Posted on: September 17th, 2008 Patron of the Arts and IdeaBlob
Subject: POTA Grant Competition Results Are In…
Dear Artists, Filmmakers and Patrons of the Arts,
Thanks SO MUCH to every person who voted, posted on facebook, myspace, twitter, dig, blogs, etc., forwarded emails, and sent newsletters to members of your organizations on behalf of the grant that POTA was a finalist to win. Since many of you spent so much time trying to help, we felt you deserve to know the whole story. For those of you who want to “skip” the long version (below), the short version is that I am sorry to announce that POTA did not win the grant. I know that you are as disappointed as we are, but please be reassured that we still intend to move forward with POTA. It will just take longer. One day soon our goal of creating a wide-reaching, highly accessible, free funding program for filmmakers and artists WILL be a reality!
For those who want details, here’s what happened:
For the entire duration of the 10-day final round of the August grant competition POTA held solid at third place, finishing with almost 1300 votes! The 2 finalists that were ahead of POTA (and all other finalists) for the ENTIRE duration of the final round, were both TFA Alums, with an unusually high numbers of votes.
Near the end of the contest, we discovered the first-place finalist’s facebook group page stated: “Because we are TFA Alums, if we win, TFA will receive $5,000 from Ideablob!”
As you probably know, TFA stands for Teach For America. This is a very large organization with over 20,000 Alumi and Corps members. This additional $5,000 prize for TFA, was NEVER disclosed in the Terms and Conditions of the contest. Had we known that only 2 of the 8 finalists (excluding POTA) would receive a separate financial incentive that could motivate votes on their behalf, we would NOT have entered the contest again, or spent three months of our valuable time working on this.
Just imagine if a very large filmmaking or arts organization were to receive a check for $5000, if POTA won the grant contest. Do you think it could have inspired members of that organization (and it’s supporters) to vote for POTA? We would have liked this same opportunity. Considering this contest promotes itself as being democratic, calling itself “Of the people, By the people” is particularly upsetting.
In order to confirm this incentive award, we searched for and discovered additional evidence.
We next found actual written confirmation by one of the MAIN PEOPLE who works at Ideablob! Ideablob employee (who is also a TFA Alum) Will Robinson wrote the following statement on his own TFA Alum Facebook group’s page: “I… work on http://www.facebook.com/l.php?u=http://ideablob.com in Philadelphia. We just gave $10,000 to an Atlanta corps member… If an alum wins the monthly $10,000 prize we give $5,000 to TFA…”
Then, on the Internet we found a photo as well as a “twitter entry” showing and stating that a check for $5,000 was presented to TFA on July 25th, which is the same exact night that the June Ideablob TFA winner got her prize money. As some of you may recall, POTA lost the June Ideablob contest, after being “goon-rushed” by the “Something Awful” forum, in a thread that was spearheaded by yet another TFA Alumnus, that Ideablob awarded $10,000 to as the June winner!
(Thinking at the time, that this was a fluke occurrence, we entered POTA in the August competition, in good faith.)
The contest rules specifically state that a contest participant is not allowed to offer incentives for voting: “the offering or payment of any compensation, incentive or item of value to induce voting for an Entry… is strictly prohibited.” Based on the foregoing, and assuming the August TFA contest winner, the Ideablob employee and/or the TFA photo and twitter announcements are correct about the $5000 check to TFA, it appears that they are not following the rules they created for the contest.
Additionally, In July, Ideablob announced a partnership with TFA. http://www.facebook.com/l.php?u=http://ideablob.com/posts/275 The rules of the contest specifically state that affiliate companies may NOT enter the contest. The person that Ideablob declared as the August winner (in addition to being a TFA Alum) also worked as an employee of TFA as the “Director of Recruitment” until recently.
Fairness requires that we report that Advanta Bank representatives stated that persons who have been involved with TFA have not received “any kind of advange or preferential treatment over other contest participants”. They also state that TFA is not an “affiliated company”. Publicly available documents indicate that Advanta Bank is a subsidiary of Advanta Corp., and that Ideablob is operated by the Bank. Please draw your own conclusion as to the relationships intended, and preferential treatment to certain group(s) of people.
The Ideablob August winner announcement for the TFA Alum is here: http://www.facebook.com/l.php?u=http://ideablob.com/posts/295 If you feel inspired to leave a comment or question regarding your own feelings about the $5,000 prize that TFA is apparently being awarded in conjunction with this (or any) TFA Alum’s win, please feel free to do so at the bottom of the page. If you do leave a comment, please remember to be respectful, and please make sure not to single out POTA, as this voting incentive not only affected POTA, but it affected ALL of the other non-TFA Alumni who entered the contest (and continue to enter this contest) since the $5K TFA bonus award began.
THANK YOU SO MUCH for all of your support. Needless to say, we will not be entering this grant contest ever again. Please be assured, this is not the end of POTA. It is only the beginning!
With gratitude,
Jenn Mahoney
Co-Founder Patron of the Arts
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