Washington Blade - October 19, 2001
Lou Chibbaro Jr.
The two groups said they are planning to produce their own AIDS cycling event, which they expect will take place next spring, raising the prospect that participants and contributors will be asked to choose between two competing rides.
Thousands of bicyclists have participated in the California AIDS Ride each year since Pallotta Teamworks, a for-profit company, began producing the fundraising event in 1994. The Los Angeles Gay & Lesbian Center, a multimillion-dollar, nonprofit group that provides services to people with HIV, and the San Francisco AIDS Foundation, which provides HIV-related services in that city, have been the sole beneficiaries of the California AIDS Ride since its inception.
The Pallotta firm produces three additional AIDS Rides, including the Washington, D.C., ride, which raises money for the Whitman-Walker Clinic and the AIDS service group Food & Friends.
Gwenn Baldwin, executive director of the L.A. Center, said that after several months of negotiations, the center and the San Francisco AIDS Foundation failed to reach an agreement with the Pallotta firm on several key issues, including assurances that the Pallotta firm's production expenses would not exceed the event's budget, as they had this year. Baldwin said other issues in contention were concerns over a practice by the Pallotta firm to solicit California AIDS Ride participants for other events prior to and during the ride.
Baldwin said the California AIDS Ride netted $5.7 million this year, representing a modest increase over the $5.3 million the event raised for the L.A. and San Francisco groups in 2000. But Baldwin said the return for the two groups, which came to about 60 cents for each dollar donated by riders and contributors in earlier years, dropped to about 50 percent in the most recent ride, with the other 50 percent going to overhead expenses and fees to the Pallotta firm.
"All of us want to get the maximum return from each dollar raised to support HIV/AIDS services," Baldwin said.
Norm Bowling, senior vice president for business and public affairs at Pallotta Teamworks, called the annual California AIDS rides highly successful fundraising events that have raised more than $40 million for the two groups since 1994. But he declined to discuss the issues that led to the decision by the groups to sever their ties to the Pallotta firm.
"It would be best for me not to talk about that now," he said. Bowling said Pallotta Teamworks is moving ahead as scheduled for the 2002 California AIDS Ride. He said the firm is in the process of selecting new recipients for the event, which is scheduled to begin in San Francisco on June 2. INFO
Pallotta TeamWorks
1525 Crossroads of the World
Los Angeles, CA 90028
323-467-8888
fax: 323-957-1303
www.pallottateamworks.com
L.A. Gay & Lesbian Center
1625 N. Schrader Boulevard
Los Angeles, CA 90028
323-993-7400
www.laglc.org
San Francisco AIDS Foundation
995 Market St #200
San Francisco, CA 94103
415-487-3000
en español: 415-487-3004
tdd: 415-864-6606
fax: 415-487-3009
feedback@sfaf.org
www.sfaf.org
"This creates an opportunity for many other California AIDS groups to get a share of the money that the L.A. Center and the San Francisco AIDS Foundation have monopolized," Bowling said.
Officials with the recipient groups associated with the Washington, D.C., AIDS Ride, which is set to travel from Norfolk, Va., to D.C., and the Northeast AIDS Ride, which is set to travel from Bear Mountain, N.Y., to Boston, said they are pleased with the outcome of the rides and have signed up with Pallotta TeamWorks for the 2002 rides. Officials with the groups associated with the Heartland AIDS Ride, which travels from the Minneapolis-St. Paul area to Chicago, could not be reached by press time.
The L.A. Center and San Francisco AIDS Foundation have named their event AIDS/LifeCycle. The two groups said they would release details about the logistics of the ride in the next few weeks.
"By co-producing their own cycling event beginning in 2002, the two nonprofit organizations believe firmly they will improve cost controls, resulting in a greater share of net proceeds to support their respective client services," the two groups said in an Oct. 11 press release.
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