X-Message-Number: 2008 Subject: CRYONICS Integrity and the Endowment Fund Date: Mon, 22 Mar 93 16:29:38 EST From: (Feel free to publish this as a letter in Cryonics magazine, if you have space and feel that it is sufficiently interesting. Otherwise please forward it to Steve Bridge.) Dear Steve Bridge, In your article entitled "Where's Alcor's Money?" in the March 1993 Cryonics, you raise the issue of dissolving the endowment fund. I don't have enough information to say whether or not this is a practical way of dealing with the current cash flow problems; for the purposes of this letter, I will suppose it is. I am concerned that if money collected for something called an "endowment fund" is spent on day-to-day expenses, then Alcor will have no credibility when it is time to collect donations for a real endowment fund. I see one straightforward solution to this dilemma: return the money specifically directed to the endowment fund to the donors. This may satisfy the donors to the existing endowment fund and any potential future endowment fund. You could judge how well this aspect of my proposal works by calling some recent donors and asking them what they think. Relatively little money was collected for an endowment fund per se; most of it came from Richard Jones with no strings attatched. Thus you will still have most of the money. You can judge for yourself whether that is enough. At any rate, this proposal appears to be worth considering, or maybe combining with other ideas that come along. Take care, Tim Freeman Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=2008