CCF refused D&D donations

[Rykion]

Is there anything you are aware of going on at Hasbro as a corporate entity that would be a plausible motive for CCF to decline donations connected to Hasbro?

I don't know about Hasbro, but Gen Con is being sued by Lucasfilm for failing to provide the charity auction proceeds of Celebration IV that were to go to the Make-a-Wish Foundation. That might cause a charity like CCF to decide not to let their name be used in a charity auction held at Gen Con. The CCF actually declined to be the named sponsored charity, not just the donation itself.

 

[Voadam]

I don't know about Hasbro, but Gen Con is being sued by Lucasfilm for failing to provide the charity auction proceeds of Celebration IV to the Make-a-Wish Foundation. That might cause a charity like CCF to decide not to let their name be used in a charity auction held at Gen Con. The CCF actually declined to be the named sponsored charity, not just the donation itself.

Which would be even further removed from the statement provided that CCF chose not to accept the donations "when they found out that the money they would get came partially from sales of Dungeons and Dragons"

If the reasons were Gencon's tarnished rep for chariy follow through then LiveGameAuctions is lying or grossly misunderstands the situation.

Possible, but I think it highly unlikely.

 

[mlund]

I didn't see any statement on their website about the issue or their policies on not accepting donations. I suggest you email CCF if you want to hear directly from them. There is plenty of evidence here to make a judgment on however.

No, there really isn't. There's a small, undetailed statement by one aggrieved party and that's it. Everything else is personal opinion and prejudice.

Even taking Gencon's statement with a grain of salt

Point of Order: I don't see any official statement on behalf of GenCon LLC regarding this matter. I see some Web site commentary by livegameauctions.com that been circulated and repeated. On the site it says, "Auction is sponsored by and run by The Partnership (Bruce Carson and TrollAndToad.com ) and managed by Catherine Fountaine." They copyright all the content of that site with the statement and do not attribute the statement to the GenCon LLC.

the other possibilities you posit as their motives should be evaluated for their plausibility, not just their possibility in evaluating the situation.

Plausibility is important in weighing the relevance of possibility, certainly.

Pulling Weeds out of Potholes: Reply from the Christian Children's Fund over the Gygax Auction

"Christian Children’s Fund made the decision to decline the gift from Gen Con, LLC after the review of numerous factors that in combination precluded our acceptance of the gift. These reasons include the possible misinterpretation of CCF’s role in regard to the event. CCF is selective in its endorsements or support because it must maintain the highest degree of integrity with respect to the use of its name and logo. The information presented to us gave the appearance that CCF (the organization) was an endorser or supporter of the event instead of a beneficiary."

While that makes the issue pretty much a moot point unless anyone provides contrary copy or statements from CCF, there are a couple of other details in the argument of possibilities worth pursuing.

For one thing, I found the action list: http://livegameauctions.com/cons/Indy2008Files/AuctionItems.xls

It is pretty darn long but I found at least a couple of adults-only auction items include Hentai DVDs and lot #5040562 - the Book of Erotic Fantasy.

Lack of 100% knowledge is not a good reason to withhold judging a situation. It is very hard to get 100% knowledge and you need to judge situations all the time.

No one is arguing that 100% certainty is required for every judgment. Depending on necessities and consequences the burden of certainty shifts. Note your use of the word "need" here. You and I don't "need to judge" this situation. There's no gun to anyone's head here. We can keep the jury out on this until a sufficient burden of evidence is met.

I've heard plenty of disgruntled people pass off "because of D&D" as an explanation of stuff that, at its crux, was only incidentally involved with Dungeons and Dragons. It is even factually accurate to say, "They didn't want our donation because of the sale of Dungeons and Dragons products," when the actual dismissal addressed a specific Dungeons and Dragons product (BoEF), the publisher D&D (Hasbro), or an individual involved with the donation of the D&D products in question.

This is why I like to have both sides of the issue before taking sides.

I am not aware of any reason CCF would wish to boycott donations connected to Hasbro.

Responsible Shopper Profile: Hasbro

I'm not saying these folks are right (they seem like hippies to me), but I'm illustrating that there definitely some folks out there that object to Hasbro's involvement with child labor abuses - kind of a sore subject for a charity for children, no?

I think it unlikely to be over individual auction items.

You can feel it unlikely, but I've seen that kind of thing bite companies, charities, and politicians before. PR flaks and lawyers are paranoid folks for a reason. I think the statement from CCF illustrates this well too - they are fretting over the implications of just who is endorsing whom, definitely marketing wonk territory.

- Marty Lund

 

[ProfessorCirno]

There sure was a lot of hubbub over one very vague statement on a very vague website. And as we've just been shown, 99% of all that hubbub was completely incorrect with its assumptions. Seems we've all learned once again what we make of ourselves when we assume things ;p

 

[justanobody]

But +1 coolness point for the classic South Park reference!

So it is those same people? If so this is not the first time I have heard of them turning away money. I have seen them turn away a donation from a local middle school if that is the same group. Don't recall the reason, but was also silly like not wanting money from D&D.

It is quite dumbfounding what a reason for it could be. I thought NPO's had some sort of rules they had to follow, could that be a reason for turning away donations?

 

[Mark Chance]

Intolerance - 1

Once again, "intolerance" equals "doesn't agree with me" gets a point as well.

This all seems very much ado about nothing. If a charity doesn't want money from X, that's their business. I don't have to like it, but I fail to see what point is served by attempting to seize possibly shaky ground in order to pretend I'm on the high moral turf.

 

[Brown Jenkin]

Pulling Weeds out of Potholes: Reply from the Christian Children's Fund over the Gygax Auction

"Christian Children’s Fund made the decision to decline the gift from Gen Con, LLC after the review of numerous factors that in combination precluded our acceptance of the gift. These reasons include the possible misinterpretation of CCF’s role in regard to the event. CCF is selective in its endorsements or support because it must maintain the highest degree of integrity with respect to the use of its name and logo. The information presented to us gave the appearance that CCF (the organization) was an endorser or supporter of the event instead of a beneficiary."

This is a very polite way of only sort of answering the question without commenting on the issue of D&D. They say there are numerous factors but only spell out one of them. The other side also said there were many reasons but it camne down to D&D. The way I see things is that both sides may be correct in the statements they made.

Questions can also be asked what qualifies as highest degree of integrity. Does this mean that they don't want thier name associated with D&D? I don't know because they didn't say that it wasn't D&D when specificly asked. Is D&D still one of the numerous reasons.

I hate to be nitpicky like this but given the world today it seems to be common practice amongst all kinds of people and organizations to not actually answer the real question and instead give another answer that apears answer the question but is instead meant to mislead.

 

[johntejon]

Thank you for playing. Please enjoy your parting gifts...

 

[Oni]

There are children with a very real need, who will have just a little bit less now which is sad. I don't think making a statement, especially in this case ways above actually doing some good.

I assume the money will be redirected to another worthy cause so I reckon it's not as bad as all that.

[Edit: If I had read the little snippit better I would have seen it was in fact redirected ]

 

[Voadam]

Pulling Weeds out of Potholes: Reply from the Christian Children's Fund over the Gygax Auction

"Christian Children’s Fund made the decision to decline the gift from Gen Con, LLC after the review of numerous factors that in combination precluded our acceptance of the gift. These reasons include the possible misinterpretation of CCF’s role in regard to the event. CCF is selective in its endorsements or support because it must maintain the highest degree of integrity with respect to the use of its name and logo. The information presented to us gave the appearance that CCF (the organization) was an endorser or supporter of the event instead of a beneficiary."

While that makes the issue pretty much a moot point unless anyone provides contrary copy or statements from CCF

I don't see how this makes the issue moot. They did not contradict the statement saying CCF declined the donations after finding out the proceeds were derived in part from sales of D&D.

At most their reply can be read to say that the derivation from D&D sales was definitively not the sole reason for declining the donations.

They don't directly address one way or the other whether D&D was part of their reason to decline the donation. They say there was "numerous factors that in combination precluded our acceptance of the gift." Only one of the factors was "the possible misinterpretation of CCF’s role in regard to the event."

To be fair to CCF I don't think they were addressing whether sales of D&D were an issue, it looks like the author of that blog posting wrote them and only generically asked "for their reasons on why they declined the money from the charity auction." Their response is a reasonable one in response to that question, it just doesn't address the issue we are discussing of whether the auction sale of D&D stuff was a motivation for them to decline the charity auction proceeds.

We don't have a statement from CCF contradicting the LiveAuction statement.