How do you handle collected money? 2012

We have collected sums in two ways:

1. All designers were asked to send their donations to the avatar FashionforLife AmericanCancer, which was created for the express purpose of collecting and tracking donations and owning the ACS sims (for easier sim management). The avatar was created by the American Cancer Society’s liaison, Stingray9798 Raymaker, with Linden Lab and the password was shared solely with Harper Beresford so tracking of the incoming donations from designers could be verified. ACS via Stingray9798 Raymaker had full view of this account at all times and all sums gathered were turned over to the main Relay for Life avatar, RelayforLife AmericanCancer via a donation to RFL’s provided kiosks at the opening of Fashion for Life.

2. Sums collected through scripted donation vendors, kiosks, gachas and raffle kiosks are all sent directly to the account RelayforLife AmericanCancer. While you are paying the “owner” of the kiosk, a script inside flips the money from their account directly into the RelayforLife AmericanCancer account. Overseen by an in-world liaison of the American Cancer Society and the in-world Relay for Life board, Fashion for Life’s donation system has been coded by the board of the Relay for Life for use throughout the Relay for Life events from March through July. An avatar account held by the American Cancer Society collects and retains all money and converts it to cash for ACS via Linden Labs. No resident in SL holds or touches that final account. If you pay into an RFL kiosk, it goes directly to that account.

The kiosks and vendors send totals to the Relay for Life website, which collates the totals and reflects them almost instantly in their databases. The grand total we show on our website comes from that database. This is the transparency we hold ourselves accountable to. Not one single linden of donated money will cross the hands of a volunteer or be paid to anyone but the American Cancer Society.

If you ever have doubts about a vendor sporting the ACS logo, left click it. It will verify to you with lines of text that has been created and programmed by the people at Relay for Life and that all proceeds are going to RelayforLife AmericanCancer.

This is incredibly important to know as so many “charities” proliferate in Second Life. It’s hard to be sure which ones are legitimate and which are not, even when they use scripted vendors. There is, without exception, no other charity operating in Second Life who runs using this transparent system. We post a running total coded by the SL Relay for Life on our front page so you can see at all times the money as it comes in.

Finally, it bears repeating, all the people associated with the Fashion for Life organization have provided their work on a 100% volunteer basis and none have been reimbursed for costs associated with putting on this event including web hosting and registration, uploads, donations to ACS, or labor. Our donation of time and expenses has been in support of Relay for Life and the American Cancer Society. We appreciate the donation of time and money from Second Life residents and handle those donations with the utmost respect and integrity.