Monday, June 29, 2009
This weekend's article
I am saddened and discouraged to learn that David Baines is attacking me yet again, this time using GiveMeaning Foundation's 2008 annual report as the basis for his attack. This blog was once a place I used to share my thoughts about the emerging field of online micro-philanthropy. I shared my thoughts, ideas and enthusiasm with readers but early last year, in fact, on the day of my 29th birthday, a columnist from the Vancouver Sun, David Baines, began writing what became a series of articles questioning my character and the integrity of GiveMeaning Foundation.
Baines and my anonymous internet blogging commenting detractors have spent the last year doing their absolute best to smear me, attack my character and question my integrity.
And no doubt, within some circles, they have succeeded.
As far as I can tell, what provoked this vitriol is at least in part my promoting GiveMeaning in the media by talking about myself as a "former whiz kid" and that I attracted so much positive media coverage including in Baines' own Vancouver Sun that, Baines & Co thought I needed to be taken-down several notches.
If you troll through my past, you will find many stories that one can use of someone who was arrogant, selfish, dishonest and more or less lost. That said, I'm sure if most people's lives are subjected to Baines level of scrutiny, those same things can be found of most people in their late teens and twenties, to lesser or greater extents.
I've always said that the media tells stories in binary forms. Either they build you up, and exaggerate your own story to the positive or they tear you down, again exaggerating the negative. When someone enters the public eye, they make a contract to accept the good with the bad.
When I started GiveMeaning, I started it because I wanted to be known for something other than being hired by Apple when I was 15 years-old. And yes, in GiveMeaning's first few years, when I was articulating a novel concept for the charitable sector, I used the "whiz kid" story to attract national press coverage to grow GiveMeaning's awareness. And I don't in any way regret that.
The last time, Baines wrote about GiveMeaning, he took issue with $645,000 of donations that came in through the foundation and were distributed to charities that did not have projects listed on the website. He asked the readers to subtract that donation, and suggested that the "real" amount GiveMeaning should have reported last year was $746,118.
Baines has always portrayed our numbers in the most skewed and negative light possible. This time around, he adds back in the $645,000 he asked readers to discount in the last article so that he can claim that our donations were down 63% year-over-year. Regardless of how he presents our numbers, the actual amount raised through the website is down slightly year-over-year to $728,165. Some of that is Baines' own self-fulfilling prophesy here. His continued negative coverage exacerbated with anonymous bloggers who seek any site that mentions GiveMeaning to post Baines articles and nasty comments about me has no doubt had a negative effect. But in what has become the toughest economic climate in the last few decades, and with his flurry of negative articles, our web donations were down only slightly.
But let's remember what GiveMeaning is: A site that facilitates micro-philanthropy. Most people donate $10, $20 at a time to the projects on our website. The whole point of the website is to pool small contributions together to achieve small but meaningful projects all around the World. And $728,165 in small contributions for projects all around the World is a huge achievement in micro-philanthropy,
Since last fall, I have stopped taking any form of compensation from GiveMeaning yet still serve as GiveMeaning's CEO as a volunteer. No expenses are reimbursed by the Foundation, nothing. Baines knows that my wife has long stopped being paid for her work at GiveMeaning, but continues to mention it.
At the end of his most recent article, he says that I still tell the "whiz-kid" story and that it's tiring and tired. I haven't done a single media interview since he began writing about me. In fact, I spent most of the last year trying to get over the hurt and pain of it all, and the last thing I've wanted is to attract more media attention, knowing that it's the positive profile that is - at least, in part - what makes Baines want to target me. When asked, I still give talks free to students about the importance of pursuing one's passions, but any reference to my past is rooted in that I started GiveMeaning not in a place of riches and wild success but rather pursuing a path that wasn't working.
But more than that, Baines & Co have achieved something that in some perverse way, I am grateful for. They have helped strip me of a layer or layers of skin that I have had since the whiz-kid story was first written about more than a decade ago. I no longer have interest in being a public person. That part of my life is over and done with. I have been humbled not by the actual vitriol of my attackers but my the process of struggling hard to keep running an organization that I care so much about, and have spent the last four years working hard at.
Baines concludes by indicating that he thinks GiveMeaning is an enterprise on the wane. He's right in some respects. My enthusiasm and energy to continue with GiveMeaning have been significantly deflated but I continue to invest my energy and resources in it, because of the positive impact it continues to have. Whether the sum total of our donation revenues grows or declines is less important to me than knowing that GiveMeaning continues to play a valuable role in achieving small but necessary impacts on communities here at home and around the World.
Baines and my anonymous internet blogging commenting detractors have spent the last year doing their absolute best to smear me, attack my character and question my integrity.
And no doubt, within some circles, they have succeeded.
As far as I can tell, what provoked this vitriol is at least in part my promoting GiveMeaning in the media by talking about myself as a "former whiz kid" and that I attracted so much positive media coverage including in Baines' own Vancouver Sun that, Baines & Co thought I needed to be taken-down several notches.
If you troll through my past, you will find many stories that one can use of someone who was arrogant, selfish, dishonest and more or less lost. That said, I'm sure if most people's lives are subjected to Baines level of scrutiny, those same things can be found of most people in their late teens and twenties, to lesser or greater extents.
I've always said that the media tells stories in binary forms. Either they build you up, and exaggerate your own story to the positive or they tear you down, again exaggerating the negative. When someone enters the public eye, they make a contract to accept the good with the bad.
When I started GiveMeaning, I started it because I wanted to be known for something other than being hired by Apple when I was 15 years-old. And yes, in GiveMeaning's first few years, when I was articulating a novel concept for the charitable sector, I used the "whiz kid" story to attract national press coverage to grow GiveMeaning's awareness. And I don't in any way regret that.
The last time, Baines wrote about GiveMeaning, he took issue with $645,000 of donations that came in through the foundation and were distributed to charities that did not have projects listed on the website. He asked the readers to subtract that donation, and suggested that the "real" amount GiveMeaning should have reported last year was $746,118.
Baines has always portrayed our numbers in the most skewed and negative light possible. This time around, he adds back in the $645,000 he asked readers to discount in the last article so that he can claim that our donations were down 63% year-over-year. Regardless of how he presents our numbers, the actual amount raised through the website is down slightly year-over-year to $728,165. Some of that is Baines' own self-fulfilling prophesy here. His continued negative coverage exacerbated with anonymous bloggers who seek any site that mentions GiveMeaning to post Baines articles and nasty comments about me has no doubt had a negative effect. But in what has become the toughest economic climate in the last few decades, and with his flurry of negative articles, our web donations were down only slightly.
But let's remember what GiveMeaning is: A site that facilitates micro-philanthropy. Most people donate $10, $20 at a time to the projects on our website. The whole point of the website is to pool small contributions together to achieve small but meaningful projects all around the World. And $728,165 in small contributions for projects all around the World is a huge achievement in micro-philanthropy,
Since last fall, I have stopped taking any form of compensation from GiveMeaning yet still serve as GiveMeaning's CEO as a volunteer. No expenses are reimbursed by the Foundation, nothing. Baines knows that my wife has long stopped being paid for her work at GiveMeaning, but continues to mention it.
At the end of his most recent article, he says that I still tell the "whiz-kid" story and that it's tiring and tired. I haven't done a single media interview since he began writing about me. In fact, I spent most of the last year trying to get over the hurt and pain of it all, and the last thing I've wanted is to attract more media attention, knowing that it's the positive profile that is - at least, in part - what makes Baines want to target me. When asked, I still give talks free to students about the importance of pursuing one's passions, but any reference to my past is rooted in that I started GiveMeaning not in a place of riches and wild success but rather pursuing a path that wasn't working.
But more than that, Baines & Co have achieved something that in some perverse way, I am grateful for. They have helped strip me of a layer or layers of skin that I have had since the whiz-kid story was first written about more than a decade ago. I no longer have interest in being a public person. That part of my life is over and done with. I have been humbled not by the actual vitriol of my attackers but my the process of struggling hard to keep running an organization that I care so much about, and have spent the last four years working hard at.
Baines concludes by indicating that he thinks GiveMeaning is an enterprise on the wane. He's right in some respects. My enthusiasm and energy to continue with GiveMeaning have been significantly deflated but I continue to invest my energy and resources in it, because of the positive impact it continues to have. Whether the sum total of our donation revenues grows or declines is less important to me than knowing that GiveMeaning continues to play a valuable role in achieving small but necessary impacts on communities here at home and around the World.
Labels: david baines, givemeaning, vancouver sun
Thursday, June 26, 2008
Letter To The Editor
I submitted this Letter to the Editor last week in response to an article written by David Baines in the Vancouver Sun. I wanted to give the Sun sufficient time to run the letter prior to publishing this response on my blog.
I am writing in response to David Baines' column published Saturday, June 14th.
In it, Mr. Baines makes statements that are irresponsible, misleading and frankly, mistruths. First, I am asking for a retraction for the completely false and defamatory statement that "a lot of the money raised by GiveMeaning ends in [my] pocket." This statement is completely without merit. Second, there is ample media coverage of my reasons for starting GiveMeaning, and I in fact have said many times
that I was in search of something meaningful to do with my life and career. To suggest that "I have stumbled from one business and personal failure to another" is false and derogatory.
As GiveMeaning Foundation's CEO, it is my responsibility to point out that after Mr. Baines finishes with his attempts at character assassination, he then turns his attention to GiveMeaning Foundation's most recently filed financial statements with the Canada Revenue Agency. He starts by acknowledging that revenue nearly doubled from
our 2006 financial year, and that 73% of all revenue collected by the GiveMeaning Foundation in this most recent fiscal year was distributed to other charities. It should also be noted that this percentage is of all the revenue collected by the Foundation, including donations made to our Foundation for distribution to other charities, and gifts made to our Foundation specifically to cover our own costs of
providing the free service of a charity conduit. Mr. Baines also notes that as a percentage of overall donations, our administrative costs, which are covered by separate donations, have decreased from 2006.
Mr. Baines himself acknowledges that this recent annual report as filed with CRA is a significant improvement over our first full year of operations. However based on the slant of his editorials on me and GiveMeaning, it would be impossible for his editorial to end there, so he ridiculously asks your readers to subtract $645,000 of donations that GiveMeaning Foundation gave to registered charities, from our
annual report. He asks this in order to justify finishing with the statement, "This is a pretty ugly picture." The only ugly picture is the one drawn specifically from Mr. Baines' attempts at re-writing our annual report.
To be clear, in addition to processing gifts made directly via the website to specific projects, GiveMeaning also accepts donations made into donor advised funds. The purpose of a donor advised fund is to provide an individual donor benefits similar to those experienced by people with personal foundations. Having a donor advised fund at
GiveMeaning eliminates set-up costs and administrative obligations incurred by those with private foundations. Donor advised funds are not a new concept. This service is offered by leading financial institutions such as TD Bank and Scotiabank. Tides and Vancouver Foundation also offer donors the same service.
It should now be clear to readers that Mr. Baines has not made any attempt to analyze GiveMeaning from any fair or balanced perspective and that he is using his column to attempt to attack our credibility.
We are incredibly proud of how much progress has been made in creating and launching from scratch, a new, more efficient model for charitable giving. It's unfortunate that Mr. Baines continues to attempt to discredit GiveMeaning, a service which has helped hundreds of charities across Canada achieve their goals without charging any costs to them or their donors.
Sincerely,
Tom Williams,
CEO, GiveMeaning Foundation
givemeaning.com
I am writing in response to David Baines' column published Saturday, June 14th.
In it, Mr. Baines makes statements that are irresponsible, misleading and frankly, mistruths. First, I am asking for a retraction for the completely false and defamatory statement that "a lot of the money raised by GiveMeaning ends in [my] pocket." This statement is completely without merit. Second, there is ample media coverage of my reasons for starting GiveMeaning, and I in fact have said many times
that I was in search of something meaningful to do with my life and career. To suggest that "I have stumbled from one business and personal failure to another" is false and derogatory.
As GiveMeaning Foundation's CEO, it is my responsibility to point out that after Mr. Baines finishes with his attempts at character assassination, he then turns his attention to GiveMeaning Foundation's most recently filed financial statements with the Canada Revenue Agency. He starts by acknowledging that revenue nearly doubled from
our 2006 financial year, and that 73% of all revenue collected by the GiveMeaning Foundation in this most recent fiscal year was distributed to other charities. It should also be noted that this percentage is of all the revenue collected by the Foundation, including donations made to our Foundation for distribution to other charities, and gifts made to our Foundation specifically to cover our own costs of
providing the free service of a charity conduit. Mr. Baines also notes that as a percentage of overall donations, our administrative costs, which are covered by separate donations, have decreased from 2006.
Mr. Baines himself acknowledges that this recent annual report as filed with CRA is a significant improvement over our first full year of operations. However based on the slant of his editorials on me and GiveMeaning, it would be impossible for his editorial to end there, so he ridiculously asks your readers to subtract $645,000 of donations that GiveMeaning Foundation gave to registered charities, from our
annual report. He asks this in order to justify finishing with the statement, "This is a pretty ugly picture." The only ugly picture is the one drawn specifically from Mr. Baines' attempts at re-writing our annual report.
To be clear, in addition to processing gifts made directly via the website to specific projects, GiveMeaning also accepts donations made into donor advised funds. The purpose of a donor advised fund is to provide an individual donor benefits similar to those experienced by people with personal foundations. Having a donor advised fund at
GiveMeaning eliminates set-up costs and administrative obligations incurred by those with private foundations. Donor advised funds are not a new concept. This service is offered by leading financial institutions such as TD Bank and Scotiabank. Tides and Vancouver Foundation also offer donors the same service.
It should now be clear to readers that Mr. Baines has not made any attempt to analyze GiveMeaning from any fair or balanced perspective and that he is using his column to attempt to attack our credibility.
We are incredibly proud of how much progress has been made in creating and launching from scratch, a new, more efficient model for charitable giving. It's unfortunate that Mr. Baines continues to attempt to discredit GiveMeaning, a service which has helped hundreds of charities across Canada achieve their goals without charging any costs to them or their donors.
Sincerely,
Tom Williams,
CEO, GiveMeaning Foundation
givemeaning.com
Labels: cra, david baines, givemeaning, vancouver sun
Saturday, February 02, 2008
Weekend reply
Mr. Baines has published in the Vancouver Sun his fourth installment on his opinion of me and that of GiveMeaning and the work it has set out to do.
Baines told me when I first responded to him that as an editorialist, he was free to write his opinions. And so, in summary, his opinions appear to be:
1) I have gotten too much positive attention and praise in the media, most of which I don’t deserve;
2) I am most undeserving of praise because as a teenager and young-adult, I made some mistakes;
3) That before starting GiveMeaning, I ended a business relationship acrominiously and that story (or one side of it) merits publication and judgment in the court of public opinion;
4) That I naively bragged of my media savviness in an interview more than 7 years ago, which almost merits publication ;
5) And finally, that neither I nor GiveMeaning should be trusted because of the points above;
It is quite clear from his articles that Baines doesn’t like me and apparently a few former “friends” and associates feel the same way. But I am not sure this is worthy of 4 articles which are almost entirely personal and don’t establish any balanced or well reasoned arguments as to why GiveMeaning should not be allowed to operate as a registered charity financed by generous donations. Baines brings up the point that GiveMeaning’s donations have been subsidized by tax-payers. He repeatedly makes this statement knowing full well that the same is true of any other registered charity.
Baines has chosen an interesting time in my life to attack me: I have finally grown up. In his four articles, he has attacked me not for anything that I am currently doing now but for mistakes I've made in my past. This must be because there is no story in suggesting that GiveMeaning is up to anything other than trying to achieve and facilitate social good.
I admit I have made mistakes in my life. GiveMeaning is evidence that I have learned from those mistakes and am now devoting my energy to the betterment of others rather than myself.
Baines has no evidence of nefarious behaviour at my foundation or that it is not in complete compliance with CRA’s regulations. We can all take confidence in the fact that an investigative journalist of Baines’ experience has nothing but innuendo after 4 weeks of “research”. His primary innuendo is that the measure of GiveMeaning Foundation’s efficiency is the percentage of receipted donations which is transferred to other charities in the same fiscal period. To be clear:
100% of what is raised through GiveMeaning Foundation for projects listed on the website is distributed to qualified donees.
GiveMeaning has operating costs like any organization and like any start-up, costs are high in creating a new organization from scratch. Those operating costs have been funded by donors who recognize that overheads covered by GiveMeaning Foundation reduce the overheads of other charities, primarily struggling small charities.
We take it as a point of pride that we do not share or sell the names of donors and have had this policy from the very beginning. In fact, we state it clearly in the About page of our website and so I cannot release donors names. This is undoubtedly a prudent policy in a sector when too many charities sell the names of their donors.
Baines also mentions that before I decided to stop speaking to him that I offered him the opportunity to speak with some of our donors. This is true. I don't think it should be of any surprise that after reading his articles, that none of our supporters would wish to speak with Baines. Had he chosen to wait and speak with donors before writing his articles, I know he would have found what he says he's looking for: Donors who understand and respect the service we are providing. Given the personal nature of his articles and his reputation for a particular form of editorial, it should come as no surprise that I was advised not to talk with him. Note that this is the first time I have ever stopped talking with a person of the press.
To now enter Blake Bromley into Baines questioning of my or GiveMeaning's integrity only hurts Baines' case further. Blake is one of the most highly respected charity lawyers in Canada, if not the world. Not only was Blake Bromley proven innocent of the charges that Baines brings up, his reputation and professional practice thrives in spite of the assaults of CRA and David Baines. Baines fails to mention that Blake was also cleared by the Law Society which investigated the accusations as they would of a complaint against any lawyer.
One of the very few new things that Baines has written about today is a charity called Amazing Grace Foundation of which I am a director.
I have received no fees or had any expenses paid by Amazing Grace Foundation. Amazing Grace has received funds for specific projects, as have many other charities. The reason money didn’t flow directly from donors to Amazing Grace is because this charity (like others who use GiveMeaning) doesn’t have the technology to raise money via the internet nor does it have the money to fundraise. Instead he refers to a “circular flow of money”. What is circular about a donor coming to GiveMeaning.com and making a donation which is flowed through to Amazing Grace at 100 cents on the dollar and spent by Amazing Grace to achieve its charitable purposes? Perhaps by “circular” Baines meant “straight line”.
Baines has said that as a young man, I had some screw-ups and wasn’t as much of a “whiz kid” as I and some media outlets have portrayed myself as. Ok.
It is my past that has led me to my present. My past drives me to work as hard as I do. In the past, as Baines has made readers aware, I often ran or walked away from challenges and problems. That time is over. David Baines has only increased my resolve and inspired me to most certainly stay and continue to fight for this fledgling charity the Vancouver Sun has devoted so much energy and space to discrediting.
Ironically, Baines has said what I have known and spoken about for a long time. That up until starting GiveMeaning, I was more “famous for being famous” than for actually accomplishing anything. Baines has perhaps done me a service by bringing that weakness to the fore. It is a pity that in his zeal to tear me down he could not recognize that with the help of so many of you I am now finally building something great. I want to thank Baines for inspiring me to be both a better man and a better steward of GiveMeaning’s resources. More importantly, I want to thank you for standing with me in this time of trial.
Baines told me when I first responded to him that as an editorialist, he was free to write his opinions. And so, in summary, his opinions appear to be:
1) I have gotten too much positive attention and praise in the media, most of which I don’t deserve;
2) I am most undeserving of praise because as a teenager and young-adult, I made some mistakes;
3) That before starting GiveMeaning, I ended a business relationship acrominiously and that story (or one side of it) merits publication and judgment in the court of public opinion;
4) That I naively bragged of my media savviness in an interview more than 7 years ago, which almost merits publication ;
5) And finally, that neither I nor GiveMeaning should be trusted because of the points above;
It is quite clear from his articles that Baines doesn’t like me and apparently a few former “friends” and associates feel the same way. But I am not sure this is worthy of 4 articles which are almost entirely personal and don’t establish any balanced or well reasoned arguments as to why GiveMeaning should not be allowed to operate as a registered charity financed by generous donations. Baines brings up the point that GiveMeaning’s donations have been subsidized by tax-payers. He repeatedly makes this statement knowing full well that the same is true of any other registered charity.
Baines has chosen an interesting time in my life to attack me: I have finally grown up. In his four articles, he has attacked me not for anything that I am currently doing now but for mistakes I've made in my past. This must be because there is no story in suggesting that GiveMeaning is up to anything other than trying to achieve and facilitate social good.
I admit I have made mistakes in my life. GiveMeaning is evidence that I have learned from those mistakes and am now devoting my energy to the betterment of others rather than myself.
Baines has no evidence of nefarious behaviour at my foundation or that it is not in complete compliance with CRA’s regulations. We can all take confidence in the fact that an investigative journalist of Baines’ experience has nothing but innuendo after 4 weeks of “research”. His primary innuendo is that the measure of GiveMeaning Foundation’s efficiency is the percentage of receipted donations which is transferred to other charities in the same fiscal period. To be clear:
100% of what is raised through GiveMeaning Foundation for projects listed on the website is distributed to qualified donees.
GiveMeaning has operating costs like any organization and like any start-up, costs are high in creating a new organization from scratch. Those operating costs have been funded by donors who recognize that overheads covered by GiveMeaning Foundation reduce the overheads of other charities, primarily struggling small charities.
We take it as a point of pride that we do not share or sell the names of donors and have had this policy from the very beginning. In fact, we state it clearly in the About page of our website and so I cannot release donors names. This is undoubtedly a prudent policy in a sector when too many charities sell the names of their donors.
Baines also mentions that before I decided to stop speaking to him that I offered him the opportunity to speak with some of our donors. This is true. I don't think it should be of any surprise that after reading his articles, that none of our supporters would wish to speak with Baines. Had he chosen to wait and speak with donors before writing his articles, I know he would have found what he says he's looking for: Donors who understand and respect the service we are providing. Given the personal nature of his articles and his reputation for a particular form of editorial, it should come as no surprise that I was advised not to talk with him. Note that this is the first time I have ever stopped talking with a person of the press.
To now enter Blake Bromley into Baines questioning of my or GiveMeaning's integrity only hurts Baines' case further. Blake is one of the most highly respected charity lawyers in Canada, if not the world. Not only was Blake Bromley proven innocent of the charges that Baines brings up, his reputation and professional practice thrives in spite of the assaults of CRA and David Baines. Baines fails to mention that Blake was also cleared by the Law Society which investigated the accusations as they would of a complaint against any lawyer.
One of the very few new things that Baines has written about today is a charity called Amazing Grace Foundation of which I am a director.
I have received no fees or had any expenses paid by Amazing Grace Foundation. Amazing Grace has received funds for specific projects, as have many other charities. The reason money didn’t flow directly from donors to Amazing Grace is because this charity (like others who use GiveMeaning) doesn’t have the technology to raise money via the internet nor does it have the money to fundraise. Instead he refers to a “circular flow of money”. What is circular about a donor coming to GiveMeaning.com and making a donation which is flowed through to Amazing Grace at 100 cents on the dollar and spent by Amazing Grace to achieve its charitable purposes? Perhaps by “circular” Baines meant “straight line”.
Baines has said that as a young man, I had some screw-ups and wasn’t as much of a “whiz kid” as I and some media outlets have portrayed myself as. Ok.
It is my past that has led me to my present. My past drives me to work as hard as I do. In the past, as Baines has made readers aware, I often ran or walked away from challenges and problems. That time is over. David Baines has only increased my resolve and inspired me to most certainly stay and continue to fight for this fledgling charity the Vancouver Sun has devoted so much energy and space to discrediting.
Ironically, Baines has said what I have known and spoken about for a long time. That up until starting GiveMeaning, I was more “famous for being famous” than for actually accomplishing anything. Baines has perhaps done me a service by bringing that weakness to the fore. It is a pity that in his zeal to tear me down he could not recognize that with the help of so many of you I am now finally building something great. I want to thank Baines for inspiring me to be both a better man and a better steward of GiveMeaning’s resources. More importantly, I want to thank you for standing with me in this time of trial.
Labels: david baines, editorial, reply, vancouver sun
Tuesday, January 29, 2008
Here we go again.
Readers of the Vancouver Sun might have noted that Sun columnist David Baines continues to pursue a selective investigation of my past, this time beginning with a quote from a 2000 CBC Interview I gave seven years ago.
In it, I reference a CBC television interview done much earlier. I was featured jumping on a couch singing and dancing to a song. In the 2000 interview, I'm quoted as saying "Do you think I ever woke up in the morning, surveyed my apartment and said, 'Maybe I'll crank the tunes and jump on my couch for a while?' I don't think so." I spoke confidently and naively about my media awareness, going further with a comment that I told people "amazing, wonderful, and, in most cases, untrue stories about [myself]."
In this second column, Baines searches for investigative credibility in quotes taken from my father’s participation in the same interview. He said that I was “a prototypical child of the electronic age. He knows how to use the sound-bite. ... He will give you a sentence that will be tailored for you to put into your news broadcast. He is a child of the age in that sense."
The point in bringing this material up from seven years ago and then observing the amount of media that together with GiveMeaning I have garnered quite deliberately since, is to suggest that if I was "spinning" then, I must be spinning now. In a vain effort at making his point Mr. Baines brings up my short-lived employment at a firm called Whalen, Beliveau. I began there when I was 17 and ended a year later when the Vancouver office of the firm split to merge with another firm.
My entire salary was paid as an advance or draw against commissions. This simply meant that before I was entitled to any bonuses from commissions, all of my salary would be deducted and any additional expenses I incurred would first be repaid. Mr. Baines is correct that I did not close any deals where a commission was paid to Whalen, Beliveau, but this is because I was working to develop a new field of client, not because I didn't work strenuously on behalf of my employer.
Under the terms of my employment I was responsible for my own expenses and Whalen Believeau lent me the money to pay these expenses pending receipt of commissions. When Whalen, Beliveau split to join a new firm I was sent a letter by the Montreal office of Whalen, Beliveau demanded that I repay the loan. Since my employment had ended unexpectedly I had no income to do so and Whalen Beliveau ultimately did not pursue me further.
Quite separately, because this money was in fact a “debt owing”, and under the advice of counsel, certain of the facts are as Mr. Baines reports; specifically that I declared as income the advances I received and claimed the paid expenses. It is true that Canada Revenue Agency originally disallowed the expense claims on the grounds that I didn't pay them. It is true that I appealed that ruling, arguing that even though I didn't pay the expenses directly, I was liable to the firm for the full amount. The Tax Court decided that I had done everything correctly and Canada Revenue Agency did not appeal the court decision. It is not true that I didn’t “earn” this income as Mr. Baines quite wrongly suggests. I consider the matter closed although I am reserving the right to consider Mr. Baines assertions more formally.
In his first column focusing on me, Baines quotes a recent interview I gave to a Victoria-based newspaper called "Monday Magazine" in which the interview asked me "why aren't you more of a dick?" I responded with a column filling quote captured by Mr. Baines "I think because I was a dick," Williams replied. "This path I'm on now is only something I arrived at after having fully explored my own dickiness." But really there isn’t anything new here. I have been consistent and candid in suggesting that the motivation to start GiveMeaning lay in part to redeem myself and correct the course that I seemed to be headed-down.
And so, Mr. Baines speaks of my past grabbing thoughtless quotes from a teenager delighted with the new attention of the media. What a sleuth! He points to the typical failures of anyone attempting to find the right path to follow in his search for a worthy future. With GiveMeaning now a cause for celebration Mr. Baines is sure there is something wrong with the picture and so he has chosen to search in the past in an effort to discredit me and the work of GiveMeaning.
When Mr. Baines first called me, I decided to speak openly to him and spoke to him several times both the day before his first column and then a few days after it appeared. That won’t happen again.
If Mr. Baines had taken the trouble to read or watch any of the recent interviews in full, the ones particularly about GiveMeaning, he would know that I am in this for the long haul and I am in this completely. I am nothing if I am not open although people like Mr. Baines are quickly making me much less naïve.
As far as anything else that might appear on the web posted in an effort to capitalize on the cheap shots of someone who should know better, I would much rather you wrote me directly.
In it, I reference a CBC television interview done much earlier. I was featured jumping on a couch singing and dancing to a song. In the 2000 interview, I'm quoted as saying "Do you think I ever woke up in the morning, surveyed my apartment and said, 'Maybe I'll crank the tunes and jump on my couch for a while?' I don't think so." I spoke confidently and naively about my media awareness, going further with a comment that I told people "amazing, wonderful, and, in most cases, untrue stories about [myself]."
In this second column, Baines searches for investigative credibility in quotes taken from my father’s participation in the same interview. He said that I was “a prototypical child of the electronic age. He knows how to use the sound-bite. ... He will give you a sentence that will be tailored for you to put into your news broadcast. He is a child of the age in that sense."
The point in bringing this material up from seven years ago and then observing the amount of media that together with GiveMeaning I have garnered quite deliberately since, is to suggest that if I was "spinning" then, I must be spinning now. In a vain effort at making his point Mr. Baines brings up my short-lived employment at a firm called Whalen, Beliveau. I began there when I was 17 and ended a year later when the Vancouver office of the firm split to merge with another firm.
My entire salary was paid as an advance or draw against commissions. This simply meant that before I was entitled to any bonuses from commissions, all of my salary would be deducted and any additional expenses I incurred would first be repaid. Mr. Baines is correct that I did not close any deals where a commission was paid to Whalen, Beliveau, but this is because I was working to develop a new field of client, not because I didn't work strenuously on behalf of my employer.
Under the terms of my employment I was responsible for my own expenses and Whalen Believeau lent me the money to pay these expenses pending receipt of commissions. When Whalen, Beliveau split to join a new firm I was sent a letter by the Montreal office of Whalen, Beliveau demanded that I repay the loan. Since my employment had ended unexpectedly I had no income to do so and Whalen Beliveau ultimately did not pursue me further.
Quite separately, because this money was in fact a “debt owing”, and under the advice of counsel, certain of the facts are as Mr. Baines reports; specifically that I declared as income the advances I received and claimed the paid expenses. It is true that Canada Revenue Agency originally disallowed the expense claims on the grounds that I didn't pay them. It is true that I appealed that ruling, arguing that even though I didn't pay the expenses directly, I was liable to the firm for the full amount. The Tax Court decided that I had done everything correctly and Canada Revenue Agency did not appeal the court decision. It is not true that I didn’t “earn” this income as Mr. Baines quite wrongly suggests. I consider the matter closed although I am reserving the right to consider Mr. Baines assertions more formally.
In his first column focusing on me, Baines quotes a recent interview I gave to a Victoria-based newspaper called "Monday Magazine" in which the interview asked me "why aren't you more of a dick?" I responded with a column filling quote captured by Mr. Baines "I think because I was a dick," Williams replied. "This path I'm on now is only something I arrived at after having fully explored my own dickiness." But really there isn’t anything new here. I have been consistent and candid in suggesting that the motivation to start GiveMeaning lay in part to redeem myself and correct the course that I seemed to be headed-down.
And so, Mr. Baines speaks of my past grabbing thoughtless quotes from a teenager delighted with the new attention of the media. What a sleuth! He points to the typical failures of anyone attempting to find the right path to follow in his search for a worthy future. With GiveMeaning now a cause for celebration Mr. Baines is sure there is something wrong with the picture and so he has chosen to search in the past in an effort to discredit me and the work of GiveMeaning.
When Mr. Baines first called me, I decided to speak openly to him and spoke to him several times both the day before his first column and then a few days after it appeared. That won’t happen again.
If Mr. Baines had taken the trouble to read or watch any of the recent interviews in full, the ones particularly about GiveMeaning, he would know that I am in this for the long haul and I am in this completely. I am nothing if I am not open although people like Mr. Baines are quickly making me much less naïve.
As far as anything else that might appear on the web posted in an effort to capitalize on the cheap shots of someone who should know better, I would much rather you wrote me directly.
Labels: david baines, response, vancouver sun
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