I to support United Spinal. membership is free. They provide many good programs.
_____ From: Quadius [mailto:[email protected]] Sent: Thursday, March 03, 2011 6:20 PM To: Billy Lang Cc: [email protected] Subject: Re: [QUAD-L] Bum Charities I don't know if I would go that far about the PVA as a whole. Yes they have received terrible ratings. They do, however, help quite a few veterans I know, including myself. They have service officers in most major VA centers that are able to help veterans who are having difficulties. They have a pretty good lobbying organization which definitely tries to advocate for veterans rights. I never give in to phone solicitations. It takes so much money for those nonprofits to solicit funds via the phone that a huge amount of the money they take in those to paying for the solicitation. That is my biggest qualm with the PVA. You are right that you should check carefully on charities before giving. Just my two cents. Quadius On Fri, Feb 25, 2011 at 6:39 PM, Billy Lang <[email protected]> wrote: I'm a member of the PVE (Paralyzed Veterans of America). I also belonged to EPVA (Eastern PVA) who have changed their name to UNITED SPINAL Association. I strongly suggest you check with Charity Navigator http://www.charitynavigator.org They rate all charities and have given these guys a 0 start rating. It's a scam perpetrated on the public to give huge salaries to their board members and publish a slick magazine, under the guise of supposedly helping paralyzed vets. Really pisses me off. BTW. I found that asking a simple question to telemarketers schilling for charities: "What percentage of your collected funds goes toward recipients?" Usually gets a hangup or a supervisor who'll lie to you. NEVER GIVE MONEY OVER THE PHONE. Request a mailing if you want to contribute, and check charity's effectiveness with above. Don't let what you cannot do interfere with what you can do! Billy
