Relay For Life

Could someone please tell me when the Relay for Life will be? Are events going on the whole month of March? Wanted to do some fundraisers and didn't want to be too early. Thanks for any help!

It's in process right now..............I'm 3000 lindens lighter already.

woot woooooot!!!!

http://www.cancer.org/docroot/par/content/PAR_1_Relay_For_Life.asp

Basically it is a annual fund raiser for the American Cancer Society.

http://slrfl.org/ is the homepage for the SL relay for life. It has an event calendar and map of donation kiosks and lots of numbers and fancy graphs and things. The actual relay is not until July 28th but it is definitely not too early for fund raising events.

A while back ago I ran into someone who said he was taking donations for red cross in SL.
My statement to him is how do I know you're legit?
How do we know any charitiable foundation here is legit?
Why should we give lindens if we can directly give cash directly to those organizations?

Because they get listed on the 'real life' Relay for Life web page, for the exact amounts stated.

*shrug* Some of us like the fact that we can do it from our favorite pastime... doesn't mean we don't do the RL side too.

I'm one of this year's SLRFL Team Captains. All the participating teams will be hosting fund raising events until SLRFL day in July.

If you take a look at the site www.SLRFL.org and look at the team lists, you will see a lot of well known SL "celebrities" giving their time and talents to this worthwhile cause.

If you wish to check the authenticity of SLRFL donation Kiosks and pledge cards, check that the creator is Jade Lily, the event organiser. Paying one of these devices sends the donation to the owner who placed the device, as with all vendors, but the payment then immediately gets automatically sent on to Jade Lily. It will then appear in the sidebar on the right of the web site's homepage. We have donation kiosks out far and wide as well as several in Team Eros's home sim of Amsterdam.

If anyone would like to be so kind as to place a donation Kiosk on their land, please IM me in world and I will send you one.

This year's target is to raise US$200,000 for the American Cancer Society, so please give generously to any of the teams taking part and support our events. Every L$1 helps towards achieving our goal.

In conjunction with the fund raising efforts, 30 sponsored sims are being built, by many of the best builders in SL, themed on Movies with relevance to the overall theme of this year's SLRFL "Quest for a cure". The finale of SLRFL 2007 will be a 12 hour race around a course through these 30 sims.

Hope this answers some of your questions.

Just wondering (as a non-US resident)...

Does the SL Relay for Life benefit any of the other cancer charities who run "Relay for Life" events around the world.... or only the American one?

Relay for Life will be going on for some time here; we are having a team from Caledon for 2007 as well after the incredible fun and good fundraising last year.

We were only six sims then and raised over 2000 USD - an amazing response, and hope to do better this time. Cancer is a very worthy thing to be fighting.

As for other charities being legitimate, I'd say do your own research and be very sure; we stick with the big famous efforts as anyone can slap a 'charity' texture on a tip jar and you have no idea where the money is going.

If there is anything that makes our time worthwhile on the grid, it's things like Relay for Life. Together we can make a difference.

In my own mind, I try to give up junk food and put some of the money I would have spent on it during the RFL season toward fighting cancer. Who knows, maybe *I* won't get cancer because I didn't eat all that carcinogenic junk... a double advantage!

Shep, I'm a non-US resident myself (British) and wondered the same thing but a look at the ACS website www.cancer.org convinced me that the ACS does indeed sponser cancer research throughout the world.

Also, reflecting on this year's theme "Quest for a Cure" I realised that national borders are largely irrelevant when fighting this terrible illness that touches all our lives in some way. I'll be waving a union jack when doing the relay for the ACS


Nick

With that avatar name, you had to be



Yes, they do - and to a certain extent, that's all well and good - however, there are aspects of the ACS's work that give me reservations.

Firstly, they spend a large chunk of their money on educational work, aimed at US residents. So, as a UK benefactor, a chunk of my donation would be spent on things like, teaching american kids that cigarettes are bad. Maybe if we were talking about an overseas charity, e.g. in the third world, such a donation would sit better with me.... but - essentially - this means I'd be donating to the richest nation on earth, in order that they can get their public health education programme in order. Given that scenario, I'd sooner donate to my local charity, and have my donation spent on education programmes in my own country.

Secondly, I've read things about the way the ACS is run that disturb me. The CEO of the ACS pays himself a $760,000 salary each year. Last year, the SL relay for life raised what... $40,000? Maybe we kept their CEO in scotch and caviar for a month. I dunno... perhaps it's normal for charities in the US to pay their bosses salaries like that. Here it isn't. It leaves a bitter taste to me.... and there are other issues - lots of nasty rumours about ACS and kickbacks from the pesticide industry, drug firms, etc to affect which research they do and don't support - you don't need to surf far to read them. As a potential donator, it's all a bit off-putting.

My own family have received lots of direct help in the last 12 months from Cancer Research - the charity that runs Relay for Life in the UK, whose work I've experienced first hand, and who I would have no reservations supporting.... which is kind of what prompted my original question. However, I suspect you're right, and all funds are going to the American version of Relay for Life.

Yes, unfortunately it is. Which is one reason I'm extremely loathe to donate money to charities until I've checked to see what proportion of contributions go to overhead versus the actual work of the charities. There are several watchdog organizations that issue reports on the track record of these charities so potential contributors can judge for themselves whether or not the money is well spent.

As an aside, the company I work for does lots of projects for the non-profit organization niche, and the inefficiency and waste of resources is high. Without market forces to keep them lean, these organizations tend to bloat in terms of personnel and are riddled with psycho-drama dysfunction. The CEOs and a few other top dogs get obscene salaries, but the rest of the staff are underpaid in comparison to the business world. So you get a mix of some stellar employees who are truly vested in the organization's mission, weighed down by the lifers who cling to their jobs because they are otherwise unemployable.

Disclaimer: these are comments about non-profit organizations in general, NOT specific comments concerning ACS, about which I know nothing.

Cancer research is cancer research, it is a worthy cause no matter where in the world such research actually takes place.

SLRFL is indeed a legit event , as evidenced by the previous 2 SLRFL. As for people raising money for other causes, who knows.

I hear the concerns about donating to one of the world's largest health Charities. I would like to address them one at a time.

Yes the Society contributes MILLIONS of dollars to medical and epidemiological research each year. Although the bulk of the Epidemiology and Cancer Control research staff is loacted in the USA research funding is distributed all over the world. In fact ACS has funded 40 Nobel Prize winners. . Some of the money is distributed in the form of International Grants . In addition ACS partners with cancer control agencies around the globe. Look into the International Programs to see more about the international impact of the society. ACS even runs The ACS University which works to build up cancer control organizations in developing countries. To insinuate that all of the money goes into the pockets of Americans and Americans only benefit is very far off base.

To the point about the CEO compensation, the ACS did not grow to be the outstanding organization it is by hiring second rate leadership. There are nearly 6,000 ACS employees (an overwhelming percent of whom are involved in direct community support roles doing hands on activity in the community) and it takes extraordinary leadership to manage that effort. Part of the reason you will find no financial misdealing regarding the Society is because ACS hires and retains honest leaders, who actively look to cut waste, reduce overhead, and improve service. Not a small task. Go to Guidestar.com and you can investigate for your self and compare financial statements. Just remember that contribution to benefits are health insurance and pension - not money to him. The man drives a blue Chrysler Minivan for crying out loud. His professional experience before coming to ACS is as follows:

Chief Executive Officer 1995-present
American Cancer Society, Inc.

Executive Vice President and Chief Staff Officer 1992-95
American Cancer Society, Inc.

Trustee, American Cancer Society Foundation 1992-present

Adjunct Professor, Behavioral Science and Health Education 1993- present
Emory University School of Public Health

Professor and Chairman, Department of Applied Health Science, 1979-92
Indiana University
Concurrent positions:

Director, Center for Health and Safety Studies 1979-92
Chairman, Hazard Control Program Advisory Board 1980-92
Co-Director, Institute for Drug Abuse Prevention 1990-92

Member, Graduate Faculty and Professor of Health Education, 1979- present
Indiana University Graduate School

Member, Board of Directors, Indiana Department of Public Welfare 1978-92

Chairman, National Board of Directors, American Cancer Society 1989-91

Chairman, Health and Safety Education, Purdue University 1977-79

Associate Professor of Health Education, Purdue University 1976-79

Assistant Professor of Health Education, Purdue University 1970-76

Not to shabby if I do say so myself! Seems like the kind of guy who knows what he is doing. Anyone can start a non for profit charity and make a big difference locally. I think it is great! Not everyone can lead an organization that makes a major impact all over the world year in and year out. For a man that travels the globe half of the year to help other international agencies fight cancer locally, and helps fund them to do it .... come on.

I'm curious, though: why have such a long fund raising drive of almost 5 months? I'd hate for it to get as routine as the Christmas sales which happen before Halloween.

I think efforts to raise funds and awareness for all serious disesase should be "Routine". The disesase don't stop killing people for 6 months, so we shouldn't slack off on fighting them either.

Lapin Paris, the SL Relay for Life team captain, just told me that Caledon has has crossed the million Linden mark this year. And that's just our sim--there are others who have raised more than we have.

http://www.slrfl.com/