 The Inspector General Seminar and the Fundraising Seminar, my name is Ed Hartman, I'm DAV's Inspector General joined by Brian Cohert, our Chief Development Officer in charge of all of our fundraising activities at the national level. Certainly good to look at and see such a large crowd here. This is probably one of the larger crowds we've had in quite a while. If you're here for the first time, why don't you raise your hand for me? Alright, that's great, great. You can't hear me? You really can't hear me? I'm serious. I was born at night, but not last night. That's going to be really loud. Are you sure? They like it loud? Is that better? I think we got it now. Is that better? Well certainly, again, welcome. I'm glad to see such a large group of folks here in attendance here with us this afternoon. Today, during my presentation as it relates to the Inspector General Seminar, we're going to touch on several things. Most importantly, related to DAV finances at all levels, our responsibility, how we raise funds, how we should be expending funds, and also we're going to talk a little bit about our responsibilities as individual members and leaders at the chapter level and department level in terms of identifying and vetting, if you will, potential future leaders of DAV. One of the things I always like to remind people at all levels of DAV is that funds that are donated to DAV entities at all levels are provided by the general public to support DAV's free programs of service to ill-injured veterans and their families, for which we're known. Of course, everybody knows that we've been around for nearly 100 years and we have a hallmark of service programs for which DAV is very specifically known for, that being our service program, our voluntary services program, transportation network, our legislative efforts, our employment programs. Those are hallmark programs that DAV is widely known for across the country by the general public. And as an organization at all levels, it's our fiduciary responsibility to ensure that the funds provided to DAV are utilized for that purpose. I always like to express to people and try to explain to people that when people give money to DAV, it's not our money as an organization. It's the general public's money that they have provided to DAV to use in a fashion that they see fit to help promote service programs to veterans in their communities. So when we lose that public trust, then obviously the funding and the financial support that's provided to all of our chapters and departments across the country goes away. So it's very, very important that we use the funds that are contributed to us as an organization at all levels on our federally chartered purpose of providing service to ill-injured veterans and their families. That being said, how do we get our funding at all levels of DAV? Again, of course, as chapters primarily, a majority of our chapters are involved in Forgive Me Not Drives in your communities. And just as a reminder several years ago, I shouldn't say several years ago, about three years ago, we amended our Constitution and bylaws that allows for chapters in their local communities to conduct Forgive Me Not Drives throughout the entire year so long as it doesn't exceed seven days during the course of the year. Previously it read that a chapter can do one Forgive Me Not Drive during the course of the year for a period in concession that does not exceed seven days. So that really limited the opportunities for chapters they had to identify one particular time during the year in which their chapter was going to benefit the most from conducting their Forgive Me Not Drive. A lot of folks decided to do it on Memorial Day, the week of Memorial Day, the week of July 4th, the week of Veterans Day. Now we have the opportunity to kind of break that up so we can have a Forgive Me Not Drive for a couple days over Memorial Day, a couple days over 4th of July, a couple days over Veterans Day. And of course if there are unique opportunities in your community throughout the course of the year that allow you to become involved where it's a county fair or something, you're certainly able to take advantage of that as well to maximize DEV's exposure in your community and also in turn be able to collect more money during the course of the year. The Golden Corral Military Appreciation Mondays of course is a relationship that the national organization has created and fostered over the years with Golden Corral. This provides the opportunity for chapters and departments to participate in Golden Corral's Military Appreciation Monday events. Now keep in mind and we have to remind people this each and every year that this relationship in this program has primarily been developed as a department fundraising program. Now obviously departments do not have the manpower, the individuals, the number of people that it would take to go around to each and every Golden Corral restaurant to support and collect funds on those Military Appreciation Monday weekends. So therefore they rely upon the departments in the local communities to assist in those endeavors and of course also benefit from their participation in those Golden Corral Military Appreciation Mondays. It's also the discretion of the department to allow chapters to, if they so wish, to collect and receive and retain all of the funds that the chapter brings in for those Golden Corral Military Appreciation Monday events. Some departments allow the chapters to keep have. Some departments require that it all come back to the department. But again it's important for us to know that we're all on the same team here and regardless of whatever the rules and bylaws state in the department's constitution and bylaws as it relates to fundraisers and in particularly Golden Corral Military Appreciation Monday events, we're all on the same team and we have to realize that what we're doing as a chapter as individuals is benefiting DAB at all levels, whether that's at the chapter level, at the department level. None of the proceeds from Golden Corral Military Appreciation Monday funneled their way up to the national organization. And I mention that because a lot of people, throughout of course the year I get a lot of telephone calls or I attend meetings and I generally hear the comment that funds for whatever reason at some point have to flow up in a portion of fundraisers go to the national organization. And that's absolutely not the case at all. As a matter of fact, DAB is very unique as it's related to other veterans service organizations. Funds do not go up in DAB but rather funds go down in DAB. Fundraising opportunities and fundraising activities, I'm sure many of which that Brian will discuss here shortly. We'll get into how those funds trickle down to departments to help operate service programs in your communities. Of course we also have our membership dues per capita distributions. Those are for service programs for chapters and departments. And those are funds that are based upon the size of your organization. And for every member that your chapter has, you get a dollar amount a couple times a year to, based upon the size of your membership, to help you operate your service programs locally. One of the things that if you were at the business session this morning, or if you were at the National Executive Committee and the Board of Directors meeting on Friday, you will have noticed that the General Life Fund for the membership fund is declining, is depleting, that fund is losing money. And of course that fund needs to be replenished because that money comes directly back to departments and chapters to operate its service programs in the community. So that was the reason if you were in the session this morning there was a resolution that was proposed that was going to increase the amount of life membership to a flat amount of $300 for every member regardless of age, with the exception of those that are 80 and over, of which those will still be offered for free. That will stabilize the life membership fund and allow that life membership fund to continue to make those disbursements to chapters and departments to fulfill its obligation in providing service programs in the community. Approved fundraisers at the chapter and department level, of course we have many chapters, we have many departments that get very creative in their fundraising activities in the community. A lot of chapters, a lot of departments host golf tournaments. A lot of chapters, a lot of departments have raffles, they raffle off certain events. I can tell you that there are a lot of chapters that purchase four-wheel drive, all-terrain vehicles, some of them even purchase cars at a discounted rate and so raffle tickets that have been proven to be great fundraising programs for chapters and departments. But the key takeaway here is that obviously any fundraising activity, with the exception of Golden Crown Military Appreciation Monday, and don't forget me, not drives, must be pre-approved by the department executive committee if it's a chapter intended fundraiser. And in turn, any department fundraiser at the state level would need to meet the prior approval of the national executive committee prior to the implementation of that program. One of the things that, as a bullet underneath that item, talks about the use of DAB's name and logo associated with fundraisers. Just because an entity, whether it be a chapter or department, gets the approval of the appropriate governing body to host a fundraiser, does not extend the approval of that chapter or the department. So it's important to authorize a third party the use of DAB's name or logo, both of which are trademarked. If you're working with another entity such as a golf course, if you're doing a golf tournament, and there's going to be the opportunity for the DAB seal or logo to be associated with banners in the communities promoting the golf tournament, any usage of the DAB seal or logo for the purposes of fundraising must meet with the prior approval of the national executive committee. So even though it may be a chapter sanction fundraiser, which would require the approval of the department, if the logo or the seal is going to be used in conjunction with that or planned to be approved or planned to be used in conjunction with that, the national executive committee would also need to approve that proposed fundraiser in the use of the seal or logo. Online solicitations. This has been a hot button topic over the last many years, of course, with everything being online, everybody being on Facebook and Twitter and GoFundMe. We have to realize that as DAB chapters and state departments, we're only permitted to operate in our chartered territory. And our chartered territory is very specific if we're a chapter to the city that we operate in where we're chartered. If we are a department, we are only permitted to operate and raise funds in the state that we are in. By virtue of allowing fundraising to be conducted online, you are by far exceeding your chartered territory because now you are soliciting and receding donations from all over the country. The only entity that is permitted to conduct any online fundraising activity, obviously, is the national organization because as a national organization we're responsible. We have the chartered territory of the entire United States. And if you saw the Board of Directors report, and then also Barry Jezanowski's report this morning, the session, 87 cents of every dollar that we bring in at the national level is directly spent on free programs of service to ill and injured veterans. So we have to make sure that, and we've identified a few chapters across country, a few departments that have had online donation buttons associated with their home page or their web page or on their Facebook page or on GoFundMe. When we identify those, we obviously immediately contact the chapter of the department and require that they remove those because that's a violation of the bylaws. The bylaws only allow a chapter or an apartment to conduct operations and raise funds in their chartered territory only. Of course, we also have the opportunity to be the recipient of grants. There's absolutely, positively nothing wrong with a chapter or an apartment to solicit grants from businesses in your communities. The only thing that may not be done is for a chapter or a department to solicit a grant from a large national corporation. And again, because now you are soliciting funds far outside of your chartered territory. A prime example that I use most typically is Walmart. Of course, Walmart's a big national brand, right? But they do have local stores. And those local stores are provided with funds from their corporate headquarters to support nonprofit organizations and good causes in their community. So if you have a Walmart in your community, there's nothing wrong with your chapter going to that store and applying for a grant from that store specifically. But you can in no way solicit and request a grant from Walmart's headquarters, which is in Bentonville, Arkansas. Everything that we do, we have to operate in our own little sandbox there. And of course, from time to time, we're all surprised and blessed to be able to fortunately get a request from a member in our chapter or a community resident that recognizes the good doings of DAB. And they have left a gift to DAB chapter. So those are typically all of the methods of fundraising for chapters and departments that we typically see. When we get our funds, obviously, we have to do everything in our power to protect the assets from theft or conversion. Now, obviously, we're all veterans. We're all disabled veterans. I would like to think that we all have a very high level of integrity, and we always want to do what's right. Unfortunately, we have had some instances throughout the last many years. Some of them do make the news, and we encourage where theft is identified for those entities to pursue criminal charges with the local authorities. Because we certainly want to make sure that the community understands and sees that if we find somebody within an organization doing something improper with funds, that we're going to hold them accountable. And it's far better for us to identify it, bring it to the attention of the authorities, and bring charges against those individuals rather than an outside individual identifying it. And then it gives the appearance of one, DAB doesn't even know where its money is going, or two, DAB was fully aware of this, condoned it, and now they're trying to cover it up. So anytime that we do identify it, we certainly strongly encourage and in many cases require that they report that theft to the authorities final report and ask that criminal charges be pursued against an individual. Any and all cash that we receive as an organization, we must maintain in FDIC accounts at a bank, federal credit union. We can't have large amounts of cash being stored in a safe, somebody's home, or at a chapter building if you do have a chapter building. So all of our assets have to go into an FDIC insured bank account of some sort. Any property that the chapter owns or is gifted, whether that be land, buildings, equipment, must be titled solely in the name of that DAB entity. There can be no shared deeds. We had historically in the past identified and we've had since resolved the issues where back in the 1950s or 60s, a DAB chapter in conjunction with the VFW posts or American Legion posts decided that they were going to bring their funds together by a building and then each would be listed as an owner of the building, a co-owner. Those always lead to problems and that was never permitted within DAB's bylaws simply because we have to ensure that any and all property that we have is titled solely in DAB's name to prevent any mismanagement of property, any theft of property. And so with that being said, we always need to make sure that anything that we get, we can't title property or automobiles in the name of an individual such as a commander. Anything and everything's got to be titled solely in the name of the DAB entity. One thing that we really strongly encourage is the purchase of a D&O policy for chapters and departments. A D&O policy is basically a policy that will protect the chapter from theft or conversion of funds, embezzlement of funds by an officer. If they so decided that they wanted to drain the bank account of the chapter, a D&O policy would be helpful in terms of recovering funds that were otherwise stolen from the chapter by way of the insurance company. Granted, there is a provision within DAB's bylaws that would indemnify a chapter or a department up to $100,000 in the event of a loss and in the event that they did not have a D&O policy in place to cover that. However, I've got to tell you, there are a lot of hoops to jump through. There are a lot of requirements that have to be met before the national organization will even consider reimbursing a chapter or a department for a loss up to that $100,000 amount. There's got to be criminal charges brought. There's got to be a civil lawsuit filed in the event of criminal charges not being brought by the authorities. Every opportunity has to be taken by the department or the chapter to try to collect anything that was lost by way of either a settlement or a judgment against the individual that stole the funds. So a D&O policy is very inexpensive and is a much easier method of protecting the assets of the organization and getting those funds back in the event of something going wrong. It's also our obligation to ensure that our treasurers have a very strict accounting of expenses and disbursements of the organization. And when we talk about expenses and disbursements of the organization, we're talking about donations that are being made by the chapter or the department to VA medical centers to homeless and needy veteran programs in our communities. We need to know where our money is going as an organization. It's our fiduciary responsibility, whether we're the treasurer or an officer of the chapter, but just as a general member. When we go to a chapter meeting, we should fully understand what our chapter has spent during the course of the month, where those funds went, who they went to. So one of the things also that, as I mentioned in the very beginning, disbursements of funds from DAB entities really ought to be spent on supporting DAB's chartered purpose and not making other general donations to other nonprofit organizations. An example that I, that doesn't mean that we cannot make a donation or support a program financially that is being operated and conducted by another nonprofit organization. We just simply cannot make a check, a blank check, or not a blank check, but make a check payable to another organization to help support their general operating expenses. If another nonprofit organization is hosting a stand down for homeless veterans and they come to DAB, the chapter or the department asking for financial assistance to help host that program, there's absolutely nothing wrong with the chapter or department providing funding to help support that. Because at the end of the day, that disbursement that we're making by the DAB chapter or the department, we can justify to our donors that is being spent on our federally chartered purpose of providing services to ill and injured veterans and their families. We have seen, unfortunately, instances where many DAB chapters, maybe in one chapter, are also dual members of another veterans organization, Legion VFW or some other organization. And perhaps that other organization is not doing so well financially. They've fallen upon hard times or, you know, they had a significant repair that they needed to make to their building. So, you know, they come up with this grand idea that we as American Legion members or VFW members or any other organization members, we know DAB has a lot of money. And so we're also members of DAD, so we're going to go to the next DAD chapter meeting. We're going to propose a motion that we make a donation to our other organization to help pay for our roof or our flood damage or whatever the case might be. That's absolutely a conflict of interest. It's an inappropriate expenditure of DAD resources. And I could almost guarantee you that if the general public in your area found out that that were taking place, funding and support of DAD would go away. Because again, as I mentioned at the beginning, funds given to us by the general public is their fund, it's their money. They've just given it to us to be good stewards of it and to support DAD's programs. If they wanted their donation to go to another organization, they would have certainly given their donation to that organization. So it's very, very important that we're good stewards of our donor's money to ensure that it's being used to fulfill our chartered purpose. Just a touch briefly on Indian Financial Reporting. I know that many of you had the opportunity a couple of weeks ago to log in and participate on a webinar that I conducted in terms of a properly completed annual financial report. We also, at the end of that webinar, we recorded it and immediately placed it on our YouTube channel. So if you're a treasurer of a chapter or a department or if you're a commander, any officer, leader of the chapter, I strongly encourage you to go to our YouTube page and take a look at that. It's an hour-long presentation and there's a lot of information in there that will certainly help you as a leader, as a treasurer of your chapter properly complete and fill out your annual financial report so that once you submit it, you know that it's actually everything is in the right category, everything is in the right order, and you're not going to get a letter back from the national organization saying that it's incorrect, unacceptable, and you've got to do it again. So with the annual financial report, obviously, we need to make sure that we have a complete accounting of all funding. We'll have time for a question and answers at the end. I'm sorry, I apologize. And I see many of you taking photos of the screen at the end of my presentation. My email address will be up there. So if you would like copies of this presentation and the slides, whenever my email address pops up, just jot it down, send me an email, and whenever I get back next week, I'd be more than happy to share a copy of the slides with you. So you don't have to look through your pictures. We've got to have a complete accounting of where all of our funding is coming from in terms of a chapter or as a department. We also have to have a complete accounting of all the expenditures and distributions that we make as a chapter or department because we need to know as a chapter how much are we spending on service programs, how much money are we spending on other expenses, how much money are we spending on conventions and seminars. Because, of course, that's one of the requirements of the annual financial report. That's one of the key items that you're asked to break down. So we need to understand and know where all of our funding is going. It'll make life so much easier at the end of the accounting period for the treasurer to complete that annual financial report. And, of course, proper record keeping and documentation throughout the course of the year and staying on top of that throughout the course of the year makes it so much easier when June 30th rolls around that treasurer and the other officers in the audit committee of the chapter or the department can start working on that annual financial report rather than coming to the realization that, oh my gosh, it's June 30th. It's the end of the financial reporting period. We have to have our annual financial report completed by September 30th. Let's go back through all of our records, compile everything, see what we've done, see where all of our money went. If we continue to maintain that throughout the course of the year, it should be a very simple process. When June 30 hits, you can simply start to complete that annual financial report. You have all your receipts, you have all your documents, all your supporting documentation, your bank statements ready to initiate the completion of the annual financial report and have it in on time. And again, those are always due September 30th. And again, I can't emphasize this enough. I mean, as I mentioned earlier at the national organization, 87 cents of every dollar that comes in is spent on free programs of service to disabled veterans, ill and injured veterans and their families. So we really, really, really need to focus on ensuring that our service expenditures really should be supporting our DSO, CSO programs, the DAB Transportation Network Program, VA voluntary services programs versus contributions made to other organizations. If a chapter or a department is delinquent in filing its annual financial report, and as I mentioned, those are due September 30th of each year, there obviously are consequences. Now, we're not sticklers on that deadline. If you contact us in the middle of September and say, hey, we're having some difficulty compiling our financial report or getting records, we have an extension. We absolutely will do that all day long. As long as we know you're working on it and just not dragging your feet on it, we will certainly grant extensions. However, it's very important to keep in mind that if your department or your chapter submits a grant request to the Columbia Trust to help support a program that you're operating, whether it be your HSC program, whether it's to support and help pay for a van that you want to utilize for your DAB Transportation Network, the Columbia Trust cannot consider a grant application until they know the financial position of the chapter or the department. And so if we don't have your annual financial report whenever it's time to order vans or at the time that you request a grant from the Columbia Trust to support your HSC program, obviously those grants will be delayed because we have to have those annual financial reports to have a current understanding of the financial picture of the chapter or the department. And obviously, as we all know, DAB chapters, DAB departments are all a part of the parent organization, the national organization. All of our charters are issued by the National Executive Committee. All of our departments, all of our chapters fall under our IRS issued group exemption number. And because of that, it's the parent's responsibility, or in this case the national organization's responsibility to have an understanding of what chapters and departments are doing, which is the primary purpose for the completion of annual financial reports. So we, you know, a lot of people say, well, why do we have to provide these financial reports to the national organization? Why are you so interested in what we're doing? It's not, for a couple of reasons. It's not so much that, you know, we're micromanaging you, but A, we have a fiduciary responsibility, the Internal Revenue Service, to ensure that what our chapters and departments are doing is in line with our federally chartered purpose. But it's also to ensure that DAB's free programs of service to ill injured veterans in the community are being fulfilled. And that's the only way that we can identify that is by way of a re-using annual financial report. One of the things that I talked about earlier about, you know, purchasing a DNO policy and having a method to collect funds from someone who might have stolen, embezzled, or misappropriated monies of your chapter or department kind of leads me to my final point that I want to talk about today. And that's our responsibility as DAB members to, and leaders at the chapter level and at the department level, to properly vet those officers, those leaders in our chapters and departments that are wishing to run for office. I'll give you a couple of good examples. If we know that John Smith, there are no John Smiths in the room, are there? Okay, just because I use that very generically all the time. And I've offended to John Smith or two as well. John Smith decides that he wants to run for treasurer of the DAB chapter and unbeknownst to the members of the chapter, John Smith just got out of prison two years ago for embezzlement, for larceny, bank robbery, whatever the case may be. We certainly would not want the individual in charge of our finances and responsible for our finances, right? I know I wouldn't want to be in charge of my checkbook. We have also had instances where we have had commanders, whether they be chapter commanders, department commanders, who have a history associated with them that if it were known to the general public would not cast a very positive light on DAB. Now, within DAB national headquarters we kind of use the term crimes of moral turpitude. So when we are vetting our candidates for chapter offices, department offices, we certainly, we discourage you from doing a background check on people because we're not going to get down into the weeds in terms of those very small things that may have happened to somebody, you know, 50 years ago when they were in the military and maybe had one or two beers, too many, and got in a bar fight. And, you know, it was a precedent for disorderly conduct, something like that. But a very simple Google search of an individual's name, if there's something that is absolutely embarrassing, severe, drastic, it's certainly going to be identified by a simple Google search. Crimes such as obviously rape, child molestation, things of that nature. Those are the real things that we really, as an organization, need to be aware of in terms of those individuals who are seeking an office within our chapter or department. We certainly cannot have someone like that out there representing themselves as a commander of a chapter, and then all of a sudden someone finds out and realizes, well, that's John Smith. John just got out of prison. He's a sexual offender. As a matter of fact, he's on the sexual offender registry. Unfortunately, we've had that over the last many years. And, of course, the Department Executive Committee didn't have any idea of it at the time, but at the time that it was identified, they were already elected, so they had to take action to remove them from those positions. So due diligence goes a long way prior to elections at all levels to do a little bit of vetting of those candidates to ensure that we don't find ourselves as an organization at any level with leaders that may have a past that would not reflect very kindly on DAD. So as promised, that's going to wrap up my portion. Of course, we're going to have time for Q&A at the end, but I know that Brian has some information to share. He's got a flight that he has to be on here shortly, so we need to end properly at four. So I want to make sure that he has time to present his remarks and that we both have time for a little bit of Q&A. But my e-mail address is there at the bottom. It's E-Hartman-H-A-R-T-M-A-N at DAV.org. If you'd like a copy of these slides, whenever you get back, certainly just shoot me an e-mail. I'll be more than happy to provide that to you once I get back next week. At this time, I'm going to turn it over to Brian. We're going to make a little transition here. And following his remarks, then, of course, we do have a microphone down here at the very front. So whenever he's finished, if you have questions for he or I, as long as time permits up until four o'clock, we'll be more than happy to entertain those. Let me try to click over here and get out of this here. Good afternoon, everyone. It does seem loud up here. Can everyone hear me? Wow. It's like having yourself talk back to yourself. Good afternoon. I'm glad so many of you did decide to come out to our session and are sticking around. I'm so late in the afternoon. I know it's tough to keep everyone awake this late in the afternoon after lunch. I thought I might be in a fundraiser. I thought I might do a fundraiser. And if I saw someone yawning, I'd come by and collect a dollar. But I checked with Ed and he said that wasn't in our bylaws. So he doesn't let me do things either. So you guys aren't the only ones. He doesn't let do things from time to time. So I'm going to try to go through my slides fairly quickly to leave time for questions. I know you guys often have a lot of questions more for Ed than me, which is fine. But I'll try to go through these somewhat fast. Today I'm going to touch on our vehicle donation program, how that impacts you, our Just Be Kids program. Try it for your community, which is a Ford program and some new initiatives we're working on. But one of the things I didn't have in my agenda to talk about that I wanted to start with, because Ed had mentioned about how funds trickle down from national. One of the things I know you probably heard and saw today in the joint opening session is how many great corporate partners we have more and more who are giving to DAV. Those corporate partnerships that do those cause marketing campaigns, where they're raising money from their customers. I believe you all know that 25% of those funds do go back to the departments. So as though that revenue continues to grow, that money does go back to the departments. I often get questions or calls though about, well, how can I work with a particular company in my backyard? Is it okay for me to go after a business? And the answer to that is, it's a little yes and no. If it's a single entity owned operation, it's not a regional or a national chain of some sort, we have no problems with you reaching out to them if it's just a single local restaurant of some sort and getting your proper approvals. It's more when it's a regional or it's a national owned entity where it's multiple stores that may be doing something to support you that we would like to at least have you all reach out to us just to make sure we may be already having a relationship with that particular business that you may not be aware of or in negotiations with the particular business that you may not be aware of. So we would just ask that you reach out to myself and someone in fundraising to check with us when it's a, as I said, a regional or national. But if it's just a local pizza shop in your neighborhood and that's all they own, go for it. We're perfectly, perfectly fine, fine with you all doing so. But this year we're probably going to have about a half a million dollars almost from our corporate partnerships come back down to the departments and chapters which we're really, really happy about. So, whoa. Talking about our vehicle donation program, this launched three years ago, our national car donation program. It's doing extremely well. In those three years we've had about 2,200 cars donated an average amount of about $400 and we've raised already this year a million dollars. We will be close to probably $1.7 million this year raised. 25% of those funds do go back to the departments as well. So some departments, as you see here's our list of our top 20 states, California and Minnesota, probably over $50,000 is going back to the departments from those chapters, I mean from those donations. Virginia, Maryland, Texas, New York, it's probably going to be close to $25,000 that are going back from this particular program. You can see here's some of the typical cars that are donated. If you're curious, Ford is at the top, Toyota, Honda, Chevy's. What's interesting is it's not a surprise that Mercedes and maybe Lexus are at the high end of the dollar amount, but Jeep is right up there as well, which I'm not quite sure why Jeeps are valued so high, but they're up there as well. A lot of times people think the cars that are donated are ones that don't run. They're sort of the junk pile cars, but that's not necessarily true. Almost half of the cars that are donated to us is because somebody doesn't want to trade it in and instead wants to give it to us instead of trading it in. So around probably 49% of that fits in that category, although a lot still do fall into the category of I don't want to fix it or it's not running as well. We have a toolkit online. If you'd like to join us in marketing the program, we do market the program, but we encourage you to do so as well. It's an easy way for people in the community to support DAV and the more cars that are donated, the more that comes back to your departments. We have a toolkit online with flyers and email templates and graphics and promotional items that you can use to promote the program. So we encourage you to join us in doing so and certainly it'll pay dividends in terms of revenue trickles back down to the departments. Just Be Kids. I think you guys are all familiar with Just Be Kids. It's a program that we created about four years ago to help provide scholarships to the children at Camp Corral. When we started this, you guys were actually doing this long before National got involved in raising funds. The challenge was that we had no way to account for those funds being raised and in order to fall within our bylaws, which says all funds must go back to DAV in supporting its mission, we created this scholarship so that the funds could come to DAV and then we dispersed them back out to Camp Corral. So when we started this, National was matching about $100,000 a year in the funds that you raised. That has now increased to $300,000 that National is matching from the funds that you raised. So the first $300,000 raised is matched by National headquarters. In order for us to do that though, in order to track those funds, match those funds, give you recognition, you must use this form, which you can find online as part of the Just Be Kids toolkit in your membership portal. This form is online and you can fill it out and put your chapter information or department information when you raise funds, how much you raised. If you raise funds with a Golden Cloud store, which many of you do, you can put the store information on here for how much you raised with that particular store and then we can track that information to make sure that those stores get the proper credit. I know Golden Cloud stores have competitions so they're very competitive and they want to know how much you are helping to raise for them and so we give this information back to Golden Cloud on a monthly basis but we're only able to do so if you use this form. If you are fundraising for Just Be Kids, you must send the money into National headquarters. Do not give it to the Golden Cloud stores so that we can track those funds. As I've mentioned about the toolkit, there is a bucket that you can order to collect the funds. We have Just Be Kids brochures and materials, so as you're doing fundraisers you can hand out information about the Daily Just Be Kids scholarship and it's branded so you can go out there and order these materials that are out there now and I know I think this year literally we had about 100 different chapters ordered buckets so if you're not aware of those, please take advantage of that and you can use those. As you heard, I think the other day this year, does anybody know how much we donated to Camp Corral? I have an idea. We donated $840,000 this year to Camp Corral from your efforts so that's phenomenal and you guys should feel very, very proud of that. I know Camp Corral is really appreciative of it and here's all the chapters and departments and individuals that played a role in that. If you don't see your chapter name up there, let me know because it may be because we didn't receive your form. We will send this out so don't feel like you have to take a picture but once you get this, if you don't see your chapter up there, please let me know because it means that we did not have a record of your funds being received by national headquarters. The other program I want to mention is the Ford Drive for your community program we've been doing with them this for several years. I believe many of you are aware this is a great, easy way to raise money for your chapters or departments. Through this program, all you have to do is go to a local Ford dealer and say I would like for you to be a drive for your community fundraiser for me and they most likely know what that, they should know what that means and pick a date and they'll say yes, I'll do that and on that particular day, anyone who test drives a car, the chapter department will receive $20 for that test drive. So you literally could ask friends and families on that particular day to all come out and test drive, they don't have to buy a car, they'll have to use test drive a car and they'll raise $20, up to $6,000 on any particular day. This is a really, really easy way to raise a significant amount of money and still we're not finding too many departments or chapters that are taking advantage of this. But there's also a toolkit for this online which walks you through the process. Once you do sign up, we have banners, we have flyers that you can use, again email templates, digital banners to promote the program and again, all you have to do is get your Ford dealer to buy in, they'll go online and fill out the proper application and then there's an application online for you to fill out as part of the toolkit that you'll send back into DAV. To date, we've only had 11 departments participate in this program. On average, they're raising almost $4,000, but we would like to see so many more DAV departments and chapters use this program. It does book up fast for the next year, like a lot of different, they open this up to a whole lot of different organizations and it books up fast for the next year. So almost now, if you wanted to do this, you'd have to sign up with a Ford dealer now for next year. So if you're interested, please reach out to us if you have more questions or just go straight to a Ford dealer and have them participate in this program. This is what the membership portal page looks like that has the toolkits for draft your community, the vehicle donation toolkit, and Just Be Kids. I have to go into the membership portal online and download those various toolkits. Last but not least, we have a couple of new initiatives that we're working on. I want to give you a heads up on it. I know we're all getting ready and excited about DAV Centennial, so we're going to have a Donate Your Birthday program in honor of DAV's birthday, where people next year can, instead of asking friends and family members for gifts, they can have them donate to DAV. They can just go online and send out an email to their friends and family members. It's a way to share it on Facebook and ask them to donate to DAV in honor of its birthday and out of your birthday and DAV's birthday. We hope to have this launched in the next couple of months. You can see the website here, www.dave.org, slash birthday. Many of you probably picked up some information from our booth, but you'll hear more about this, but just keep in mind as you have your birthday next year that you can use your birthday as a way to help raise funds for DAV for its Centennial celebration. And last but not least, given the success of our vehicle donation program, we're looking to start a clothing recycling program and you can see the statistics here that people throw away about 68 pounds of clothes a year, which 85% goes in the trash. And so we're going to start a program which will allow people, it's called Curbside Pickup, where people can literally put their clothes out in front of their door and we will pick it up and recycle it. I know there's some departments, chapters that already have recycle clothing recycling programs. We certainly do not plan to impede on those existing programs in any shape, fashion, or form. But in the areas where this is appropriate across the country, we will be launching this, which we're excited about, and marketing this. And again, 25% of the proceeds from this will also go back to the department. So you will be hearing more about this in the coming months. We plan to launch this hopefully before the end of the year in our Cincinnati area and begin expanding it, but given the success of our vehicle donation program, we think this is going to be successful. Also, for those of you who currently have clothing recycling programs, the partner that we're working with is really, really good about coming up with new ways to help maximize maybe the returns you have from those clothes that you collect. If you'd like maybe some other ideas and how you might be able to leverage those clothes that you're picking up further, reach out to me and maybe we can chat about how they can help you with those endeavors as well. And that's my presentation. So I think we have time for some questions. And thank you guys for all that you do. I can tell you the reason we're growing and our corporate partnerships are growing, we hear this time and time again, is because all of the good things that you guys are doing in the community, and that's why they want to partner with DEV. So thank you for all that you're doing as well. And now we will open it up for questions. If you have a question, can you please just walk up to the microphone and use the microphone up here so everybody can hear you? Thank you. Deb Olson Department, is it on? Can you hear me? Okay. Okay. Deb Olson Department of Massachusetts, two questions. Number one is if you get, like Home Depot and Lowe's, if you need to embrace a ramp on your building, they will come out and help build that. That's a donation of like-kind money. They don't give you cash. Can you still do that? They don't give you cash. They come out and they help build the thing. Right. Yes, absolutely. And of course, much like Walmart, Home Depot and Lowe's, their corporate headquarters provides a certain amount of funding to each of its stores to do such operations. So you're right. It's a value to your chapter. That in-kind donation should be reflected under other income. And so it might be $5,000 worth of supplies to help build a ramp for the chapter. Okay. And my second question is with the change in the bylaw, which I'm going to assume is going to take place this weekend before we leave, we go from 10 to 25,000 reporting to National, is that can take place this fiscal year or will it be next fiscal year? No, it will be next fiscal year. Now, I'm glad that you mentioned that, Deb, because that department or chapters are still going to be, all chapters are still going to be required to provide a financial report to their department. That being said, it's the responsibility of the department to evaluate and review those annual financial reports very, very thoroughly. Those that will continue to come to National, we will review those as well. The reason I was asking that is to make sure that we had more than one department inspector to review, well, end their deputies to review them and make sure that they get up and they know what they need to review. Thank you, Deb. I have some questions for Ed. Jim Yale, Chapter 20, Department of Mutile. Went back to a little confused on the discussion we had about participation with other nonprofit organizations. In the recent past, our chapters have been involved or been invited to participate with other service, veteran service organizations to help host a picnic, if you will, to provide funds for the food and tableware and so on and so forth. And also we have been invited to set up our own table, of course, for promotion of the DAV membership, sharing information to the veterans in the community, what benefits are available and so on, as chapter service options would be there available. That's the first question. Okay, but let me answer that before you move on to the next one. So as I mentioned, there's nothing wrong with making a donation to another nonprofit organization so long as we can justify that that donation is being used to further support our federally chartered program of providing free programs of services to ill-injured veterans. That, to me, would be appropriate. If your chapter feels that it could be justified to the public, that's absolutely fine. The one thing that we can't do, as I mentioned, is just make general, broad donations to another nonprofit organization just for them to operate their programs. Yeah, I understood. And the money would be strictly used for the purchase of food to feed the veterans and their family. Certainly fine. That would come to the event. Okay. Because there were several organizations there that offer their services to the veterans in the community as well. Understand. So that's the first question. The second one, in that same event, we would set up our own table, for example. We often will have our own t-shirts, hats, and so on and so forth that we use for funding or charity drive, which we've already had approved from the department, to do that. And then, of course, it goes back to the veterans in the community. And under that same umbrella hospice, we don't want to give the public the idea that we're in strictly supporting this other organization by doing so. So what's your take on that? Well, as long as you have your own separate table, that table is solely DAB. I don't think that there should be any confusion by the general public that you're there supporting everybody else because it's very evident and very clear that you're there representing DAB. So I think you're fine with that as well. Okay. Thank you. You're welcome. Good questions. Stangenow, Chapter 2, Department of Washington. Two questions. One, funds in an FDIC account. My understanding is Charles Schwab, Edward Jones, things like that. My understanding, they were not FDIC accounts. Well, those are investments. So we're talking about the liquid-ready assets that are available to the chapter, such as a checking account, savings account. So long-term investments were okay. Right. So long-term investments are certainly fine, obviously, because they're not going to ensure a loss, right? Correct. The other question dealt with vetting of new officers or potential officers. Are we going to get into any kind of trouble on a personal basis with rumors getting out and things like that? Example, I know there have been officers in the past or members in the past who have ran for office who have had convictions for things that you really wouldn't want them to be officers for. Right. How do you kind of stop that from happening because they may be nominated off the floor? And then what do you do? Well, it's a matter of making the, if someone is nominated off the floor, it's a matter of us making the membership aware of that issue. Now, there should not be any fear of retaliation or lawsuits, because, again, criminal records are public records, right? Correct. So if it's a matter of public record, there should be no fear of retaliation or a lawsuit that, you know, hey, Stan exposed the fact that I'm a child molester and I can't become the chaplain now. I thought you were going to call me a child molester. No. Thank you. You're welcome, Stan. Hi. I'm the remains treasurer at Chapter 12 of Montgomery, Alabama. On the annual financial report, every year I've gotten an envelope with the report with the different color sheets. For this year, I've received a computerized from e-mail where I can actually use the e-mail. Is that okay to use that report? Absolutely, yes. So you've received that from the national organization. That's certainly fine. You don't have to wait to receive that mailing each year with the paper, annual financial report. You can certainly complete and submit your annual financial report online electronically. Okay. Thank you. You're welcome. Dominic Filiponi, Chapter 11, Florida. You may have just answered this, but basically you mentioned a lot of different forms going on. I was wondering if those are, can we do those, download them electrically, but also send them back electrically? Yes, absolutely. And as a matter of fact, they're, they're fillable online. So once you access them online, you can fill them and then submit them to the membership department for the review of those annual financial reports. And with the funds, if we have a check, can we send that check electronically to deposit directly or anything like that or no? Well, let me ask you, why would you be sending, are you talking about funds for like just be kids? Yes. Okay. I'm not sure. Yeah, how would you do that? There's a, yes. On the form at the bottom, there's an address and an accounting, it goes to our accounting department. So yes, you can just stick it in an envelope to that address. I wouldn't do cash. You can sit and check though. Yeah. No, instead of a check, like, you know, we could, electronic transfer. Electronic transfer. Transfer the funds. Like we'll get the cash from the bank when we cash the cash. And we can take that. Just reach out to me and I can walk you through. We can certainly do that. Thank you, sir. Walter Bell, Nashville, Tennessee, Chapter 3. I went to a four dealership and, okay, I went to a four dealership in Nashville and they said they didn't, they had no idea what I was talking about. Is there a form that I need to take? How do I follow up on it? Whenever you, we do hear that from time to time and every four dealer is able to participate. If you ever run into that, please let me know and I'll get you and I'll forward it on to the appropriate Ford contact to make sure that they reach out to their dealership and inform them that they are misinformed. So just let me, just let me know. Because every four dealer is able to participate in the program. Good afternoon. My name is Ernest Davis. I'm the commander of Chapter 7 in Jacksonville, Florida. And fairly new as far as being the commander again. Do we, can we use check cards from our Navy Federal instead of using these painful checks and try to get things going? I'm not from a new age. I guess, you know, kind of young here. I hope I am. But I'm trying to get with the times to make things happen. Yeah. And you know what? That's a question, that's a good question. And that's a question that comes up each and every year at this seminar. And our answer is this. We highly discourage the use of debit cards and credit cards at the chapter level for many number of reasons. As we all know that typically within our chapters constitution and bylaws, any disbursement of funds requires two signatures. And so by virtue of having a debit card or a credit card, you're essentially forgoing that and allowing one person, the sole authority to make a disbursement or expense on behalf of the organization. Now, nothing in our bylaws say that a chapter, a department, cannot have credit cards. Nowhere is that said. But we do certainly strongly discourage it because in those instances where we have identified that it has typically been by way of a commander or a treasurer that has had a debit card or a credit card in the name of the chapter that has absolutely drained them dry without any knowledge of the membership. So if a chapter or department does wish to employ or implement a debit or credit card program, there have to be very proper checks and balances on a monthly basis. That means that if an expense is incurred and paid for by a debit card or credit card, a receipt needs to accompany that to validate the expenditure with the treasurer and with the body each and every month. But it's the discretion of the body, but it's highly discouraged. Okay, and one other question, too, is that I'm very involved in marketing as well. And when I'm out there talking to different companies or have you, and I think, I know you have a partnership, I see that, but for instance, just my little chapter, I have a company that actually pays for the donuts to coffee and stuff like that. And in exchange, I like to maybe give the flyer out or give our service officers the squeeze balls or stress balls or pencils or whatever else. Is that appropriate? Can we do that? If they're actually paying for the recognition when I have my service officers and we fill out the claim to actually get them a back scratcher. Absolutely. Yeah, recognition is always good. And of course, people will continue to support DAB with some recognition, so absolutely positively. That's all I need to make sure. Thank you very much for your time. Thank you. Appreciate it. Hi, Mike Fial from Victoria, Texas, Chapter 169 on the Senior Vice Commander. Two questions. One, you were saying about the use of the logo. Is just the letters DAB, is that registered? Or is it the colors black, black, and green registered? The acronym DAB, the name disabled American veterans, the seal, which is the Lady Columbia, the oval seal, and the block DAB, the green and gray that we typically see, those are trademarked. So if I go to a company and they say, we're going to put a flyer out for you, and they put DAB in red, white, and blue, that's not allowed. That's not allowed. That's correct. Now, I mean, it's allowed as long as you get the approval from us that says, hey, we've got this company that really wants to do a fundraiser for us, or we're working with them to do a fundraiser, and this is the flyer that they propose to use. Okay. As long as you get NEC approval, that's certainly fine. Now, we would not approve a red, white, and blue DAB logo. Now, a way to get around that is without the particular specific use of DAB's name, logo, and even our trademarks. If a company wanted to do that with the intent that the proceeds go into your chapter, they can simply say proceeds that are spent are going to benefit disabled veterans in our area. Okay. That's pretty much what we're doing. Yeah. Okay. Okay. Question number two. USAA is a big sponsor for 5Ks every year. Now, they've knocked it down to 1.5K in Cincinnati, Ohio. I really don't like that because I've always enjoyed walking them. We in Victoria, as our chapter, we want to do a fundraiser for 5K there and it's not going to be real big because we're just there in Victoria County in Victoria. I talked to the USA reps there yesterday and they said, yes, contact us and maybe we can help you get some finances. The closest USAA subsidy there is in San Antonio, which is like two hours away. Would I be able to do that or not? No. Probably not. They are the presenting sponsor of our national program. They also sponsored the Winter Sports Clinic and some other things. Without knowing more of the details, I would say, no, if there's some sort of USAA local entity, which I don't think there is, but if there's some local entity of USAA that wanted to support you, yes, but anything affiliated with the national organization. That's what I'm saying. I couldn't contact the one like the lady I got before. She's here in Florida. She would contact the one in San Antonio and then San Antonio would decide yes or no. San Antonio is their national headquarters. They didn't know that. So when they say they're contacting San Antonio, they're contacting their national headquarters. Well, thank you very much. You're welcome. That's a good, that's a good from chapter 126, right here in Texas. In regards to media solicitations, forgive me not, can't cry, and veteran's appreciation event that we support every year. I advertise on social media. Am I out of bounds there? With the use of social media and fundraising announcements, if you will, like on Facebook or Twitter, if the chapter is hosting or is going to have a forgive me not drive it in front of the Walmart, there's nothing wrong with making a posting on your Facebook page or Twitter account or other social media account saying, hey, DAB chapter 136 is going to be in front of Walmart on Saturday, collecting funds for forgive me not drive, come out and see us and help support DAB. That's certainly fine. So you can announce the event and tell people where to go to support it, but you can't have a method for them to donate online. Right. Very good question. Thank you. Thank you. Dwayne Raimi, chapter 20, Virginia Beach, Virginia. The question about just be kids. In the case, I know you made the statement that don't let Golden Corral send the money. In the cases there, when they've been supporting just be kids and go Corral event, I'm sorry, I can't Corral event, I'm sorry, can't Corral event. They collect, they take all the monies in. That's true. They say really, they actually have all the monies in their possession. We don't have them, so they have to be willing to give it back to us. No. Any monies that we collect in their stores, I say we DAV through our next, the bucket just be kids, comes back to DAV. If they're collecting it at the register, they send it in to them. In the case, when we have the buckets there, but all the monies are left at Golden Corral when we leave for the day. You collect the money and then you... They put the money in the buckets. They put the money in the buckets. The buckets are sealed. And then you're giving it to them at the end of the day? Right, they maintain the money at the end of the day. They're collecting under Camp Corral. No. So they're going in and collecting under Camp Corral. No, he's saying their members are going in under DAV and using our buckets. And then they give the money to Golden Corral at night. Please don't do that. You should... At night, you take any money raised with you. Do not give it to Golden Corral. Okay. You keep it. And then at the end of the campaign, send us one check for the total amount that you raised from your bank account. Do not give that money to Golden Corral. I don't know if you want to rework that. Okay. And just to mention the herb, to expand on that a little bit, obviously, as Brian mentioned in his presentation, Golden Corral has its own nonprofit organization, Camp Corral. Right. And so their stores participate in raising money for that nonprofit organization. Right. Now, there are many chapters and because of the relationships that the Golden Corrals have with DAV, they say, hey, come in and help us raise money for our Camp Corral campaign. Right. And we do that, but we shouldn't be doing that under the banner of DAV. So we shouldn't be wearing DAV apparel in there. We shouldn't be bringing in DAV canisters for that. That's why Brian mentioned we created Just Be Kid. Kid's because we can go in, raise the money under our program, and then we send it off to Golden Corral. Okay. Thank you. All right. Thank you. Norm Crawford, Kokomo, Indiana, Chapter 28, Treasurer. This is a fundraising question. Is there any outlets for fundraising or a building or to purchase land for a chapter? No. Here's the thing. Obviously, I mean, we have a requirement. We have an obligation to spend our money on service programs. So we cannot self-restrict any funds coming into our organization for, per se, a veterans or a building. We have to spend our monies as we bring them in for our service programs. So we can't self-restrict, create a fund solely for a building. We all know that our constitutional bylaws only allow any deity entity to include the national organization to only accumulate no more than three times their prior years annual operating expenses. So if you had operating expenses, all of your expenses last year to your chapter totaled $5,000, just for simple math. You guys can only have $15,000 in the bank at any given time. Whereas if you had this separate account over here for a home that had $60,000 in it and you're trying to build it up and build it up, that would put you in violation of that and you'd get a letter from the national organization saying you're in violation of the bylaws. You got to spend money. But no, we cannot self-restrict funds specifically and solely for a home. Now, if somebody came to the chapter and said, I want to give you this building for you guys to operate, that's certainly fine. You take that all day long. But you can't slowly accumulate self-restrict funds and continue to build money solely for the purchase of the building. There's no separate funding for buildings or purchase land for chapter. Correct. Correct. Thank you. You're welcome. Thank you. Good afternoon, sir. Jeremy Barotta, chapter number two, Clifton Department of New Jersey. Question free earlier, he was speaking about territory and fundraising in territories. So the question I have for you is what does a chapter receives? Let's say a chapter receives a check from a local business that is not specifically maybe in their territories in a neighboring town that might fall another territory, something like that. What does a chapter do with that check? Are they allowed to keep that check? Do they have to send me back? No, you keep it. That's the discretion of the business owner. That's their obligation to determine who they want the money to go to. Now, it would be different if the chapter went out to that entity in another chapter's territory and requested the money, but they didn't. It was a gift. It was a grant. Difference between fundraising where you're making an appeal and making a request for the funds versus just receiving the gift out of the blue. That's certainly fine. So if you're in town X and a business from town Y just sends a check at the end of the year if they're doing it or whatever, you can keep that check even if it's not in your territory. Correct. Thank you very much. Thank you for having me. Dave Russ, Treasurer, Chapter 40, Moving North Carolina. My question is you were talking about the credit card and debit cards. You say you highly recommend not having them. Is department allowed to tell you no, you cannot have them? It depends. If it's outlined in the department's bylaws, then they certainly have the authority because, of course, we have to remember we all have a parent, right? So the chapters have the parent organization of the department. The department is the subordinate unit of the national organization and everybody's underneath. If there's a provision in the department's constitution or bylaws, it says no chapters will have credit or debit cards then they can enforce that. And remember, those constitution and bylaws are approved and adopted by the delegates as a whole throughout the state of North Carolina. So that's the governing chapter in the state of North Carolina. Thank you very much. You're welcome. David Lowe, Senior Vice Commander, Chapter 1 Portland, Oregon. I've got a couple of questions for you. First of all, did I understand you to say that you're limited, that we are limited to forgive me not, drive of seven days per year? That is correct. And that's outlined in our national bylaws. Pretty as I mentioned, it used to be seven consecutive days. So you could only have one forgive me not, drive a year so long as it didn't exceed seven consecutive days. But it's been since amended that would allow you to break it up over the course of the year to cover certain patriotic events and holidays that would allow you to maximize your exposure and your fundraising activities. Second, are we allowed to have more than one drive for your community event? We have two large four dealerships in our area. Are we permitted to have events at both dealerships? Yes. If they both agree to do so? Absolutely. Yep. Thank you very much. Go for it. Yes. We're the Thomas Senior Senior Vice, Chapter 33 of the Tomorrow. I have two questions. First one, we was having a forgive me not drive just a few weeks ago. And there was a guy there, a veteran that owns the business, and I don't, it's not another area where he wanted us to come out and, you know, I guess set up some table representing veterans, I guess, because a lot of veterans, I guess, buy motorcycles and stuff. And if it's not another area, what are we authorized to do at that place? Well, let me ask you, is there another chapter that is in that chartered city? It would be obviously, and again, I always use the term sandbox. We all have to operate on our own little sandbox. So the appropriate thing to do would be to contact that, you know, first and foremost, say thank you very much for the invitation. We do have a chapter that is in Baltimore, just as an example. I'll pass that information along to them and see if they'd be willing to come out and support that. Okay. And if they invited us, we can't. Yes, exactly right. Because you're going to preach some ill will with that other chapter, I promise you. Okay. And the other question is, also at the military base, you know, for me, there's a lot of people, you know, military rap. You know, they don't, I have no cash, I have no, you know, check on that. Is there in a way we can take credit cards? Because a lot of military now, they don't take cash. You know, even when they go buy a photo for 50 cents, they debit card it. Well, of course, that would require the chapter to develop some kind of banking mechanism that would allow for it to accept credit cards. Now, it can't be for the purpose of doing it online. So, if you're familiar with the... Square. The square? Yeah. You know, that's certainly fine, as long as it's a hand-to-hand transaction, and not something that's done over the telephone or online, that's fine. So we could probably use that square with the chapter's money, and then it gets become the property of the chapter? Yep, it goes right in the chapter's account. Okay, but we can buy it with funds from the chapter, though, it's what I'm saying. Oh, yes, yes, yes, I understand what you're saying. Yeah, and again, I must have missed a couple hundred people saying that, you know, so if I throw them offline, hey, no problem. Yeah. Because, you know, you get them easily, too, that's how you get the membership easily, because they can do the credit card. They love it. Right, yeah. They're the options, so that's a good thing to do. Absolutely, yep. All right, so we can do the square, because my commander wasn't sure that we could do it. Yeah. Absolutely. All right, so my question is my district, when you're trying to raise funds for your district, because it seems like we have our hands tied, because I have three states. What is there suggesting, and what will keep us out of jail and out of trouble? Well, first of all, that's a good question, and I know that we've addressed this before, and particularly your district. Districts are not chartered entities of DAD. The only chartered entities of DAD are chapters, departments, and the national organization. So, therefore, the only entity that is permitted to conduct any fundraising activity are those chartered entities. A district is not a chartered entity, so therefore, it cannot conduct any fundraising activities. It cannot maintain a bank account in the name of the district because there's no EIN number associated with it because there's no charter. But understanding what you're saying, so you as the NEC for your district from South Carolina, if you're raising money for a campaign or to help offset the cost of a district meeting, there's nothing wrong with whichever department is going to be hosting the district meeting to ask the other departments in that district for funds to help support an offset the cost associated with the district meetings and then those funds would just go through their bank account at that particular department. But we're supposed to have like a district convention? Well, and you know what? That's a misnomer because the bylaws say that you can host a district meeting through the course of the year. It doesn't say you have to. You can. But if you want to, then obviously the logistics and the scheduling, the contracting with the hotel is all got to be done by you. Okay. So what if a company wanted to sponsor like I say, the Ninth District and they want to donate money to the Ninth District? Then it's got for the purpose of the Ninth District meeting? Yes. Then it's got to be requested by the department that's hosting the conference. So like Motel Beach, right? Your district meetings are typically in Motel Beach. Yeah. So the department of South Carolina would have to make that request, have the money go to them and then also pay out the funds for the purpose of the district meeting. Okay. Thank you for keeping me out of jail. All right. Listen, last question, is your question for me or him? For him. Okay. Real quick. Yes. He's got to run the airport. I'm very bothered from Washington or North Carolina to say your advice. We have three counties around us that doesn't have a DAB chapter in it. And we work out all three counties. We do claims for all three counties. Is there, you know, like if we do a fundraiser, can we do a fundraiser in those counties too? That's actually one for me. So, if there are no chapters in those other counties, obviously you need to get the approval of the department to go into those counties and do those fundraisers. Because again, at the end of the day, you're authorized by way of your charter to operate solely within the chartered area of your, or the area of your charter. If there's no other DAB representation there, the department would have to make the determination whether or not they want your chapter or if there's another chapter that might be more local to that area, the opportunity to do that. So, the answer to your question is, if the department executive committee approves it, you absolutely certainly can. Okay, thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, it's after four o'clock. He's got to run to the airport. I've got to run to another meeting, so I appreciate your participation. And thank you again very much.