I'm really skeptical that this money ever reaches the earth realm and actually is 100% contributed to the American Cancer Society. The website proclaims "in cooperation with the American Cancer Society", but lists no official contact to the American Cancer Society, nor does it make claims of the amounts being donated to the organization.
Here are some breakdowns of teams that have "contributed" to the Relay For Life in Second Life:
Relay Rockers - L$577673 - USD$2012.48
McDunnoughs Relay Gang - L$469,674 - USD$1636.43
Team Eros - L$460,042 - USD$1602.68
The residents listed for contact are Fayandria Foley and Jade Lily with the latter being the only one with an earth realm contact of jade.lily@gmail.com. That's right, a google mail account, not a American Cancer Society email address. Hummm....
My user did some investigating and dug up an actual link from the American Cancer Society's website:
Second Life Relay For Life (2006)
Second Life Relay For Life Event Details (2006)
The former mentions residents RC MARS and Jade Lily while latter mentions a RL person :
Randal MossSo now, there is a 2006 mention of one of the people involved with the Second Life Relay For Life organization.
American Cancer Society
Futuring and Innovation Center
randal.moss@cancer.org
Legit? Scraping from the top? It is very hard to tell without the accountability of donations being directly funneled to the American Cancer Society, especially with the individual involved NOT being directly involved with the organization.
EDIT:
Per the comments below from presumably Jade Lily herself, the SecondLife Relay for Life is, in fact, a legit operation. Jade Lily is currently affiliated with the Electric Sheep Company which is quite involved with the evolution and quality development within SecondLife.
2 comments:
I appreciate your concern for the legitimacy of the Relay. This is an event that has been going on for over three years, and I've worked closely with Randal Moss of the American Cancer Society. The money raised is converted to US$ and a check is sent by Linden Lab directly to Randy.
I'd have appreciated it further had you contacted Randy, Fay, or myself directly with your concerns before publicizing your doubts on this blog.
Contacting a SL resident involved with the relay would essentially be meaningless if it was indeed a scam.
Every organization that raises money has some amount of accountability and it is very suspect when someone can not find enough information to prove it is in fact a legit operation.
Please don't get me wrong, I fully support cancer research. The daughter of a friend died from cancer and I'm personally involved with a St. Baldrick's event in my local area.
The difference between us, besides not having a 'virtual' event, is we specifically show goals, amounts raised, who's affiliated and why... etc. Don't leave anything to question and I'm sure you'll have tons more donations.
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