Abrazo Adoption Associates have finally ceased their facebook fundraising (Titled “Open Adoption Rocks“) off of the (open records) Adoptee Rights Demonstration (ARD), which up until our discovery of the fundraising, had happened without the knowledge or consent of ARD.

(While Abrazo also claims to support open records, their fundraising on facebook- unbeknownst to us- conflated the two issues- open records and open adoption. I may write more on that at a later date.)

They have added a brief statement to the facebook page, (apparently this went up last night, June 4th:)

We regret to inform you…

Posted by Abrazo to Open Adoption Rocks! 7:19pm

that the support of adoption agencies. such as Abrazo, is not welcomed by certain adoptee rights groups such as Bastard Nation, former sponsor of the Adoption Rights Protest.

Therefore at the request of the Demonstration for Adoptee Rights, we are cancelling our plans to attend the Protest in New Orleans and disbanding our efforts to raise funds for the event. We will henceforth be returning all funds to the original donors or redirecting them to alternative organizations, at each donor’s request.

We genuinely appreciate the good intentions of all who had participated in this campaign, and hope that those who joined us in expressing support for open records and adoptee rights will continue to do so through other means.

Note that via examining the fundraising history page the initial date is May 9th. That would have been 20 days of fundraising before Adoptee Rights Demonstration organizers first learned of Abrazo Adoption Associate’s fundraising (without our consent) before Amyadoptee finally brought it to our attention at 11:13am on May 29th.

On May 29th, Abrazo was contacted by a representative of the Adoptee Rights Demonstration, a second call was scheduled for the 30th. On the 30th Abrazo and the ARD organizer discussed the fundraising. Yet their fundraising continued until apparently last night June 4th at 7:19pm.

Their offer to return donations or redirect them with the donor’s consent to other organizations (some of whom do not have the uncompromising open records stance, that the Adoptee Rights Demonstration and Bastard Nation held dear) hardly ‘fixes’ what they have done.

The ethics of Abrazo having collecting monies off the work of another unrelated organization without our knowledge or consent into Abrazo’s own 501c3 non-profit is the core of the matter here.

These monies were originally collected without the knowledge or consent of ARD. Period.

Many unanswered questions remain. Was the Abrazo facebook fundraising the only form of fundraising Abrazo did off our event or did they do more in any other form?

As we DAR organizers only found out about the Abrazo fundraising at 11:13 on May 29th from Amyadoptee AFTER a call for the suspension of DAR which had occurred at 11am, see Marley’s post on this thread at June 4, 2008 2:25:00 AM EDT:

The lead organizer of the event called for a suspension of DAR this year so it could be done right next year.

(This, by the way is the first public mention of the organizer’s call for suspension, Marley was the first to say it.)

one can only wonder, were we ever supposed to know about the Abrazo fundraising at all?

To the best of my knowledge, Abrazo’s facebook funraising was not linked off the Abrazo page, it was not linked out of Abrazo’s most recent copy of Affinity (See the Affinity PDF here. I’d advise people interested in the ARD mess to follow the link, the front page story is Abrazo’s take on the ARD.)

To quote BB Church’s/Ron Morgan’s post on the same Bastardette comment thread June 2, 2008 11:59:00 PM EDT:

The organizers for a Day for Adoptee Rights had absolutely no idea that you were collecting monies for the event from your FaceBook page until Thursday, May 29th. As soon as we were made aware of this, I offered to call you for clarification. We spoke briefly and made an arrangement to speak on the 30th.

and, from the same post, speaking of previous contacts he had had with Abrazo:

You offered to discuss fiscal sponsorship under the aegis of your 501(c)3 status, I tried to reach you at your agency to explore your thinking, left a couple of messages and moved on. Kali and I made the decision that it would have been a bad idea on principle. The issue of you collecting money for us never came up and I am frankly astounded that you went ahead and did it without informing us. I have worked with non-profits and in politics for over twenty-five years and I have never seen anything so lacking in transparency. You could have easily channeled donations from your supporters to our donations page, but when I questioned you on this on Friday you offered the lame excuse that you couldn’t get the link to work. At that point it could have dawned on you to contact us, for all you know there might have been a technical problem that required our attention. Instead, you went your own way.

Bastardette/Marley Greiner on the same comment thread had this to say June 4, 2008 3:36:00 AM:

I/We/Nobody called you about your fund raising scheme, because nobody knew about it. I learned on May 29 with everybody else. Ron says he contacted your office 2-3 times, out of curiosity, after you contacted DAR several months ago, and never heard back from anyone. Naturally, he assumed whatever interest you had in the event was gone. I personally, had no idea that you had contacted DAR organizers at all–any time.

Like Ron, I have never heard of an instance where one group undertakes to raise funds for another group in their name without that group’s knowledge and consent. It is one thing to send potential donors to a direct link where funds are directly donated to the organization or event; it is quite another when money goes into your coffers for later redistribution.

and

First you solicit funds in DAR’s name without their knowledge and consent. Then you continue to do so knowing the problems this has caused DAR, BN, and the adoptee rights movement in general. You continue to raise funds against DAR’s wishes. Finally, you offer to send the collected funds to the AAC or ALMA, which have nothing to do with the DAR event…

and

There are much better and ethical ways to support adoptee rights. The first thing would be to return all funds you collected to their rightful donors.

To say that DAR or BN doesn’t want to work with natural parents, adoptive aparents, etc. is simply not true. We have plenty of both in our membership. But, we are not interested in helping adoption agencies position themselves and market their products and services in OUR movement. And that, is what your fundraising looks like to a helluva lot of people right now. Do you think for one minute that most activists would be interested in supporting an event which the adoption industry has funded? You wonder why adoptees don’t like the adoption industry This is a perfect example.A Day for Adoptee Rights, whether BN participates in it or not, is about adopted persons, not the industry.