I received this e-mail from the owner of a small business (Jessicurl) who has been collecting donations for Autism Speaks, in response to information I sent to her about its activities:
Hi Bonnie,
Thank you for writing, and I appreciate your concern. We are still doing some research into the points you brought up in your email, as they are very strong and I want to make sure we make our next decision with as much information as possible. I will keep you posted on our next step, which will most likely be to switch our support from Autism Speaks to your suggestion of the Autism Acceptance Project. I don't want to support an organization that puts forth negative views, but we do need to decide what to do with the monies already donated. Thank you again for your email, and please let me know if you have any questions,
Jess
Keep on writing those letters to sponsors, people! They do have an effect!
That's fantastic Bonnie! Can I quote part of their response for a video I am making about Autism Speaks?
:grin: :grin: :grin: :!: :!: :!:
Can I quote part of their response for a video I am making about Autism Speaks?
Amy, I think you should wait until they reach a final decision and then ask their permission directly. After all, they might be annoyed about the contents of an e-mail being widely publicized without their consent.
Maybe I shouldn't have posted the e-mail on AFF, come to think of it, but I wanted to show our letter-writers that we are making a difference.
That's great news Bonnie! Thanks for posting. I think it was okay to share her e-mail with AFF, but I also agree that her permission should be obtained before using it for anything else.
Keep writing to these companies! It can make a difference. :grin:
Here's an update -- another e-mail I received:
Hi Bonnie,
I wanted to update you about our public service program. We did contact the people who had donated to Autism Speaks, letting them know of the controversy and to give them the opportunity to re-direct their donation to TAAP, or to keep it going to AS. Strangely, none of them replied. Since their money had originally been donated to go to AS, we felt we needed to honor that. (it's been about 3-4 weeks since we wrote them.) However, we have taken your suggestion and removed AS from our website and are now featuring TAAP. They are such lovely people there and it feels good to be supporting something so totally positive. We will feature them for the next month or two, after which time the information will be archived on our site so people can always learn about them even after we've begun fundraising for a different charity.
Thank you for alerting us to this, and for your patience while we figured out the best way to handle it. Have a great day,
Jess
The Jessicurl website now has an excellent page featuring TAAP. If anyone wants to make a donation to TAAP (today is the first day of TAAP's "Joy of Autism" exhibition) and get a discount on curly hair products at the same time, go to http://www.jessicurl.com and contribute to the cause of autism acceptance!
Amy: I sent a reply e-mail asking if it would be OK if you quoted her on AutTV, but I haven't gotten a response yet.
Absolutely wonderful news - it's a small step but it does show we're making a difference.
Amy, here's the reply I got:
Hi Bonnie,
Thanks for the mention on your site. It's fine to quote me anywhere, as long as it's about TAAP rather than about Autism Speaks...I'd rather just move on from that, you know? :-) Again, thanks for letting me know about them. Have a great weekend,
Jess