With charitable giving down due to the struggling economy, it takes a lot for a nonprofit to actually turn down a sizeable contribution. But that’s exactly what The Advocates for Human Rights did to Craigslist, which sought to donate $25,000 to the locally based human rights advocacy group.
“While The Advocates appreciates the recognition of its work, it cannot accept the funds because Craigslist generates a high percentage of its profits from adult ads. This market fuels the human sex trafficking industry. It is the exploitive behavior resulting from these ads that makes our efforts necessary,” the Advocates’ release states.
Jim Dorsey, chair of The Advocates’ board of directors, further explains the group’s rationale for looking this particular gift horse in the mouth: “A key project of The Advocates in recent years has been to eradicate sex trafficking, and there is much work that remains to be done. … The Advocates, like many nonprofits, has been adversely affected by the economy. Therefore, we did not make the decision to turn down this grant lightly.” (Click here for the full release.)
Kudos to The Advocates for chosing conscience over the Almighty Dollar. Note to Craigslist: There are some things that can’t be bought or bartered for.
UPDATE: For more background on the Advocates’ concerns about Craigslist, click here for an excellent MinnPost piece.
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This seems rather arbitrary, and unfortunate. As I understand it, Craigslist does not make money from their “erotic services” section, but rather donates that money to charity- possibly creating the grant offered to the MN advocates. Would the advocates rather those funds are kept as profit for the company?
Secondly, what is the point they seek to make? Crimes committed through Craigslist are generally easy to investigate. The company has also been a good citizen in assisting investigations of crimes committed on its website. If the advocates imagine a world without craigslist (like 1997, for example), you would see a world with far fewer prosecutions for sex trafficking due to a far more elusive data trail.
I simply don’t see the advocates point, or what possible good could come of their actions.
Tuck,
Perhaps if you read the New York Times article below you will better understand the issue in its entirety. The money being donated comes directly from profits for “adult services”.
I support The Advocates decision. Way to go!
April 29, 2010, 9:27 pm
More on Craigslist and Its Adult Services Ads
By BRAD STONE
As I wrote in The New York Times on Monday, Craigslist, the largest classified advertising Web site in the United States, is making a lot of money from its sex adverisements. What’s not exactly clear is what the company is doing with the money.
First, some background: In late 2008, under pressure from 40 state attorneys general, the company, based in San Francisco, agreed to start charging for what was then called “erotic services ads,” and to donate that money to charity. In mid-2009, it shifted course, changing the name of the forum to “adult services,” raising fees for initial posts to $10, from $5, for a new ad, and stating that it would no longer commit to giving that money away.
In my article this week, I reported that revenues are now flowing in at Craigslist. The 30-employee company, which eschews traditional corporate aims like maximizing profits and styles itself as a community service instead, is on track to make $122 million this year, including $36.3 million from adult ads.
In researching the fiercely private company, I also found it had created a new charity, the Craigslist Charitable Fund, which it capitalized with $2.7 million at the end of 2008.
As I prepared the article, Craigslist’s chief executive, Jim Buckmaster, declined to sit for an interview, via a spokeswoman, but agreed to answer questions over e-mail. Asked about the charity’s mission, he wrote that it was a “grant making foundation established and funded by Craigslist.”
On Wednesday, in a blog post, Mr. Buckmaster got a little more specific. He said the foundation would focus on 10 causes, including peace and disarmament, United States military veterans, and human trafficking and child exploitation. The fund, he wrote, will focus on supporting organizations with annual budgets of less than $5 million.
On Thursday morning, I e-mailed him two additional questions about the charity: whether it is being funded with revenue from sex ads, and whether the fund has made any disbursements yet. He has not yet responded to these queries, but we will update this post if he does.
A larger question is whether these added philanthropic efforts will alleviate the concerns of organizations that work against human trafficking, which I discussed in my article. I talked to three such organizations while researching my article; all three asserted that Craigslist’s adult services category was one of the foremost venues for human trafficking and sexual exploitation of children in the United States.
When asked on Thursday about Craigslist’s philanthropic effort, one advocate suggested that her organization would not take donations from it.
“As a nonprofit service provider who is continually in dire need of funding – and please quote me on that – I would not accept money from Craigslist,” said Rachel Lloyd, executive director of Girls Educational and Mentoring Services, which provides services to sexually exploited and trafficked women. “That money has come from pimps and traffickers who have sold many of the girls who will then walk into my door.”
Mr. Buckmaster addressed the issue of human trafficking on the Craigslist blog this week. “Of the thousands of U.S. venues that carry adult service ads, including ones operated by some of our largest and best known companies, Craigslist has done the best and most responsible job of combating child exploitation and human trafficking,” he wrote.
Craigslist has not confirmed that it donates all of the profits it receives from their “erotic services” section to charity. We declined the contribution because we have documented Craigslist’s complicity in sex trafficking and child exploitation in Minnesota. We cannot accept profits from these human rights violations to support our work. We are confident that good will come from taking a strong position against complicity in such harmful activities.