AV Statement by Joey Carbstrong Lyrics
The following is a statement in response to the recent situation with Anonymous for the Voiceless (AV).
Firstly, I want to address the claim made by Paul and Asal from AV that I set out to ‘cancel AV’. This accusation is damaging and untrue. I’ve collaborated with and promoted AV across my channels from day one. I’ve had an AV link in my YouTube channel for years and I had a segment on AV outreach in nearly all my speeches encouraging activists to join.
What happened, was a major donor had concerns with AV and the relationship between this donor and Paul and Asal was breaking down. This came to a head after AV published a controversial Black Lives Matter protest post, which upset many people and resulted in a number of complaints to AV’s donor. This was compounded by other concerns, including AV groups not receiving funding from Paul and Asal. After much consideration, the donor reached out to me to help try to resolve the matter. As a friend of the donor, I was asked to be involved because I had no ill feelings towards AV and in fact had been a long-time friend and supporter of their work. Furthermore, I have experience and understanding with grassroots activism on the ground. The goal was to help AV continue to receive their funding and work with them in fulfilling the donor’s request for financial transparency. Although I was a little taken aback by this request to get involved, I assumed that as a non-profit organisation, they would be open, honest and compliant to regain the trust of their donor.
The impression given by AV was that their funding started this year, although they did receive a large amount of funding in 2019 as well. The budget agreed by the donor was for $1.5M USD ($2,195,000 AUD) that was to be paid in blocks of 100k USD, roughly every three weeks. AV had already received around half of their funding for the year (around 700k USD, almost a million AUD).
The main financial concerns included - the break down in salary costs ($946K) the AV Fund ($360K) which a number of AV groups said they hadn’t received, the high cost of developing an app ($150K AUD) and a large touring campaigns budget ($300k) in a year when travel was restricted because of COVID. They also never readjusted this travel budget to suit the current situation of all travel being restricted. Operationally, there were also concerns with Asal being the only treasurer and her handling of all the funds and payroll. For the founder to have sole responsibility for these functions in an organisation of this size and income, it did raise concerns and is not best practice for demonstrating strong financial controls. In most charities there is an independent board of trustees who oversee the organisation’s operations and financial stability. This is not the case with AV where there is a lack of financial accountability and all funds are received and distributed by Paul and Asal as they see fit, with no oversight by anyone else in the organisation.
After back and forth deliberation with AV and the donor, Paul and Asal refused to give the type of transparency the donor was requesting. We had the support of a professional accountant, so I wouldn’t have been operating on my own, as has been suggested. The fact that Paul and Asal claimed they wouldn’t give the donor access to their charity accounts because they had their ‘personal accounts linked in with them’ is strange and, after consulting with a professional, is extremely out of the ordinary.
In our first call, Paul said to me “they had been putting away money for a rainy day” and that’s why the budget numbers might be higher than their actual spend. After I said to Paul “this might not look good, if you have a reserve of money that you haven’t declared to the donor,” Paul later retracted this statement claiming they had “no reserve of money,” which did leave me confused and suspicious. The claim made by Paul and Asal that if we were given access to the charity account we would “take the money back” really surprised me, seeing as Paul claimed they actually had ‘no reserve’ funds and it’s also ridiculous to believe that I would steal from them, when I have access to the same donor they do.
They also claimed to me in one of our calls that “Although they might have needed the donor at the beginning, they don’t necessarily need them anymore, and they could go on without them.” This didn’t make sense as they had so many staff (they say they have 30) and no reserve of funds, yet they would rather let go of their main source of funding instead of giving the donor the transparency they were looking for. This did ring alarm bells with me as it seemed they would rather lose 1.5 million USD a year, than comply with the donors request - essentially defunding the whole of AV.
This money the donor gives is for the animals and if they are not 100% confident on where the funding is going, then they have every right to stop funding, as does anyone. The donor has never defunded an organisation like this before, so these circumstances were unique. AV were reluctant to take suggestions from the donor, showed arrogance and spoke with contempt towards almost all involved.
Also, for them to compare my Patreon, my YouTube and the rather modest amounts I receive from the donor to help with a few staff (two full time staff and some occasional freelancers) and travel when needed, to an organisation with a 2.2 million AUD year income, is nowhere near comparable and extremely misleading on their part. As a public charity with one major donor, it should not come as a surprise to be expected to provide this kind of transparency. If you refuse and your funding is cut by the donor, I’m sorry, but that’s not my fault.
Paul and Asal have made some incredibly damaging claims about my intentions when I was just trying to help them when no one else would. I tried my best to help AV come to an amicable solution with the donor so AV could continue receiving their funding, but the donor was very firm on their request for this type of financial transparency, as the numbers were so high. AV claimed on many occasions on our calls that they already knew their funding may be cut for other reasons and that they were prepared for that, so to blame me for defunding AV is dishonest and disappointing.
No matter what my relationship is with the founders of AV, I will always support grassroots activists on the ground. Thank you for taking the time to consider my side of these events. This will be my final statement on the matter as I need to focus my efforts on the animals.
Firstly, I want to address the claim made by Paul and Asal from AV that I set out to ‘cancel AV’. This accusation is damaging and untrue. I’ve collaborated with and promoted AV across my channels from day one. I’ve had an AV link in my YouTube channel for years and I had a segment on AV outreach in nearly all my speeches encouraging activists to join.
What happened, was a major donor had concerns with AV and the relationship between this donor and Paul and Asal was breaking down. This came to a head after AV published a controversial Black Lives Matter protest post, which upset many people and resulted in a number of complaints to AV’s donor. This was compounded by other concerns, including AV groups not receiving funding from Paul and Asal. After much consideration, the donor reached out to me to help try to resolve the matter. As a friend of the donor, I was asked to be involved because I had no ill feelings towards AV and in fact had been a long-time friend and supporter of their work. Furthermore, I have experience and understanding with grassroots activism on the ground. The goal was to help AV continue to receive their funding and work with them in fulfilling the donor’s request for financial transparency. Although I was a little taken aback by this request to get involved, I assumed that as a non-profit organisation, they would be open, honest and compliant to regain the trust of their donor.
The impression given by AV was that their funding started this year, although they did receive a large amount of funding in 2019 as well. The budget agreed by the donor was for $1.5M USD ($2,195,000 AUD) that was to be paid in blocks of 100k USD, roughly every three weeks. AV had already received around half of their funding for the year (around 700k USD, almost a million AUD).
The main financial concerns included - the break down in salary costs ($946K) the AV Fund ($360K) which a number of AV groups said they hadn’t received, the high cost of developing an app ($150K AUD) and a large touring campaigns budget ($300k) in a year when travel was restricted because of COVID. They also never readjusted this travel budget to suit the current situation of all travel being restricted. Operationally, there were also concerns with Asal being the only treasurer and her handling of all the funds and payroll. For the founder to have sole responsibility for these functions in an organisation of this size and income, it did raise concerns and is not best practice for demonstrating strong financial controls. In most charities there is an independent board of trustees who oversee the organisation’s operations and financial stability. This is not the case with AV where there is a lack of financial accountability and all funds are received and distributed by Paul and Asal as they see fit, with no oversight by anyone else in the organisation.
After back and forth deliberation with AV and the donor, Paul and Asal refused to give the type of transparency the donor was requesting. We had the support of a professional accountant, so I wouldn’t have been operating on my own, as has been suggested. The fact that Paul and Asal claimed they wouldn’t give the donor access to their charity accounts because they had their ‘personal accounts linked in with them’ is strange and, after consulting with a professional, is extremely out of the ordinary.
In our first call, Paul said to me “they had been putting away money for a rainy day” and that’s why the budget numbers might be higher than their actual spend. After I said to Paul “this might not look good, if you have a reserve of money that you haven’t declared to the donor,” Paul later retracted this statement claiming they had “no reserve of money,” which did leave me confused and suspicious. The claim made by Paul and Asal that if we were given access to the charity account we would “take the money back” really surprised me, seeing as Paul claimed they actually had ‘no reserve’ funds and it’s also ridiculous to believe that I would steal from them, when I have access to the same donor they do.
They also claimed to me in one of our calls that “Although they might have needed the donor at the beginning, they don’t necessarily need them anymore, and they could go on without them.” This didn’t make sense as they had so many staff (they say they have 30) and no reserve of funds, yet they would rather let go of their main source of funding instead of giving the donor the transparency they were looking for. This did ring alarm bells with me as it seemed they would rather lose 1.5 million USD a year, than comply with the donors request - essentially defunding the whole of AV.
This money the donor gives is for the animals and if they are not 100% confident on where the funding is going, then they have every right to stop funding, as does anyone. The donor has never defunded an organisation like this before, so these circumstances were unique. AV were reluctant to take suggestions from the donor, showed arrogance and spoke with contempt towards almost all involved.
Also, for them to compare my Patreon, my YouTube and the rather modest amounts I receive from the donor to help with a few staff (two full time staff and some occasional freelancers) and travel when needed, to an organisation with a 2.2 million AUD year income, is nowhere near comparable and extremely misleading on their part. As a public charity with one major donor, it should not come as a surprise to be expected to provide this kind of transparency. If you refuse and your funding is cut by the donor, I’m sorry, but that’s not my fault.
Paul and Asal have made some incredibly damaging claims about my intentions when I was just trying to help them when no one else would. I tried my best to help AV come to an amicable solution with the donor so AV could continue receiving their funding, but the donor was very firm on their request for this type of financial transparency, as the numbers were so high. AV claimed on many occasions on our calls that they already knew their funding may be cut for other reasons and that they were prepared for that, so to blame me for defunding AV is dishonest and disappointing.
No matter what my relationship is with the founders of AV, I will always support grassroots activists on the ground. Thank you for taking the time to consider my side of these events. This will be my final statement on the matter as I need to focus my efforts on the animals.