Intel (largest BSA corp donor) ends donations

[Merlyn_LeRoy]

 

http://www.advocate.com/business/2012/09/21/intel-ends-donations-boy-scouts-due-discriminatory-policies

[Beavah]

Yah, yah.

 

So I see we're cuttin' off matching grant funding to da packs and troops now, eh? Money that only helps local programs and kids, and doesn't matter a lick to the folks settin' policy at the national organization.

 

Typical liberal nonsense. It's like cuttin' off humanitarian aid to the starvin' people of a foreign country because we don't like one policy position of their ruling party. Does that make yeh feel all warm and fuzzy? Give yeh a glow of moral righteousness? Are yeh happy now that you're encouraging religious discrimination by U.S. corporations, so that even if da BSA were to go for local option, Intel Foundation would refuse to fund religious Chartered Orgs that kept da policy in place locally? Does supportin' religious discrimination make yeh feel morally superior?

 

The point of companies doin' matching grant programs is so that they don't discriminate, eh? The money flows to groups that their employees choose to support with their own money and time, and in that proportion. It represents da choices of a community.

 

My concern with approaches like this is that they break down da common threads of civility that make for a healthy community. I think we want an Intel that supports Catholic Charities and LGBT outreach, both. Shared endeavors at the office with shared support for differing programs is what is meant by true diversity. When our goal instead is to defund and delegitimize any group that disagrees with us on any issue, even if it's an issue peripheral to their work, then every issue becomes a fight that harms da community. If you can defund my club, then I can defund yours. You won't confirm my judges, I'll fillibuster yours.

 

Just like withholdin' humanitarian aid, the damage that yeh do to society is worse than da problem you're tryin' to fix.

 

Instead of makin' everything a war, have da courage of your own convictions and enough belief in da rightness of your own ideas to try to convince people without threatening them with loss of access or loss of funding. Evangelize without attempting to force conversions. Do unto others' groups as yeh would have 'em do unto yours.

 

Sadly, that is a level of maturity and citizenship which is rare among some, eh? Perhaps they really do need Scoutin'.

 

Beavah

 

[Merlyn_LeRoy]

Just not the BSA's style of scouting.

 

Oh, and your "religious discrimination" whining is ridiculous. It's about the BSA's discrimination.

[Basementdweller]

Not exactly sure how intels giving impacts my scouts program.....

 

 

hmmmm, just a second it will come to me.....almost there.......

 

 

It doesn't.........

 

We sell candy bars, popcorn and christmas wreaths to pay for our program.....

 

 

I don't thing the intel donation covers the cost of scouting Chief Executives salary.....

 

 

Back to the grass roots, my friend back to the roots....

[BSA24]

> Typical liberal nonsense. It's like cuttin' off humanitarian aid to the starvin' people of a foreign country because we don't like one policy position of their ruling party

 

I'm a liberal, and I don't see where this has anything to do with that. It has to do with corporate HR stupidity. They have a program where if you volunteer with a charitable organization, they will pay that organization for your time. Other companies like Microsoft do similar. So if you are a scoutmaster for 20 hours a week, they will pay the troop for your 20 hours at an often handsome rate.

 

So they've removed the scouts from this program, which means that only troops and packs who have Intel employees as leaders are impacted.

 

Intel probably has no idea how BSA operates, how it is structured, or how the money is used by leaders. They probably don't care, because most HR people are morons who are incapable of working in other areas of business.

 

I would like to see the policy changed, but I don't think withdrawing funding that national never saw will help. Rather, Intel should stop the program and offer to move all of the funding to national if they will change the policy. Or, simply make a handsome offer of a donation to FOS or James West, and then whisper during the handshake, "Change the damn policy."

 

So let's leave out the "typical liberal" Sean Hannity indoctrination crap that defines everyone as black or white or liberal or conservative and builds false ideas about what the other side thinks.

 

Truth is, troops and packs should not be receiving this money anyway, because it violates BSA fundraising policy and ignores that the donation should go to the CO, not the troop or pack, since they own the money.(This message has been edited by bsa24)

[Beavah]

Truth is, troops and packs should not be receiving this money anyway, because it violates BSA fundraising policy and ignores that the donation should go to the CO, not the troop or pack, since they own the money.

 

False.

 

Nominally, under BSA fundraisin' policy, COs shouldn't solicit donations from outside da CO specifically for their BSA units. They can, however, accept donations earmarked for the unit at da request of the donor. Corporate giving of da sort yeh describe falls within that, eh?

 

Sean Hannity is a bit of a bloviating weasel, IMHO. But if yeh truly believe in respectin' and fundin' a diversity of approaches and ideas, BSA24, even if yeh disagree with 'em, well, I reckon I'll accept that sort of liberalism. Once upon a time, we used to call that conservative.

 

Beavah

 

[JMHawkins]

Now I'm confused, I thought Beavah was a liberal.

 

Quick, somebody print up a program, I'm losing track of who I'm supposed to like and who I'm supposed to hate. If we can't get some labels reapplied, I might have to start judging folks on what they actually think instead of what team they root for.

 

Anyway, this part

 

Instead of makin' everything a war, have da courage of your own convictions and enough belief in da rightness of your own ideas to try to convince people without threatening them with loss of access or loss of funding. Evangelize without attempting to force conversions. Do unto others' groups as yeh would have 'em do unto yours.

 

is true. Whatever you think is "right", you need to convince others with reason, not force. If you have to resort to intimidation to win people over to your view, you're going to lose in the end, and cause a lot of damage in the process. It's one of the reasons I favor a Local Option - it tells both sides "go convince the CO's to run it your way, then convince the parents and youth to join. Don't come to us looking for a mandate."

 

But alas, the warriors on both sides seem to want some authority figure to tell them they're right and the other guy is evil, wrong, and deluded.

 

I hope we can help our Scouts see a better way of going about disagreements.

[packsaddle]

JMHawkins, the arguments that we should convince persons with reasoning are just fine. And they seem to be acceptable to most of us if the issues are about things like charitable donations to BSA from corporations. But those arguments sometimes shift into the realm of 'hypocrisy' when the issues are of 'morality', when we resort instead to 'force' of law rather than convincing others with reasoning. The 'reasoned argument' as a way to change minds or behavior seems to be a 'pick-and-choose' approach rather than a consistently-followed principle.

[Peregrinator]

I don't think withholding donations is "force."

[Brewmeister]

This is not that hard.

 

Private groups have a right to set their own standards.

Private citizens and groups thereof have a right to support groups or not.

 

The day the BSA changes its standards for money is the day I leave it.

[Kahuna]

ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ . . .

[CalicoPenn]

Part of my job entails writing grant proposals. Every Foundation I am aware of (and we have a huge book full of Foundations and their granting policies and procedures) has rules that need to be followed, and that "discriminate" for and against certain types of funding. Most commonly, the discrimination is in what they choose to fund. A Foundation could limit itself to health then limit itself further to mental health, or pre-natal health, or cardiac health, or name a type of care here. Sometimes, they fund only research, sometimes they fund home visit programs, sometimes they fund doctors (a foundation might fund the salary, benefits and needed equipment for a cardiac doctor in a rural hospital without such a doctor), sometimes they fund equipment, sometimes its education. A lot of foundations fund only the arts - and it might be a broad "any form of art" or it might be opera only, or dance, or sculpture. They might fund artists directly, or a local theater company. They might specialize in art appreciation for schools, or local art series in rural or urban settings. There are grants for environmental causes only, or for anti-war activities, or for scientific research. Watch PBS and you can get a sense of what some of those foundations want to emphasise based on what they sponsor - if it's Masterpiece, then they likely want to sponsor arts, if its Nova, then science education. Frontline? Political education. I don't think most of us would see this as an insidious form of discrimination.

 

Foundations can also fund very specific groups. The most common, one that even the largest foundations often have, is that they don't fund programs for youth (for instance, a PBS funder might fund Masterpiece but not Sesame Street so don't ask), or that they prefer to fund programs for youth and not adults, or that they fund programs for senior citizens but not anyone under the age of 60. A lot of foundations fund locally, regionally or a borader sense of where one lives. They might only fund urban programs, or only rural and farm programs (its rare to see a foundation fund only suburban programs unless its tied to a specific locality). There are foundations that fund only programs in the Great Lakes - sorry Iowa, we know you border three Great Lakes States, but you aren't so no. Or they may fund programs along the Mississippi River, or the Pacific Coast, or the Southwest. There are foundations that fund only programs in Chicago, or New York City, or Texas. Look hard enough and you might find a small foundation that only funds programs for just your town, no matter how small it is. These are often set up by folks that grew up in that town, or have lived there all their lives, and want to improve the town on an ongoing basis rather than with a one-time donation. There are foundations that fund just one college, or one park district, or one library.

 

There are alos foundations that can be very specific - at this level, some folks start to question if these foundations are negatively discriminatory - these are foundations that will fund only Catholic or Jewish or Muslim programs. They're foundations that will fund only programs for caucasions, or blacks, or asians, or hispanics. They're foundations that will fund only straights, or gays. Nothing prevents these foundations from doing so - it is their money after all, and even though a Lutheran might not be able to apply for a grant that funds only Catholics, there is still a sense that the community as a whole will still benefit.

 

But there is something most of these foundations have in common - although they may be discriminating on a broad basis (with the exception of the last group), they often have policies preventing their grantees from discriminating on an individual basis - and they most often follow federal or state human rights laws. A foundation that only funds the arts may give funds to your community theater but if you won't cast black actors, or refuse to sell tickets to hispanics, then you will lose the grant because you are now violating their anti-discrimination clause.

 

Most company based foundations, like the Intel Foundation, follow the same anti-discrimination policies as their companies and they require their grantees to follow those same anti-discrimination policies as well. It really doesn't matter if its an employee match grant or a grant in kind, or a direct grant - if you violate their anti-discrimination policies, you don't qualify. Is that unfair to the employees in an employee match program? No - because the company is not obligated to support any organization it's policies would prevent it from funding just because an employee is active and funding that program. Intel's rules are pretty standard amongst corporate foundations. It's a same that the local units and councils are now going to lose out, but since the Intel Foundation has an announced policy, they have to follow it, or face questions about why it funds one discriminatory agency and not another.

 

This all kind of leads to the larger issue that's been hiding like an elephant in the center of the room - society has changed - the big corporations are reflective of that societal change - once the big corporations start reflecting that change, sitting around hoping that society will go back to "traditional values" is an exercise in futility. Unfortunately, it puts the Boy Scouts in between a rock and a hard place - they can either change their policy so that corporate dollars won't be withdrawn, or they can keep their policy to prevent their feared loss of membership numbers.

[moosetracker]

JMHawkins - what made you think Beavah was liberal?

 

Instead of makin' everything a war, have da courage of your own convictions and enough belief in da rightness of your own ideas to try to convince people without threatening them with loss of access or loss of funding. Evangelize without attempting to force conversions. Do unto others' groups as yeh would have 'em do unto yours.

 

 

Now, this does seem a strange comment from Beavah, who likes to preach about his brand of religion having the right to mandate all the laws that all the people of this country should follow, regardless of their own religion (or lack of)..

 

Brewmeistr - The day the BSA changes its standards for money is the day I leave it.

 

 

Bye, Bye..(This message has been edited by moosetracker)

[ScouterAdam]

Intel is in town and had a couple of STEM related outings for the Cubscouts this last year. Bummed. Wonder if that will be affected?

[BadenP]

What I found interesting is some of the readers comments and the end of the article, including a former Queens Scout with his spiked hairdo, I wonder what Eamonn might think, lol.

 

Anyway like it or not this is becoming and will be a continuing trend among American corporations who try to reflect the current society viewpoint. Sad that the National BSA executives may have to lower their salaries in order to compensate, lol. I doubt much, if any, of those contributions ever trickled down to the membership base anyway. It will be quite the ethical debate at National if they need to revise their position to get these donors back or stick to their guns and see the contributions continue to dwindle. Good Luck Mr. Brock.