Second Pride

Donations are made directly through Virtual Hope and Tilia. Our donations and funds are held much more accountable now than ever in the past, since the requirement is that a third party, Virtual Hope, processes them, and Tilia themselves does the wire transfers. This requirement was established by Linden Lab, and it is our understanding that Virtual Hope also handles all donations to American Cancer Society and Michael J. Fox Foundation. These donations would be verifiable by both Virtual Hope and Tilia since they processed them, in addition to the acknowledgement letters from the charities themselves.

Donations are logged in not one but two ways. We keep copies of the Linden transaction logs monthly and the kiosks provide a log of all donations, which is why we require donations not be made to any person or avatar but only to a kiosk. It’s all tracked properly this way.

Now the not-so-great news. The following donations are waiting on Tilia to process. The funds are secure and well-documented. Tilia has consistently been a source of pain in processing donations, and they continue to be. Derrick Linden and Virtual Hope are both working to try and cut through the red tape, and we expect these to be sent in the near future.

$ 4,513 USD for LGBTQ Freedom Fund – L$ 1,259,861
– this is from last June

$ 4,513 USD for It Gets Better Project – L$ 1,259,861
– this is from last June

$ 2,854.57 for Broadway Cares / Equity Fights AIDS – L$ 807,801
– this is from Halloween 2023, Holidaze 2023, and Mardi Gras 2024 combined.

All other donations have been completed and acknowledged. The amounts going back several years are listed along the left side of the website. Acknowledgement letters/receipts are posted in the main thread here but are scattered throughout. We will work on gathering those in on place under documents in the next week or two. UPDATE: This has been completed…acknowledgements from the charities are now available back to 2019 under “Documents” from the top menu.

Additional information:

Current balance in the Second Pride account: L$ 3,975,649

L$ 18,000 of this has been donated toward Second Pride 2024 from new vendors.

Subtracting the donations above that are waiting to be delivered, that leaves a General Fund balance of: L$ 630,126, which is slightly less than we have carried for many years now. This number fluctuates slightly due to expenditures for decor, etc. but remains in the 600K-700K range. Yes, these funds are accounted for in the Bylaws, and would be donated in the event of a crisis. They would go to the last charity that we raised funds for at the time.

Also, Tilia’s rules even make it INCREDIBLY difficult to set up a new charity to receive donations from us. We have not chosen the charity for June 2024 yet, but will announce it, or them, soon. We will likely be supporting one of the charities already set up that we have raised funds for recently rather than trying to get a new charity or charities pushed through. This is not a bad thing, as they are all worthy recipients of our member’s help.

As always, feel free to contact me, Tootsie, or Petr directly if you have questions. Posting anonymously on random, potentially malicious websites is not the best way to get questions answered in a direct and timely manner. We are always available.

Lee McKay
Chairman
Second Pride