This morning we received the following letter from TASSO, in Germany. As it is official and it will be of interest to all members of our community I will reproduce it in its entirety.
Dear Ivan,
Today we received the voting results (points) from our jury members. You have an impressive first rank in the online voting. After having calculated all points we are sorry that we have to inform you that your project will not be within rank one to three.
The three finalists will be announced on our awards ceremony on October 3rd .
Thank you again for your dedication for your project. We would be happy to stay in contact with you and to hear from you how your project is going on.
Best regards
Heike Engelhart
I know this will come as a massive dissapointment for many of you, but it must not be so. It seems that the personal bias of a jury got in the way of things…
Dont’ be dissapointed. You supported our community when it was needed. Your honest votes showed everybody that that there are thousands of us directly involved in making things happen and pushing for change.
Let’s Adopt is not radical, it is radically different.
Society doesn’t reward radical innovation, it tries to quash it.
This is the reason why, with a very few exceptions of Awards offered to scientic innovation, radical progress is seldom rewarded, and, like Nathan Winograd, leader of the No-Kill Movement in the USA can confirm, it is, in most cases, fought against.
Let’s Adopt! is already, the world’s largest animal rescue network. We currently operate in 12 countries and before we will start operating in three more, Mexico, Israel and Saudi Arabia.
We are a movement that, lead by a single minded community is saving lives, around the world, around the clock.
Very few, if any, can say this.
Organizations like ours don’t usually receive Awards, because we change things, because we move things forward, because we make our own game…
… and we are ok with that.
It’s up to us… noone else my friends, noone else.
Viktor
balls! then why bother to ask peolpe to vote? tasso can go ahead and donate to whomever they like.
i feel deceived, because to me, that letter says, “we don’t care about the votes”.
oh yes, let’s adopt will be here, awards or not, because it looks to its members and no one else.
like you said Viktor,it’s the people’s choice that counts,not some stuck up judges,I’m one of those peeps and I think you do great work,I have rescued a dog from Turkey myself through a group called AAI from Holland and am now looking into saving a couple of Chihuahuas from the USA,if you got any good tips or hints for me ,I’d love to hear them as I’m just a single mum on a low budget,but trying to make a difference.
I also help out at our local rescue,if you ever need any help ,ie rehoming with rescue back up,fostering ,homechecks etc. then please let me know
Vivian xXx
here in West Virginia, we call it a “good old boys’ club” Sounds like they knew who they wanted to give the money to all along!
Viv: I love fostering offers 🙂
About award; I wonder who are the three finalists and what do they have more than us? Why jury don’t count online voting? interesting.
Viktor, this is extremely disappointing, not only because it seems so unfair, but also because Let’s Adopt still has a financial crisis. The Tasso award is not the only kind of prize. Many, if not most, countries have corporate gifts, sponsorships awards, similar to the Pepsi Refresh challenge. In Canada we have PetSmart charities, we have Maxwell House Coffee (brewsomegood.ca) and there are others. Our small group in Kingston has one person dedicated to finding these sources of funding and drawing up the grant applications. There must be some equally talented people in Europe who could do the same thing for you. Not everyone in every group can foster, donate funds, etc. but many people have many different skills to offer groups like Lets Adopt!
Don’t worry this people false … Viktor… also in Italy we know that your work is great!
Ola Viktor 🙂 I did not look into this TASSO biz much but if I am to filter to a conclusion, you know what it reads? Very fishy … My simple, pure feeling is that they managed to advertise themselves very well and we all served to their purpose. This is the exact feeling I have when I look at the whole picture … I wish I could see what is being marketed in between their lines … Hasta luego 🙂
Viktor, no se aleman, pero cuales eran las reglas del juego, acaso no habeis ganado!!!!
que otros requisitos se necesitaban para ganar ?
Creo que mereciais ganar el premio, pero de verdad, por vuestro trabajo y por el apoyo de toda la comunidad que hemos votado.
It does not matter about the award…its just award…saving the life of just one animal is worth more than this award! And you have saved the lives of many animals! So in our hearts you already have the award! 🙂
So sorry Viktor, it’s a great disappointment to all of us who tried so hard to get our votes in and you do so many wonderful things for the animals. If they didn’t want to count the online votes, why did they ask us to vote online!!!! And who are the judges!!!!! So sorry, but maybe this loss will help more people to rally around LetsAdopt and help financially, fostering, and transport!!! You have saved so many wonderful souls who nobody else would help and just let them die a horrible death!!!
If you are ranked No. 1 on the online votes then where the hell did they get the rest from. What a load of bollox, Tasso evidently knew who they wanted to win from the start, so what was the f***** point of it all. At least it’s proven one thing, we are a huge community of people worldwide who are now working together to make a difference and will continue to do so. YAY FOR LET’S ADOPT GLOBAL!!!
Vivian,
I am a foster mom for a great rescue….I could help you on the adoption/ foster of chi chi’s (chihuahua’s). The first thing I would need to know is where are you located. Also you can add me to FB and we can go from there. Thanks- Lee
Viktor, this really stinks! Cheaters Cheaters Cheaters…… LA should have received the award .The voters are disappointed that a supposedly fair contest was rigged and the true winners didnt win but a bunch of moronic cheaters did.
It is not a dissapointment, it’s a bunch of Bullsh*t. If they had already decided who the finalists would be they should not have held a “contest” I surely would like to give them a piece of my mind…
What Mr. Heike Engelhart and his juries do not understand is that although the money and recognition the award would have brought would have been helpful, in no way does it measure up to the real award, which is the impact that Let’s Adopt has brought to countless lives. Let’s Adopt is the winner, hands down. They can’t take that from us.
What a tease! Why bother to have a voting contest? Just award whomever you want Tasso!
I’m extremely disappointed because I know that money would’ve saved so many more lives.
corruption at it’s best! it happens everywhere.. but we are still here and we know who deserves the AWARD!
:o( I know the extra cash would have helped but LETS ADOPT is bigger and better and the proof is in the pudding good work done by good people for good reason keep it up guys and I will keep on supporting you how ever I can :0)
what a RIP!
What a weird letter.. Like: “you very obviously won, but we won’t be giving you the award”.
Viktor – should we not share with TASSO what we think of this?
xxx
What a joke!
If judges/juries have got that much of a power why on Earth at all request online voting?
I am ashamed of the German TASSO which had been supported by us as they do a great job in view of animal registration/searching and finding of lost animals.
Anyway – jerks!
Let me get this straight –
Let’s Adopt! WINS the popular vote by a nice margin, and isn’t even considered for third place???!
Where did they get their electoral system from? The US?
I think all the candidates were admirable in their own right. No question.
However – why ask the public to vote, when 5 jurors can just null the entire process.
What killed Let’s Adopt!, TASSO?
That one juror that hates our guts?? He gave us zero all the way, didn’t he?
Shouldn’t he have excused himself as having a personal issue with one of the nominees? That would have been the professional….
Oh well – lesson learned.
No more time wasted as side show for other companies/groups PR campaigns…..
Let’s Adopt, YOU ARE NUMBER ONE IN MANY EYES ANYWAY!! I’AM ONE OF THEM AND ALWAYS WILL BE..KEEP UP ALL YOU DO TO HELP ANIMALS ALL OVER THE WORLD…YOU ARE THE BEST! :):) <3<3
RIP!!
i know that berrin from iznik was online voted for the second place and has not get a place of three,neither.
sounds for me also as the winner were fix before…
wonder who the winner are and why.
there must be something we can do to let our thoughts about the voting be known!
what a crock! So sorry Viktor. However, we did pull together and get all those votes and that is something to celebrate. Spread the word LET”S ADOPT!!!!
This stinks!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Something is definately not right and I am bitterley dissapointed that Lets Adopt loyal followers efforts were simply discarded. I would certainly like to know who the other 3 are and for what reasons they have been chosen over us!!!!!
In my eyes we are always the clear winners!!!!!!!!!!
Winning the award would have been nice but it’s not going to be the end of Let’s Adopt!
Disgusting.
i am so sorry and upset all at the same time,this IS NOT RIGHT! i am just so T-ED OFF! i just don’t know what else to say,IT’S JUST NOT RIGHT!!
je ne comprends pas pourquoi voter, si leur décision est déjà prise à l’avance !!
This is disgusting the people,s vote was the one that should have counted, not a jury ,why have they bothered to ask people to vote , to me that is down right cheating, they must have known all along who they were going to give that money too ,Lets Adopt won that money fair and square, this is wrong, and I think that we should get thier email address and protest about it , we won the votes of the people , and thats what counts , this is just down right cheating on thier side , sorry I sound like this but this is beyond me
Let’s adopt! people,
we strictly have to reject any possible claim that TASSO might have acted deceptive or did some manipulation on the voting.
Please stay with the facts.
We repeatedly wrote in our communication with the LA-leaders, that the online voting counts the sixth part in the final calculation of the results (ranks).
In the case of Let’s adopt! (LA) the public online voting was won by the LA project, but the rest of the jury members did not rate LA high enough to be in the first three ranks. In other words, the sum of all points (jury members PLUS online voting) for LA did not result in rank one to three.
The independent jury consisted this year of representatives of German animal protection organizations, media celebrities who are dedicated to animal protection, one TASSO employee AND the online poll. The “physical” jury members rated all projects independently from each other on the basis of the project’s application.
There was no consultation between the jury members at any time.
We at TASSO care about what people think.
This is the reason why we introduced the online poll for the Golden Paw Award last year.
But we never intended to make a pure online voting award. If people got the feeling that only the online votes will determine the results it might be a misunderstanding WITHIN your community.
Thank you Peter, I would like to refer you to Heike Engelhart, she will share with you the reasons why we believe things didn’t happen in such a way this time…
Best
Viktor
Viktor,
this is the official statement of TASSO e.V.
It is approved by the TASSO management.
Regards
TASSO e.V.
Well… the official statement of Let’s Adopt is that we are all puzzled by a decision that goes against all logic AND that we are convinced one of your judges (I won’t be mentioning his name here) lobbied against us.
The jury system shouldn’t allow people that bring prejudices into the equation.
As I wrote in our post, we accepted it, but we won’t agree with it.
Not everyone should be qualified to act as a jury.. that is the case in the legal system, this should be the case in an Award as prestigious as yours.
Best
Is it possible that only legally registered organizations were considered for this award? Does not seem from a quote Viktor posted that they give any explanation.
Grace
No… that is not the case…
We explained everything in detail…