AIDS Walk Los Angeles

baddog · 09-17-2005, 01:59 AM

My daughter is participating in the upcoming AIDS Walk Los Angeles 2005, being held October 16, 2005.

She is looking for sponsors that will pledge donations that will raise urgently needed funds to help prevent the spread of HIV and provide life-saving services for those living with and affected by HIV and AIDS.

If you would like to help support her in this please visit this donation page and make your pledge. All donations are appreciated.

She has set a personal goal of $10,000. Let's see how close we can get her to this.

Thank you.

**A_DeAngelo** · 09-17-2005, 05:24 PM

HEY BADDOG, glad that your daughter is involved.

How can I post this without coming off as politically incorrect?

We no longer support APLA and haven't for over 7 years. First of all, because they did a dreadful job of mismanaging my former (dead) lover's needs (article published in LA Times - I'll have to dig it up).

My lover's APLA case manager was never on top of Thom's critical care needs, although promising many services and providing very little but lip service; The case worker called 3 days after Thom died to see how Thom was doing...

Second, we learned that about 35¢ on each dollar collected goes toward client services with the lion share going toward operations. This is backwards from the norm for not-for-profit orgs. according to United Way. The standard is to spend about 89¢ on every dollar taken in (plus or minus a little). APLA has had horrible ratings over the years with the outfits that rate not-for-profits.

The APLA annual reports are misleading however, our close friend and free-lance fund raising consultant (New York based) worked for APLA on past major events. He was angered by their mismanagement of contributions and stopped consulting after working on a few projects. He had been flown back and forth from NY to LA several times and provided housing and expenses by APLA. (Isn't there anyone in LA that knows how to raise money?)

Cases in point are the numerous events APLA has sponsored such as fashion show events which cost APLA more to produce than they take in...

Liz Taylor, David Geffen and others are also shifting support toward other worthy causes such as the UCLA Care/Research center...

While the AIDS walk still does much toward bringing necessary attention to the AIDS front, we prefer giving to hands on organizations knowing that 90¢ on the dollar we give will be put right back into client services and will not be spent on administrative costs.

Out of the $10,000 your daughter hopes to collect, approx. $3,500 will end up in the ands of the needy and the remaing $6,500 will disappear into the organization... the DeAngelo household is not happy with this situation!

Please give freely but, research the organizations and give only to time tested and proven hands on organizations that follow through with their commitment to the community...

If the AIDS WALK posters DID NOT LIST APLA and listed all the other proported agencies that funding is to benefit, we would be more likely to contribute...

I hope I didn't offend.