An unbiased review from someone who doesn't know much about any of the people posting in this thread. I've read most of the important posts and I think I have the general idea. In my opinion both sides over reacted and a vast majority of the other posts in this thread are morons who are either blinded by their respect for Admo, their hate for UB/Annie Duke, or just general stupidity.

My attempted Cliffs:

--Admo takes second in a charity tourney where it is standard practice to donate 50% - 100% of winnings.

--Admo tells ESPN he is going to donate 100% but he is going to string along Annie/UB to expose a non-AUFA issue.

--AUFA staffers catch wind of Admo's extortion plan and hound him following the tourney to try to get him to commit to a donation w/out extorting the charity in regard to actions of some of the other promoters thereby taking away the good publicity they hope to receive.

--Unbeknown to the hounding staffers Admo is actually dealing w/ a personal/sensitive issue and is not just trying to dodge them and enact the A.D/UB plan they heard about.

--Staffer by the pseudonym "Hunter" gets his/her panties in a bunch and bashes Admo to poker "news" sites based on what they understood from his EPSN interview.

--Admo's panties become bunched in turn because he cannot see beyond the perceived rudeness he experienced while trying to deal with his personal issues. I am not sure and I do not believed it was mentioned whether Admo explained to the AUFA folks that he was in fact dealing with a personal issue and WAS NOT actually going to string them along to further expose Annie/UB as he mentioned in the ESPN interview.

--Discussion ensues, Admo commits to doing the right thing.

That about right?

The above says they had no income in 2008 or expenses after they incorporated yet they conducted a tournament in 2008 AND one in 2007 http://www.anteupforafrica.org/2007.html. How does that work out? They are basically saying we don't give a damn about before our 501c3 status or incorporation. I've wrote a lot of grants for 501c3s and not one ever failed to produce a detailed account of all monies they received and where they went regardless of whether or not they had 501c3 status or were awaiting it.

lol no, not even close

Has this got anything to do with this 501c3 blabla here?
http://anteupforafrica.org/irsletter.pdf

yeah, no, yyyeah, noooooooooo.

Heres how being biased works. Im biased. Admo has been nothing but an upstanding citizen in the poker community while I dont believe Annie has.
By you saying you are unbiased doesnt mean you are. Cause prettttttttttttty sure you got a little bias going on there

I was under the impression pineapple8888 was kinda smart. Guess not.

Yeah it says they got it July 10th 2009. Starts exemption Nov 2008. Little late after you already started the charity and taken money from people.

Edit: But 501c3 means tax exempt. You can still operate without it. The only problem they have is that when someone asks to see how the money is spent and they get nothing then all kinds of alarms go off. If you cannot provide info on how the money is spent you will never get a donation from me ever and that's how it should be. If there is nothing to hide then you normally comply with people.

The effective date of the exemption is November 10, 2008, which is the same day that Ante Up for Africa, Inc. was incorporated. Whatever the issues prior to that date, at least the tax-exempt status from that date going forward appears to be resolved and no longer an issue. Now if we could just see the Form 990.

Did Admo stiff Ante up for Africa

no
he should send the cash to a real charity like the Salvation Army.

generally whenever someone says "here's an unbiased yadda yadda" expect the bias or opinions/conclusions to flow freely.

Nope, don't read the site often enough to care much about individual posters. I am familiar with UB though and do not have a positive opinion of them nor the folks who would rep. them. However, I do not believe you should use a third party charity organization to grind an axe.

I also am enjoying the low content posts telling me I'm wrong but not expanding any further because they most likely were not there and have no clue how close or how far from the truth I am.

You are getting low-content posts because this was hashed out about 3 weeks ago? I don't think there are many who want to wade through the thread to point out where you fail.

Crap... Didn't pay much attention to dates. Saw it on the front page and just started reading. Guess that's what I get for not paying attention much here. Didn't realize someone necro'd this back to the front page.

You are like the sixth person to say something like this.

"Oh, pineapple's smart when I agree with him. But I don't agree with him here... cause Admo rocks and stuff. So pineapple must be dumb after all. QED."

And yet none of you, who are presumably incredibly more intelligent than me, can bother to put a single sentence together to explain exactly what Admo has accomplished here, and why.

I'm still waiting. Actually, I'm not waiting, because I don't care any more. I opened this when it got bumped, hoping somebody had something intelligent to say. That hope WAS extremely stupid on my part, I admit.

anybody gonna watch the AUFA FT tonight ? I hope it bombs so UB gets minimum expose out of it

Looking at the two previews on ESPN.com, it looks like it's concentrating more on the celebrities than the final table.

I think there is zero% chance they include any of Admo's interview.

Did they ever produce a statement on how they spend the money cause if you can't do that you are at best lazy as hell or at worst a total fraud.

Maybe next time you are all asked to donate to a charity, ask for an audit report for said charity and see what % of the loot is going to the end cause.. even call the auditor and ask him/her for a recommended charity etc..

This Ante Up for Africa group is very effective at the publicity side (free ESPN coverage etc), free time donation by star actors and $5k a pop for us sucker poker players who are then followed into the loo to be hounded for 50% of our winnings.....

I sadly have been involved in 2 charities (one for ALS and another in NYC for poor kids) where "celebrities" were used as marketing tools. I stupidly assumed said celebs were doing the work pro-bono etc,

.. long story short was we raised via mycontacts many $$$ for the charities only to find that a chunk of it went to pay fricking hairdressers for Hollywood types, pr fees yada yada yada. one charity is no longer around and the other used 75% of donations for luxury items and celebs

Why not give your loot to something that means something to you. Ronald McDonald House does a good job, Boys n Kids Clubs etc... the list goes on..

Moral here is this Ante up for Africa should be checked out before you give them a dime
or decide to enter a tournament promoted by them.

I am never an admo apologist, but given his wife was ill (and very pregnant) and he was harassed, then we all trust we know what type of people are behind this charity...

I'm sure it's been said at least once by now in 43 pages, but just in case:

There were several people who made comments on pokerati that indicated that if Admo was having personal problems, he shouldn't have been playing in the tournament to begin with. They then tried to use this as justification for the AUFA representative pestering him outside of the bathroom while making his personal phone call. This bottles my mind.

How can people be so illogical/borderline retarted?

Here is a link to the AUFA website.

Ante up for Africa determination letter

The IRS rules according to this letter that AUFA does get a 501(c)(3) status so you do get the deduction if you donate to them. Not as good as a 3rd party confirmation such as the IRS posting it on their website somewhere, but it's a start in case anyone was still curious about this information.

We still don't know how much administrative costs and where the money is going yet

I can't believe I read all the way through this ridiculous thread and all of the conspiracy theories about the money and no one has figured out the obvious regarding how money donated in the past to AUFA was handled.

Yes, AUFA now has it's own non-profit status.

What nobody mentioned is that it is EXTREMELY COMMON for fledgling non-profits, artists, organizations to start their operations by having an already established 501(c)3 non-profit be their FISCAL SPONSOR.

It was already basically posted in this forum that Center for American Progress was AUFA's fiscal sponsor. This means, if you want the deets regarding the money in previous years, you have to wade through all of CAP's financial records as they will have filed all tax related forms to the IRS.

This also means that all funds donated to AUFA in the past were indeed legally tax deductable. It also means that AUFA would have had to account to CAP how all the money was handled.

Usually, in exchange for being the fiscal sponsor and handling all legal/tax paperwork, the established organization receives 7-10% for staff fees/time. But obviously the number they negotiated with CAP could vary even more widely.

My assumption would be that, after the fiscal sponsorship fee and any reasonable expenses to host the event(s), that all the money is then forwarded to the non-profit projects working in Darfur. But some one would have to dig through all of CAP's financials (which should be public record) to find all the details.

Now, enough with AUFA being a fraud just because Annie Duke is associated with?

Stick to the real things she has done wrong, rather than maligning a very real charity effort that supports people in Africa who are living every day amidst the horrors of genocide, displacement/exile, starvation, and lack of water.

And anyone who knows about the wars and genocide who can say "who cares about Africa" is rude, cruel, and ignorant. It is the same as saying, "who cares about the Holocaust?"