building awareness. But as far as I know, the LAF has always been about helping cancer survivors.

From the Livestrong.org "What we do" page:

We find new ways to raise awareness, increase outreach and facilitate collaboration in an effort to improve the cancer experience.

and the home page:

Raising awareness, increasing outreach and facilitating collaboration are critical to improving the cancer experience

And a few others from the website:

To raise cancer awareness, LIVESTRONG challenges advocates, educators, parents and others to get students involved in the fight against cancer.

Host a LIVESTRONG Day event and put it on the map. Raise awareness. Raise funds. Register to create your event page and tell the world

LIVESTRONG is committed to bringing awareness to the global cancer movement and offering concrete ways for anyone affected by cancer to get involved. LIVESTRONG is recruiting LIVESTRONG Leaders from across the globe. A LIVESTRONG Leader is a person who is passionate about and committed to making cancer a priority in their community.

Now, what they are "raising awareness" of is another thing. Is it awareness of cancer itself, or awareness of programs and facilties available to the cancer community, or is it awareness of the global Armstrong/LiveStrong brand? Very muddy water there.

 

[Race Radio]

Just out of curiousity... where has the LAF ever said they were about building awareness?

They say it in almost every press release. Here is just one example

http://www.livestrong.org/Take-Acti...ivestrong-Day-2010/Event-Details?EventId=3855

"On LIVESTRONG Day we come together to raise awareness"

The LAF has some very helpful programs.

Nobody is saying they don't. The question is how much goes to these programs and how much goes to promoting the Armstrong brand? And how much goes here

Both Lance Armstrong AND the LAF were given ownership stakes in demand media. The LAF for the rights to the "livestrong.com" name, Lance for providing content to the website.

How much ownership in demand do the LAF and Lance have? Who knows? It's not publicized. I'd be shocked if it's more then a couple of percent each, but I suppose it is possible.

Yes, we know how much they were given. It is in Demand's recent filing to go public. Lance/CSE and Livestrong were each given 1 million warrants. At the time this was about 10% of the company but with the dilution that comes from addition equity investments this has dropped to about 5%. How much these warrants will be worth will depend on the success of the offering. Currently they should each be worth about $12 million but this could increase significantly. Armstrong also received $1,000,000 per year for three years for content on the .com site. So far this consists of his video interviews and press releases.

I think the idea that Lance had some plan to direct people to the .com and away from the .org is a bit far fetched... but I suppose until demand media goes public we'll never know.

The numbers do not lie, driving traffic to the .com is exactly what he is doing

 

[BotanyBay]

Armstrong does not have friends, he has employee's. Smart move to pay John....too bad for Lance it did not work for long. Funny how few of those friends......er, employee's, are willing to lie for the boss anymore.

I take issue with this comment. Armstrong has friends.

Here's a nice shot of Lance and a good pal snorkeling in the Bahamas. Lance is on top (as usual).

And don't forget the "lady friends":

 

[BotanyBay]

Just out of curiousity... where has the LAF ever said they were about building awareness?

Uh, everywhere.

That's about the only thing they purport themselves to do.

 

[MacRoadie]

They say it in almost every press release. Here is just one example

http://www.livestrong.org/Take-Acti...ivestrong-Day-2010/Event-Details?EventId=3855

In that one, you get two "awarenesses" in one sentence:

"For this event, we ask that all interested staff and associates promote a greater awareness of the foundation's mission to support cancer research and awareness by wearing yellow."

Granted, that is the language utilized by the host (Beacon Partners) of that particular "LiveStrong Awareness Day", but it sure seems to be the message Beacon Partners feels it is meant to deliver. Plus, it IS on the LiveStrong site.