53 replies to this topic

[Marseliatsi_M26]

In France, every year voluntaries phone you to ask you how much you want to donate to the French Armenian Fund. (They find your family name in the White Pages). Then, they send you a form that you fill in with your check and you send it back to the French Armenian Fund. It entitles you to benefit from an income-tax cut.
I think it should be applied in the Usa but also in Canada, Argentina, Brazil, Uruguay, Venezuela, Italy, Spain, Greece, UK, Germany, Belgium, Netherlands, Austria, Switzerland, Hungary, Czech Republic, Poland, Romania, Bulgaria, Cyprus, Ukraine, Russia, Belarus, Armenia, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Sweden, Moldova, Australia, Iran, Syria, Lebanon, Egypt, Jordan, Qatar, Kuwait........etc
Because Armenians live everywhere and like this they would feel involved.
French Armenians have donated much more this year.

Moreover, we should explain the aim of this action to our non-Armenian friends to incite them to participate in it .

[Azat]

i haven't seen one this year, but i've seen some in last couple of years a jewish one.

actually i think you are talking about L'chiam telethon(http://www.tolife.com/) and it is NOT to support the Israel in building roads or the government but it is an organization that does many activities in Israel and even some in US.

[Azat]

In France, every year voluntaries phone you to ask you how much you want to donate to the French Armenian Fund. (They find your family name in the White Pages). Then, they send you a form that you fill in with your check and you send it back to the French Armenian Fund. It entitles you to benefit from an income-tax cut.

All donations to charitable organizations and religious organizations are tax free in the USA as well

[Azat]

Desperate people beg if there is no other way. We are desperate in our attempts to revitalize and develop our homeland. Nobody helps us, not even ourselves. So we must beg.

I support the Telethon fully. How else are we going to raise $7.5 million in one night?

Each year just the US government helps us by giving us 10 times more money then we collect in the telethon. Russia helps us. France helps and many other countries and individuals help. when will it stop? My guess is it will never stop. Armenians will need to learn how to stand up on their own and on foreign investments and NOT rely on foreign donations but

[gamavor]

Azad, I agree with you but you need to understand that the "help" coming from foreign governments is rarely hard cash. Most of the time it is based on sub-contracts whose beneficiary is the Armenian government and whose recipient of hard cash are local (to the donor) organizations and companies.

Most infrastructure projects require hard cash. I don't know exactly how ArmeniaFund operates but it would be very unwise on their part just to spend the money collected as donation to build some road or something else. Instead, you can get twice as much financing against your hard cash and implement projects with low return rate - such as infrastructure project.

As to whether or not such Telethons exist among other nations - yes, they do, but their purpose is different.

Again, Armenia and Artzakh are way behind many developed nations in terms of infrastructure and economic development. What we can do is to continue supporting such projects not to please anybody, nor to look and act more "European", but for our own sake. This is the road to building a sustainable society.

[hytga]

This is the road to building a sustainable society.

exactly.

[hytga]

does anyone have statistics as to how many people participated this year?

[Maral]

What Do You Think Of The Telethon ??

it was good

only one problem

Marals Credit card bounced on me - i could not make the 999K donation that we was planing - but it's OK next year

Very funny!
We called for a $50 donation...the kid says...Great,for that donation,we will send you a video of the show ,I think he said the part where our name goes across the screen..ok cool...AND he says I get a 5 year membership to something,I didnt' understand to what...so I'm thinking...cool...all this for $50????.....interesting...
and he says..so Mrs. P...that's a $250 donation to the mailing address of...I say....
WHAT DID YOU SAY??????????????????????????????????????
he thought I said $250....he must have confused my call with MOS's call with my CC#

Edited by Maral, 26 November 2005 - 02:28 AM.

[Azat]

my guess is about 6000-7000.

What % of the money goes for non administrative costs?

[ED]

Azat its about 25% and

no matter what you do there is always a few rats who needs to be fed, it just a part of any society and culture
corraption has been with man kind as long as porostitution, but its important to look at the bigger pickture, most of the money end up doing some good and its very essential (diaspora help) to insure the survival of our nation till she can support herself and maybe some day be same kiind of help to diaspora, like invite diasporance to live in Armenia, provide housing, support, opertunities maybe financial aid to start of a business....who knows what will bring the future, but as of now especialy Artsax needs our help

[Sasun]

In my opinion the best help we could ever give to our country is to take everything we have and relocate and live and work there. Since we don't want to do that then the least we can do is to send a few dollars every now and then.

[karakash]

Does anyone know Mark Geragos' hourly rate?

I watched the Telethon from NJ via the Horizon channel and it was good. The Harout finale is always a good way to end it.

[gamavor]

$ 400.00

As a side note, if we can collect in one day 7.5 million dollars not everything is lost! Acctualy I would say not bad at all!

Edited by gamavor, 28 November 2005 - 07:50 PM.

[karakash]

$ 400.00

As a side note, if we can collect in one day 7.5 million dollars not everything is lost! Acctualy I would say not bad at all!

that is cheap! I thought he was like 600 or 700 per hour. I remember during the OJ trial, Shapiro and Cochran were allegedly getting 600 an hour, and that was 10 years ago. I work with people in NJ who get more than 400 and they are not as "famous" as Geragos or have as many high profile clients as Geragos...