Angry Angel

Well, as announced in my former post here’s a second REAL EXPERIENCE I MADE with organizations that campaign for many global problems and ask for support in achieving their goals. YOU ALSO REALLY SHOULD KNOW ABOUT.

I invented an interesting new mental exercise game. The patented discovery was placed on the back burner for a long time. With the beginning of the IT age, I transformed my game, which was originally designed for hardware, into an online game.

Knowing that the internet community is quite interested in playing, I planned to hold a national, continental and world championship round. The players simply had to make a small donation to take part. Furthermore, during the one-year period from the regional to world championships, I sold online advertising. The half of the donations and entry fees were to be paid out as prize money, and the other half was to be donated to a non-profit organization.

As we know, such an online game can create a lot of hype. These just for fun games can be created without much capital for marketing purposes, since the players, the internet and the media reports do this for free. One such game, Moorhuhn, managed to get 58 million players worldwide within just three months.

Now just imagine the interest in a mental game which runs one year long and has prize money to win and how much potential it has. Let’s assume 100 million members and a donation/entry fee of US$ 10 per player. This would amount to one billion dollars in total income. Half of it, US$ 500 million, would be paid as a cash prize and create enormous motivation. The other half, plus the worldwide marketing, which could easily amount to US$ 500 million, would total one billion dollars for a charity organization. It’s apparent that, had this charity organization campaigned in this manner and sold advertising or links on their site, then they would have greatly exceeded this amount.

Incidentally, my game is endlessly adaptable and could have been started each year anew.

I wanted to offer this one billion dollars, to be raised from my idea and the game itself free of charge to various international, well-known charity organizations. That simple – I wanted to support them.

I contacted many international organizations in writing in 2002 and shared my idea with them, allowing them to test and see the game online. Among others, I contacted the WWF, Amnesty International, Greenpeace, Friends of the Earth, the International Red Cross and many others.

Do you want to know what kind of response I got?

Imagine – someone offers a possibility to raise millions of dollars in donations and create a worldwide hype with an online game, completely for free and nothing happened.

Aside from the International Red Cross in Geneva, not one single organization replied!

Perhaps someone can explain it to me, but I just don’t understand.

I asked myself why. Are the administrations so bloated that the left hand doesn’t know what the right is doing or are they just so set in their ways that they don’t consider new ideas from single individuals? Can they not even say thanks for the offer and suggestion?

I just don’t get it!

Looking back, it was surely a blessing that no one was interested, since I will use this game – beginning in mid-2007 – for my initiative ALBUFIN. The advantage is that the game will be a complete novelty to the  worldwide internet community when it is released and the effectiveness will be much stronger.

I have to tell you about my experience with the International Red Cross. They were the only ones who responded to my offer via a young employee in Geneva.

We had two long telephone conversations.

I must preface this in order to better illustrate the situation with the following:

The international committee of the Red Cross consists of up to 25 Swiss citizens and is the only organization engaged in international humanitarian law and recognized as its controlling body.

The annual budget of the Red Cross is approximately 1.05 billion Swiss francs (as of 2006), which comes mostly from payments made by the members of the Geneva Convention and from donations.

The USA is one of those members and provides about 25% of the total national financing.

And now back to my story.

Besides the fact that my intentions didn’t materialize due to the lack of interest from the other organizations and I hadn’t planned to support just one or two organizations, the support for the International Red Cross also failed.

The reason for this was that they wanted to restrict the selection of advertisers, which makes up a significant portion of the donation money through advertising payments and additional revenue.

They argued that the International Red Cross couldn’t accept donations that came from certain American corporations. A large oil companies and an internationally-known fast food chain were particularly singled out.

Do you notice something here?

It’s a stilted society in which we live!

I made my conversation partner aware that the Red Cross, according to my knowledge, received 25% of its budget from the USA. They agreed.

I argued that neither the American government nor the American president print new, special money especially for the Red Cross. This money comes from the tax revenues in the United States. They agreed as well.

My assertion was that the oil company and the international fast food chain mentioned paid taxes each year to the government and that these funds, which the Red Cross received from the US, were at least partially, albeit indirectly financed by exactly those companies, from whom they didn’t want to be associated with in my case. The phone was silent for a few moments, but he ultimately had to agree with my analysis. However, he affirmed once again that he couldn’t get around the internal regulations.

Do you see how false such an organization can be?

If someone who we must despise comes by the front door, then we must send him away. If he comes through the back door, however, then he is warmly welcomed. More concretely: either we are too cowardly or not in a position to make it clear to the world that we can surely take all the donations offered and still maintain our independence.

You know, it is undisputed that – at least up to now – most of the oil companies as well as this or the other fast food chain are responsible for a large share of the responsibility for global problems. However, everyone is allowed to make a donation or sponsorship to ALBUFIN, without exception.

Anything else is truly foolish.

“The ends justify the means.“

If a company is responsible for pollution and is made aware of this fact by us or other organizations, that’s one thing. If the same company wants to make a donation, even if it’s to gain some publicity for doing something good for the environment or society, then we will gratefully accept

In this way, at least a small part of the accumulated damage can be made better through us.

ALBUFIN will also of course make such donations and sponsorships known. However, we are far from selling ourselves and we will not enter into any dependent relationship!

So much for the glitter world of charities and the bigotry of some organizations who ask you for your support.

Have a great and successful day
Mario Eduard Giovanelli

 

This post is an excerpt of my e-book, ‘New Eco Millionaires Wanted’ and it reveals REAL EXPERIENCE I MADE with organizations that campaign for many global problems and ask for support in achieving their goals. YOU REALLY SHOULD KNOW ABOUT.

 

There are countless organizations that campaign for many global problems and ask for support in achieving their goals. Aside from the fact that the advertising and administrative costs are higher than necessary and too little capital is left over for effective solutions, they are meaningful in that they raise awareness of the problems.

However, all of the donations in the world are not enough to bring about a sustainable effect. Most events, regardless if short- or long-term, are nothing more than drops of water in the ocean.

Besides that, we should remember an old adage: If you give a man a fish, he can eat for a day. If you teach a man to fish, he can eat for a lifetime.

I consider many well-known charity events to be a type of vanity fair and decline them on this ground.

For example, there was an internally-known music star who announced in 1984 that his career was over and suffered from depression. Then he had the brilliant idea of hosting a benefit concert. It’s easy to find a cause nowadays and he had plenty of contacts in the business. With his statement and a few phone calls was all he needed to bring a few international groups and musicians together for a benefit concert.

“The concert that will change the world!“

Since then, this concert is held each year and increases in popularity and reception. In 2005, an estimated one million people were out in the streets and a further two million watched the event on TV or online. Great story, don’t you think?

It’s just a shame that in the first years they managed to raise money and send truckloads of medication and food to support people in Africa, but in the meanwhile, in 2005, months after the event, the organizers suffered from amnesia and couldn’t present a receipt, much less the results of the donations raised. According to some statements, they still didn’t know how much they owed for the public toilet facilities during the event.

Under these circumstances, one argued that this time it wasn’t about raising money, but mobilizing people to push the G8 states to stop ignoring the poverty, starvation, disease and death in Africa.

You could assume that the organizers completely lost their sense of reality, since most of the attendees are interested more in the music than the cause and the G7 ministers don’t care one bit about two billion music fans worldwide. I don’t think it was being out of touch with reality, I’m talking about the cold, calculating business of the organizers and all those involved. Even if there was no cash involved, marketing is a business, too. That’s why I refer to this as a vanity fair.

However, marketing at the expense of poor people is a dirty business!

In response to the question why more African musicians weren’t given a platform and a chance to earn an income, since the benefit was for Africa, the organizers said, “Then they should organize their own event!”

The only things that politics has actually done, the only effect that this annual event has brought about from the diverse ministers and rulers of the G8 states is to gain attention in the media and to emphasize the importance of the action by honoring the founder and organizer of the event by knighting and granting him the title “Man of Peace.”

Despite these huge events and the knighting and honoring of the founder, a child still dies every three seconds from hunger!

I can also share two of my own experiences here:

There’s another organization that has helped people in an African country for many years. The founder, who, as in most cases, was not living too shabbily, flashed across TV screens with the same teary-eyed, pleading look requesting money and support.

In 2001, I thought, “I should really come up with a good idea based on the principle of ’teaching to fish.’”

So I contacted the organization and wrote that I would be interested in volunteering for one year to teach young people in Africa the fundamentals of becoming an IT specialist. I offered to do this completely free of charge, they simply had to arrange accommodation for me. I that this would be well received, since they talk about building and running schools in their commercials, and I figured they would need a few experienced teachers. I had arranged the hardware and software in a form of sponsorship for the project.

I stated that with one year of training in the internet age, one could offer his services internationally without leaving his home and could work individually or collectively. Between 25 and 50 people could thereby find a new purpose in life, as well as a regular income. Just a few income earners can immediately change their direct surroundings.

Are you interested in their reply?

They declined my suggestion immediately. They gave me a ridiculous and untruthful reason: they didn’t want me to take away a job that an African could do (right – since there are so many IT trainers in Ethiopia!).

In the meantime, this organization continues asking for your generous support. You see, most of the money doesn’t even find its way to Africa to provide real help or support. Someone just wants to earn their money without any major control or regulations. How many of you have actually exactly checked to see how your donation money is used?

… a second true story will follow with the next post … soon …

Have a great and successful day
Mario Eduard Giovanelli