Is it true that Freecycle is making money from it's members giving items away and the founder gets $45k annum

I heard recently that Freecycle actually obtained funding from the USA's largest waste management company of over $200,000 plus another $10,000 as a grant from another source. I also have information that the founder Deron Beal get's a salary of over $45,000 per year and that the organisations board of directors consists of him, his wife and a friend. All this financial gain for one man and from working class people who donate their reusuable items for nothing whilst he claims to the government that Freecycle is responsible for the reduction in X amount of waste in landfill and obtains funding via this. All of the backs of the members of local groups that are moderated freely by local people who are not allowed to obtain grants from local councils and end up funding the promotion of their group. Is this fair or just an elaborate scam by one man to line his pockets with free cash for lets face it not a lot of work as other people run the groups and the members give the items away free.

Answer:
In February 2005, Deron Beal accepted Freecycle's first corporate support of $130,000 from Waste Management, Inc. This polarized opinion amongst group moderators. Some saw it as a sensible way of raising funds from a company Beal describes as America's "largest recycler", but others saw it as selling out to corporate interests. Further criticism was provoked by a decision to take paid Google ads on the Freecycle web site, contrary to the initial stated principles, and by Beal's green ambassador role for WMI. A second grant from Waste Management was received by Freecycle in February 2006 in the amount of $100,000, bringing total funding to $230,000 from WMI.

He makes a difference and a profit.

That just means he's smarter than you!

Tough luck Mr. Sour Grapes, when you come up with a good idea and make a profit from it one day selfish people will look at you and say: "Why does he make money doing good deeds?".

So whats in your wallet?

Why shouldn't those who originated Freecycle get paid and earn for this? Freecycle is a fantastic almost worldwide movement that changes lives and makes a genuine difference at grassroots level. People who instigate schemes like this are genius and green 'heroes' who should be rewarded, unlike the bstrds of big business. Good luck to them! It annoys me that people think all those working full-time in volunteer schemes should work for free - they have to pay bills to - and you can be guaranteed that running the HQ of Freecycle is a damn hard full-time job, so I hope they get the payment they deserve from grants and wherever.

yes freecycle are making tons of cash
they are trying to turn from free and of course charity to a corporate organisation
I'm an ex mod in the UK
the reason I'm now ex. is simple it's caving in with in if a moderator asks questions to the main body of freecycle they tend to have their freecycle group taken over

I'm now a member of realcycle
in the UK and they have much better reasons to recycle
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/realcyclel...

come and take a look

I don't begrudge Deron Beal his salary. Of course he has to make a living. However, the sponsorship by Waste Management Inc does raise eyebrows. WM has previously been fined $thousands for bad practice - illegal toxic dumping among other things. DB is also being accused of building up his organisation on the backs of volunteers... volunteers that he's quite happy to dump if they dare to raise questions. There is a distinct possibility of Freecycle massaging the number of members as the membership count on the main page never drops even when a large group defects.

I was a group founder/owner.moderator and also one of the Interim Moderator team. I hated the way Freecycle was going, riding roughshod over volunteers. I also don't see why we need a Trademark to give our stuff away.

We have started up a new grassroots organisation in the UK www.realcycle.co.uk We are currently looking for mods to run groups all over the country. Ex-Freecycle welcome!

Why begrudge this payment? Setting up such an organisation takes time and costs money and the people who have done this have to live.
As long as Freecycle continues to benefit the public and the environment let them be.

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Is it true that Freecycle is making money from it's members giving items away and the founder gets $45k annum

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