Those of you with a less than stellar sense of humor can skip to the bottom...

The Project Valour-IT Fundraiser has experienced a thermometer'napping!
(~Done)

*Late at night, as the few members of the Coast Guard team sat in shock watching their donation thermometer barely move while the Army and Navy sailed by, they hatched an ingenius plan...

Typing wildy on their computers, cutting letters from magazines, and hijacking the other teams' fundraiser gauges (while on a strict diet of Hot Pockets and Diet Coke)... they planned their overthrow and coup! No longer will the world be able to ignore their valient efforts,
heroic actions on behalf of the country, and formidable mass of bloggers (ok, well we give on that last one).

With plan in motion and nothing left to do but hit the big red button, they counted down under their breath: three... two... one... *

And here we are! With our LIST OF DEMANDS:

1. Publicly admit the Coast Guard team is a formidable competitor (trackback to this post for proof)
2. Watch The Guardian (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0406816/)
3. Have 4 new donations to your team today (use links below), and encourage donations to the Coast Guard team for the rest of the day today.

When our demands have been met (as monitored by the Soldiers' Angels website team), your team's thermometer will be released.

Never underestimate the Coast Guard team! We may only have 3 members (so far...and what's up with that?!), but we can dominate! Want to be on the cool kids' team? Join the Coast Guard team today (we'll even accept team transfers - this IS a coup)! Want to help the Coast Guard team win this competition? Donate today on behalf of our team.

BOTTOM:

DONATE TO THE ARMY TEAM

DONATE TO THE NAVY TEAM

DONATE TO AIR FORCE TEAM

DONATE TO MARINE TEAM

Find it here: http://www.dbs.kneedeepinthehooah.com/clickme/november-14-2008/

(Even though they're on the Army team, kudos to them for the original funny)

The annual Project Valour-IT fundraiser started again this year on Veterans Day. It will continue throughout the next 2 weeks until Thanksgiving. In the past, I always joined the Marines Team, (well, lead the team - same thing) because they were the underdogs. Last year however, we almost won! In fact, for a short period of time we were in first place - the first time ever to be in first place (if even for only a day).

This year, for the first time, there are 5 teams instead of 4. The US Coast Guard is the newest team, and as the newest underdog I've switched loyalties to help the Coast Guard team ("help" being used loosely). And, other than the team leader, CG Blog, I'm the ONLY member! The Coast Guard team is also last place in donations, with only $225. You can view all team standings on the fundraiser page here:
http://soldiersangels.org/index.php?page=fundraiser

So...I'm putting out an alert! We need bloggers willing to join the newest Valour-IT fundraising team - the US Coast Guard! You can join the team here. It's quick and painless to join, and all you need to do as the newest teammate is blog about the fundraiser. Encourage your readers to visit the fundraising page and learn more about this wonderful program Project Valour-IT!

And, of course, you can add a donation button to your blog's post or sidebar to make it easy for readers to donate to the team you are supporting. I love a challenge, and it sure would be nice to recover from last place and give the other 4 teams a run for their money!

JOIN THE COAST GUARD TEAM!

But did you really miss anything? That seems to be the question this year. This year's motto could have been "Deja Vu". Or "Been there, done that, already have the t-shirt". Perhaps this year's theme came across as 'unless you mix this with something people are already planning to attend, no one will show up'. I have to say, that mixing the Milblog Conference with the BlogWorld Expo was a mistake. For many reasons.

But aside from the BlogWorld Expo, how worthwhile an experience was this year's Milblog Conference? As usual, it's always great to have the reunion with fellow bloggers and friends. But what was to be gained from the panels and issues discussed in each? I can't say the panels or panelists were necessarily lacking, but some new blood in the mix would have been nice. But worst of all, was having sponsors of the conference step in during a particular panel and use up 20 minutes on non-blogging, self promotioning issues. These speeches would have been better given before or after any panel, but taking up almost half the time of a panel that is supposed to be addressing blogging related issues? Tacky, to say the least.

I do think that minimal effort was placed in planning and organizing this conference. Several other blogging groups had conferences over the weekend, and their footprints were clearly left in the expo. I do not think this was the case with the Milblog Conference. It seemed almost the hope for this conference was that the steam of past years would push the conference this year. It did not. If it were a movie, I'd give it 1.5 stars. And I wouldn't see it in the theater. Probably wouldn't buy the video. Maybe watch it if it made it to a public tv Saturday night flick.

I still think that milblogs are relevant today. I still think the yearly conference could be something great, an awesome meeting of the minds. But perhaps to do that the milbloggers need to step up and work together to do something great. We do it all the time with our blogs. Let's not stop there!

We have a chance each year to make an impact for good, bring a voice to our military, and influence opinion. I'd be happy to place my name at the top of the list of those willing to put some effort and donate some time into making this conference just that. How about you?

And where do you think the inhabitants of Castle Argghhh stayed this weeked during the BlogWorld Expo and Milblog Conference?

Where else!

Arrived in Vegas today! Can hardly wait to attend the Blog World Expo and Milblog Conference this weekend! I may even blog several days in a row again!

The fun starts tomorrow night with the BlackFive Party at 7pm. Expo runs all day Sat and Sun. Hope to see you here!!

As much fun as it's been this year to participate in the Project Valour-IT blogging fundraiser competition, donations seemed unusually slow to trickle in. I might have thought the cause was me, as my blog has a much smaller readership than the other team leaders. But the other team's donations were suffering as much as my Marine Corps team's donations were. I honestly agonized over the cause and prayed. It seemed not to be a lack of awareness, for some of the largest blogs in the blogosphere were posting about Project Valour-IT.

So why were donations so small this year I wondered. And then a member of my Marine Corps team sent me this email:

One of my readers pointed out that Soldiers Angels got
a poor rating from a nationwide search of charities,
and this might be one of the reasons for the problems
with the fundraising this year.

This was the ABC News story that alerted the reader:
http://blogs.abcnews.com/theblotter/2007/11/failing-to-serv.html

And this is the link to the rating:
http://abcnews.go.com/images/Blotter/charity_reportcard_v3_071109.pdf

It is disconcerting to read this, given the feedback
and the way things have been portrayed.

I clicked the links above and learned that once again, ABC can be as foolish as any other media outlet when it comes to poor research on a story, and an organization called the American Institute of Philanthropy (AIP) can cost a wonderful charity like Soldiers' Angels hundreds of thousands of dollars in donations due to - not facts, but opinion.

You see, ABC's story was about charities/non-profits whose mission is to support our military and don't do a good job of it, spending little of their donations on the military. The main resource ABC uses for this story is "a new report card from a leading charity watchdog group." This supposed watchdog group they refer to is the AIP. While ABC doesn't mention Soldiers' Angels in their article, they do share this report card, and Soldiers' Angels is in it with a grade of 'D'.

I was shocked. I joined Soldiers' Angels almost 3 years ago, and have found them to be one of the most mission oriented charities I've ever known. I could not imagine what criteria led them to receive a D grade, and the so called 'report card' doesn't say. So I headed to the source to see if I could find a breakdown in the given grade for Soldiers' Angels.

I want to stop and say here that at this point, since ABC had used this report card in their story, that I expected something factual and definitive from the AIP in their grading process. I was shocked to read this on the AIP's 'Criteria' page:

The letter grades represent the opinion of AIP.

What?

I'd already I read their About Us page, and realized I'd mistaken the word 'independent' for 'unbiased'. Their page states:

AIP is fiercely independent. We do not charge the charities we review to be listed in our Guide or for the right to publicize their rating, nor do we accept any advertising whatsoever on our web site or in our publication. Our board of directors does not include any heads of nonprofit associations, who receive their pay from the groups they are watching. Because over 95% of our support comes from small, individual donations, we have the freedom to speak openly and to be critical of the unethical practices of some charities, without concern for special interests cutting our funding.

Independent, but nowhere does it mention unbiased. And their own website admits their grades are based on their opinion, not specific facts or fraud that an individual can point to. In fact, their criteria page goes on to say:

AIP encourages each donor to consider these factors and others, which you may feel are more significant, when making charitable giving decisions.

So, in choosing a charity to give to you must return to your own opinion of factors you consider significant in selecting a charity to donate to. So what good is AIP? Seems they are just someone else with an opinion they want you to pay to hear.

Now you know what you are paying for.

And then I found this article on AIP's home page: Soldiers Angels Lose their Halos. I thought maybe there I'd find something more definitive. A breakdown of this grade, a reason for such a low opinion of such a wonderful organization. Instead, I find another badly researched article that ends with this thought:

It is fine for a charity to send tokens of appreciation to soldiers, but it is wrong to mislead donors by implying that the basic needs of soldiers are not already being met by the military.

I have alot to say about their stupid article that never mentions fraud, or misspending of funds, or over paid persons running the charity, but nit picks on whether or not soldiers need boots, but Soldiers' Angels had already said it better.

Soldiers' Angels' official response includes this response to the boots issue (in part):

Our heroes that are adopted by our Angels are
deployed men and women who in most instances sign up
themselves to be adopted ... the hero (or individual submitting the
hero’s name) can leave comments containing requests
on what the hero would like from his or her Angel.
One of the often requested items from the deployed
heroes is boots. In addition to leaving comments,
once an Angel contacts his or her hero, the Angel
asks what they can do to help. Again one of the
often requested items from the hero is boots.

It is for this reason that SA decided to make
boots available for purchase on its website. The
availability of boots on the website is a
convenience for the Angels and others, who wish to
supply boots to our heroes. It provides the Angel or
others with a boot which we are told is more
comfortable than the standard issue boot, and which
is approved by the military, thus guaranteeing that
the hero will be in compliance with military
regulations. It should also be noted that the boots
are priced at cost and SA covers the costs of
shipping.

The Article does correctly point out that worn
out combat boots will be replaced for our troops,
but wholly fails to recognize that replacement is
subject to supply and the individual soldier’s
location in the deployed theater, both of which
impact the soldier’s ability to actually turn in and
order additional boots. In response to the
Article, SA has received numerous emails from our
heroes explaining not the theory, but the actual
situation encountered by our Military personnel.

This sentence here - "...wholly fails to recognize that replacement is subject to supply and the individual soldier’s location in the deployed theater, both of which impact the soldier’s ability to actually turn in and order additional boots" reminds me of this commercial:

Read the entire response from Soldiers Angels regarding the article, but I want to point out one of the responses' final comments:

SA would not have either the boots or the First
Response Backpacks in the SA store if there wasn’t a
need. As with much that SA does, the need came to
SA, SA does not manufacture the need.

So......

Is this the reason for the diminished donations during this year's Valour-IT fundraiser? I sincerely hope not. Soldiers' Angels has been supporting our troops since 2003, and will continue to do so in the future. How much they are able to help remains up to you.

This year's donation goal for each team is $60,000. The fundraiser was extended from the 11th to the 12th in the hopes of coming a little closer to that goal. Then, in an unfortunate accident, power to Soldiers' Angels webserver went out for most of the evening on the 12th. I'd like to officially extend that deadline once again to include today. I for one, intend to keep my donation on my sidebar until the entire goal for the Marine Corps team is met - PERIOD.

There is no finer non-profit organization that supports our heroes than Soldiers' Angels. That's MY opinion. Now hopefully you'll make the choice to contribute that donation you hadn't yet given based on skewed information and someone else's less informed opinion.

Donate today!!!

Today is the Marine Corps Birthday, and we're inviting the other services branches to our party and serving up a generous helping of

eat

our

dust.

Teee Heeeee!

Have you given a birthday present yet?

Right here.

Here's the 1st Place Trophy I'm looking forward to bestowing on the Army team at the end of the Valour-IT Fundraising competition.

You did know that's what 2nd place really means didn't you?