Accusations Of Fraud In Chase Community Giving Contest On Facebook

Invisible Children has won $1 million as the winner of the Chase Community Giving contest on Facebook. However, this victory may come with a price, as the final days of the contest spurred accusations of voter fraud.

The Isha Foundation, which "addresses all aspects of human wellbeing," came in 2nd place behind Invisible Children. However, in the contest's last few hours, many newly created profiles voted for The Isha Foundation, some of them with dubious-looking names, including Gdfg Kcjbvkljvb and Sdfj Dfsjlfkddjf. Several other profiles with more realistic names voted for Isha, though these accounts have had few if any friends or activity prior to voting. These include Rajasekaran Jdha, Deepika Kannan, Lavinia Elethea and Shanmugamnmathiazagan Anna.

Fans of Invisible Children started crying foul in the final hours before midnight ET, and arguments between Invisible Children supporters and Isha Foundation supporters broke out on Facebook.

A Facebook profile that voted for The Isha Foundation.

Invisible Children co-founder Laren Poole said that his organization has been suspicious of the voting frequency for several days. "Most of their votes are coming from rural India and even during the middle of the night they've been posting high vote tallies with Facebook user names that look like gibberish."

Isha Foundation volunteer Noushin Vaccani says that their votes are legitimate. "Please know that many votes are coming from Indians whose names are not in Latin alphabet characters," he told me. "As such, many times they are not uploaded correctly or there is just simply not a way to put them in English."

Still, many Invisible Children supporters aren't convinced.

Facebook user Kaitlin Elizabeth Elias says "Hayley has a point. the names Gdfg Kcjbvkljvb and Sdfj Dfsjlfkddjf were counted as votes... We as IC supporters support your organization! it's simply some of the votes that people are skeptical of!"

User Vimal Nallappan has responded every few minutes with the same message: "PLEASE Vote forIsha... it'll only take a few clicks... it's a sincere request... if ufeel that it's not worth it then please tell me... i'll see if i can doAnything to explain the importance of your vote... click on the linkbelow now... Please."

Though many of the profiles supporting The Isha Foundation appear to be new with little to no activity, it's unclear if that is a violation of the terms and conditions of participating in the contest.

Invisible Children has also been accused of fraud during the contest. Change.org reported on January 19 that many users who had not voted for Invisible Children had been tagged in a photo with an image reading "I Voted For Invisible Children," making it appear as though that user had voted for the group.

Voting for the Chase Community Giving contest ended at midnight on January 23, with the phrase "$1 MM Winner" posted to the Invisible Children account minutes later. It is unknown whether Chase and Facebook are verifying the legitimacy of vote counts.

The Isha Foundation has over 5,600 supporters on Facebook while Invisible children has over 17,000. Third place organization To Write Love On Her Arms has over 15,000 supporters.

Dfdf Errt votes for the Isha Foundation.

Note: Huffington Post Impact is managed by Causecast.org, a website that features profiles of both Invisible Children and To Write Love On Her Arms.

Comments

[defstu]

10:58 PM on 01/26/2010

Where is HazerX's comments? Of course it is totally the Moderator's discretion...but why? why? why did you remove his comments???

Is it because it was referenced to few other articles questioning his comments??

Read about Uganda Genocide here:

http://ugandagenocide.info/?p=2303

[lndedington]

09:42 PM on 01/26/2010

While what happened in Haiti is awful, how is it ethical to hang the contingency of a donation on a contest? The excuse that the earthquake happened after is invalid - Haiti is not part of their mission statement. This contest was about a "Big Idea". They listed out several important things they would do with their money, but it did not designate one goal. Why did other organizations post a "Big Idea" if IC could win the money go into their General Operating Budget? Using Haiti as a tool to gain more votes, because of the recent tragedy is hardly ethical. All people focused on was money going to Haiti so then it seemed as if the million would be going there. IC supporters flooded message boards with "choose IC, they're the only one donating to Haiti." This contest was given guidelines - submit a big idea to win $1 million dollars. They did not do that.

If they were planning on donating the money already, why not announce it earlier instead of after being down 10,000 votes for 3 days? How can Invisible Children honestly say the 100k isn't coming from the million, when it's going into their operating budget? Taking the 100k from one part of their budget and then supplementing that area with money from the million is the same thing as donating from the million.

Several organizations played by the rules, but suffered because they decided to not take advantage of a tragedy.

[sara n]

06:46 PM on 01/25/2010

Invicible Children is a wonderful organization with a wonderful cause but they campainged saying they will donate $100k to Haiti if they win the $1mn. The contest is about the Big Idea but they unfortunately used the emotionally charged Haiti situation. Any one of the participating organizations could have campainged like this or promised even more for Haiti to get more votes. Somehow this did not create any controversy.

[exile]

02:57 PM on 01/25/2010

outsourcing inter net voiting to India...

i'm very surprisedjkhnfkbfohnmbfmof.

[StephanieRudat]

02:02 PM on 01/25/2010

As of last Wed, Isha has a little over 3300 fans on Facebook and now has roughly 5600 which may seem like alot, but it's nothing compared to TWLOHA's 330,000+ or IC's 199,000+. Point being, this is about the amount of Facebook users that voted in order to win the $1M. While Isha, and all of the incredible orgs participating are doing great work, this contest was based on who organized and leveraged their support base on a specific social network best. The argument about Isha was their, in my opinion, underhanded approach to going about it. If the org in the contest hadn't built out a strategy to expand their brand extensively on Facebook prior to the contest launch, they had no real shot next to TWLOHA & IC who have proven themselves to be leaders in leveraging countless connective technologies to reach & communicate with their support base. The best organizer won. TWLOHA deserved second.

[PMTBM]

03:08 PM on 01/25/2010

Hi Stephanie--

I don't understand why you consider Isha's signing up new Facebook accounts as being underhanded. Couldn't you say that they also were good organizers, gathering thousands of people who stood in long lines to set up accounts and vote for an organization that has improved their lives? Was there any rule that said that in order to vote one had to have an existing Facebook account? I had an inactive one but I reactivated it just to cast a vote for Isha because I like the work they do. It would be surprising if the other charities hadn't also encouraged people to do the same. This is an honest question; I am not being antagonistic. Was there a rule I didn't know about?

[defstu]

10:27 PM on 01/25/2010

Having more fans on Facebook or even having an account before the contest were never part of the rules, unless I'm missing something here...

Maybe in rural India Facebook or even being online is still not a big thing like it is here in the US.

I would say for getting so many votes close to the 1st place, Isha should get more than just $100k!

FYI...

http://ugandagenocide.info/?p=2303

[AJ226]

01:34 AM on 01/25/2010

(CONTINUED FROM PREVIOUS COMMENT)

Next, I would like to humbly educate you dear editors, our friends at Invisible Children and all fellow humans reading this article about Isha Foundation. Words cannot do justice in describing Isha, one really needs to experience Isha closely; however, words is all I have here. Isha Foundation is a non-profit, non-religious and non-political organization entirely run by 100s of thousand volunteers all over the world. Isha works largely by word-of-mouth, is firmly rooted in grass-roots, believes strongly in hands-on and can produce an impact of $100 with every single $ it gets simply by inspiring volunteers and the common man (as is also evident in the Chase Community giving contest). To name a few projects elaborating these points: Isha Vidhya (http://www.ishavidhya.org) - high-quality education for rural children; Project Green Hands (http://www.projectgreenhands.org) - protect and improve our environment by inspiring the common man to take common-sense steps; Rural Rejuvenation (http://www.ruralrejuvenation.org) - transform the lives of the rural poor; Prison Programs in US and in India (http://www.ishafoundation.org/Community-Outreach/Community-Outreach-Prison-Programs-Life-Transforming-Programs-ISHA-Foundation.isa) - transforming criminals into loving individuals.

Lastly, I would like to close with a quote by Sadhguru - "How deeply you touch another life, is how rich your life is. May you have much opportunity to profoundly impact lives around you."

[AJ226]

01:34 AM on 01/25/2010

Dear Respectable Editors of Huffington Post,

It hurts to read this article, not because there are people who voted for Isha Foundation with random names (which I can understand if they preferred privacy in a rather uncommon way) but because it casts aspersions on the credibility of an organization that is very dear to my heart and to many of my family and friends. And I have no doubt that you will echo my sentiment if you gained more knowledge or were involved with Isha (which is very easily accessible in most large US cities http://www.ishafoundation.org/ContactUs). In support, here are a few noteworthy points:

Firstly dear editors, let's look at these pictures:

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=143121&id=38140379946

Do you see the smile and pride on their faces? Any human heart would be moved and touched by these pictures. If people in US had to wait in line to cast an online vote for a charity, you editors would probably use the terms 'harrowing' and 'ordeal' to describe it. It begs the question - will an organization go through harrowing ordeal to secure votes while at the same time resort to illegitimate tactics?

(CONTINUED IN NEXT COMMENT ...)

[npathak0]

11:00 PM on 01/24/2010

It is interesting to see this enthusiasm for the charities & their charitable causes. One result of this contest is that it has motivated the supporters even more. I have been a Isha Volunteer for over 8 years & I think this is the best influence on my life. The culture of this organization really promotes the wellbeing of all. I have been amazed by the motivation & passion of the volunteers in all the social projects that the organization is involved in. You could see this passion in this contest as well.
It is sad that people who are trying to make the world a better place have to face this uncalled for bad press.
It would have been nice, if the authors had looked at the great work of this charity, before accusing them of fraud. However, congratulations to all the charities that participated.

[canucks]

09:25 PM on 01/24/2010

I have been an active volunteer with the Isha Foundation for the past six years. I am constantly amazed and inspired to see such dedicated volunteers working countless hours towards the growth and success of Isha's initiatives. Projects that support: The Environment -Project GreenHands, Education-Isha Vidhya, Community Outreach, and Free Health Clinic in TN, to mention only a few. There are many many more Isha inititatives that have contributed to a healthier, sustainable, and a more peaceful society, all implemented at a very grass root, volunteer run level. People who have been so touched that they are moved to action. Please do your background check before you make such hurtful accusations and see for yourself the powerful impact Isha is having in this world.

[2kids]

08:10 PM on 01/24/2010

I was watching this thing closely during the time it was active and I really believe both of these organizations are guilty of fraud.

[PMTBM]

08:40 PM on 01/24/2010

How?

[Sanjeev Chandrasekharan]

08:04 PM on 01/24/2010

I have been associated with the Isha Foundation for five years. Isha is volunteer driven by people like me who have been touched by what Isha represents. Isha does wonderful work all over the world to help people improve their situations as well as promotes care of the environment.

While the US volunteers worked around the clock to mobilize support for our cause here, volunteers in India worked to leverage our massive volunteer base. Thousands of supporters flocked to computer stations in more than 60 schools and universities. Homemakers, laborers, villagers,students came together to vote to support Isha. Voting kiosks were set up in remote areas to allow villagers who never had the opportunity to use a computer to vote. Night in the US is daytime in India so definitely our votes were garnered around the clock.

It pains me to see the zeal of these people being classified as fraud. How can we question the motivation of these people just because they are not well versed with social networking sites, when their belief in their cause is no lesser ?

Please visit www.ishafoundation.org to see for yourself the work we do, and talk to our volunteers to see how their lives have been transformed by association with this Foundation, inspiring them to volunteer to further the worthwhile projects undertaken.

I am confident that you will recognize that Isha Foundation is engaged in work which is relevant and significant for the world that we exist in today.

[Ekiflu]

07:45 PM on 01/24/2010

It is unfortunate that this article eludes a suspicion of fraud on organizations that are committed to helping those that are forgotten. As a supporter of both organizations and a volunteer of Isha Foundation, I am surprised this article is focusing on the negative instead of all the positive change that will come out of all the relentless efforts of the volunteers. I personally reached out to all my friends, their friends and my family. Many have benefited from Isha’s outreach programs and even more will continue to benefit long after this article is gone but how disheartening to smear the selfless acts of so many committed volunteers without having the facts. As a volunteer, I have seen how so many are touched by the efforts of Isha and its volunteers. It is not a surprise that there was an outpouring support in India. These are the people who directly witness the change due to the efforts of Isha’s relentless commitment to uplift the rural communities in India and Africa. Isha has an active and silent support globally and has done more with very little. This is a true representation of the organization’s commitment to the work that needs to be done on this planet. Through the commitment of willing volunteers Isha has provided education, basic health care programs for rural communities and ecological programs among so many other efforts. Either way, the money going to IC will be well spent. Congratulation to IC on a well deserved win.

[claire s]

07:32 PM on 01/24/2010

I've been a volunteer with Isha Foundation for almost 7 years, and the experience has touched me deeply. Isha has always been a grassroots network. It's 100% volunteer-run, and is amazingly effective because people are so touched by the difference it's made in their own lives, that they want to give back.

It was like "Wonder Twin Powers, Activate!" with people literally spending sleepless nights getting the word out. Volunteers throughout India mobilized while people here slept-- handing out flyers, setting up voting stations, organizing phone trees. Certainly, there were some who created facebook accounts in order to vote. This is just going through necessary process to vote. In national elections we call this "registering." The only one who suffers there is Chase, because with a new user, they don't immediately gain the marketing information that is their reward. However, they will probably laugh last, as many of those new users will begin using facebook, and Chase can track their data as well.

I don't believe very many people felt there there was any fraud -- but of course drama makes a better story. Has anyone ever visited a forum that didn't have at least a few naysayers? In fact I'd suspect fraud if there weren't at least a few "haters" on the boards, somewhere!

Congratulations to IC and all the charities, each of whom is trying to make a difference in the world, just like Isha Foundation. By supporting each other, we can only grow stronger.

[sriyer10]

07:16 PM on 01/24/2010

I am disappointed to learn about the content of this article on HP.

The Isha Foundation is a remarkable non-profit organization dedicated to raising human inner well-being with over 250,000 volunteers spanning hundreds of city-based centers spread worldwide. My involvement with Isha to date has been a life changing experience in no ordinary terms. The selfless dedication of Isha volunteers all over is heart-warming and immensely transformational by itself. The ability of Isha volunteers to mobilize such a huge base to vote in the contest comes as no surprise to me personally. In my view, the article is a representation of lack of awareness about Isha Foundation's community outreach activities in the US as well as India. I suggest that the author of this article visit www.ishafoundation.org as well as the Isha Institute of Inner Sciences ( IIIS) based in the Cumberland Plateau in McMinnville, TN and find out more about Isha and its volunteer base.

We are proud of our ability to garner support for a cause that can significantly influence the lives of rural children in Southern India. We also are very happy that a fellow charity organization, Invisible Children, will receive the much needed funds ( $1M) to make a world of difference in several children's life. The collective goal of humanity is to uplift those that are underprivileged - whether it happens through Isha or Invisible Children or any other charity is irrelevant.

Congrats Invisible Children and kudos to Isha Volunteers!

[srirekha]

07:10 PM on 01/24/2010

Isha foundation, is a volunteer run organization with over a million volunteers across the globe. Please visit http://www.ishafoundation.org/GlobalAction to see the amount of social projects Isha is involved in and how many thousands and thousands of volunteers pitch in to make things happen. Just because we don't have all our volunteers on facebook it doesn't mean they are not there. So much work has happened in India to make computers available to people who don't have access to internet, but still want to vote for Isha. This was a wonderful experience for us to see thousands of people come in together just for one cause, and that is to educate rural kids in India.