Patrick Salazar, the former Vice President of the PTC (whom the PTC claims is try to extort them) emailed Ars Technica. He says their fund-raising practices are unethical.
http://arstechnica.com/media/news/2010/10/whistleblower-says-parents-television-council-is-beyond-repair.ars http://static.arstechnica.com/salazar.pdf Pulling quotes from the Ars article (outside the PDF which I can't read yet): "PTC education programs with the stated intent of serving the public were actually hollow fundraising schemes. The organization relied on inflated membership numbers to mislead donors, regulators and legislators all in an effort to increase the PTC's the relevance and cash flow." The PTC regularly asked for money when mailing out petitions to the Federal Communications Commission, Congress, or TV executives, Salazar says. But, "When responses came in, nearly two hundred thousand of these petitions were opened, checked for donations, and, after months of sitting in a warehouse in Ohio, were thrown in the trash. This disdain for its 'members' disgusted me, and I warned [PTC President Tim Winter] of its implications immediately after learning of the practice." As for the decency group's claim of having 1.3 million members, Salazar calls it "false by any standard." His analysis of the outfit's "member" database in late 2009 indicated that over half of these people had only a single correspondence with the PTC, and the overwhelming majority have "never contributed a dime." On Mon, Oct 25, 2010 at 12:39 PM, Tom Wolper <[email protected]> wrote: > > The PTC is dealing with 3 problems: > > 1. The onset of the recession struck a double whammy at nonprofit > organizations - not only did their revenues fall, the money that had > been brought in over the years was invested and the value of that > dropped at the same time. Any nonprofit should just go into survival > mode until the economy gets better, but any organization that has > grown in stature and influence over the preceding years has to avoid > the impression to their supporters that they have been weakened > recently. > > 2. Direct mail solicitation of new members and donations is at the end > of its days. Rising printing and postage costs coupled with ever lower > return rates has meant that it is getting too expensive to use it any > more. That's true for all nonprofit organizations and they are all > scrambling to find alternatives. If direct mail is still in any way > successful for the PTC, it has to be with older people. And if the > PTC's core supporters are older people it makes their claim to speak > for families suspect. > > 3. For organizations, membership has always been a fundraising tool. A > member is defined as someone who sends a check in once a year. Younger > people (meaning those under 60) want to define their relationship > differently. Some say younger people just don't want to join > organizations like the previous generation, but I think they want more > than a newsletter and a membership card. This again brings up the > issue of the age of the PTC's members and if they really represent > families. > > While the problems above are true for all nonprofit advocacy > organizations, there's another emerging situation that I don't know > affects the PTC. Large donors are demanding proof of results before > giving any more money. Any organization can come up with a list of its > achievements if put on the spot, but I don't see the PTC having any > major wins. They're not winning their battles in the culture wars and > that could be hurting their ability to recruit donors. > > The PTC should survive the slump in a weakened form. The real > questions will come when the economy recovers: will they show any > ability to influence the media and will the organization be able to > grow again and recruit new members? > -- TV or Not TV .... The Smartest (TV) People! You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "TV or Not TV" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/tvornottv?hl=en
