North Shore Rescue is warning supporters not to donate money over the phone to anyone suggesting their contributions will help the local volunteer team.
Team leader Mike Danks said his team has never made cold calls asking for donations.
“We’re getting emails from people saying ‘We don’t like your aggressive tactic of soliciting donations over the phone,’” he said. “It’s very misleading and we just want to let people know we do not solicit over the phone – ever.”
One supporter told them she’d made several donations over the phone in recent years believing she was donating to North Shore Rescue, Danks said.
At least some of the calls came from the Search and Rescue Society of B.C., a Victoria-based non-profit not affiliated with North Shore Rescue nor the B.C. Search and Rescue Association, the umbrella group all 80 of the province’s volunteer rescue teams are represented by.
“We have no affiliation with them whatsoever and some of the people that we’ve talked to said they mention specifically that they are tied in with North Shore Rescue and yes, the funds would be going to them,” Danks said.
NSR’s lawyer Greg Heywood wrote to SARBC this week asking them to address the matter.
“We are very concerned about these allegations. It appears that individuals, some of whom have identified themselves as calling on behalf of your organization have misrepresented where the donations go, or at a minimum, successfully left the impression (with) several supporters of NSR that their donations would support our work,” Heywood’s letter stated.
“At this point in time we are not making any allegations of impropriety of SARBC, but there are a number of allegations that if true, or untrue, should be a concern for both parties.”
But Glen Redden, vice-president of SARBC, said his non-profit’s fundraising scripts don’t purport to benefit North Shore Rescue at all. Redden said he’s asked Heywood to provide details on who has received cold calls purporting to support North Shore Rescue so they too can investigate.
“We don’t represent ourselves as anything other than ourselves,” he said.
The group also doesn’t target the North Shore, Redden added, so as not to interfere with North Shore Rescue.
“We regularly prune those people out of the call list so that we don’t call anyone in North Vancouver,” he said.
Any donations SARBC receives from donors who indicate they wish be used to benefit North Shore Rescue, are forwarded on to them Redden said.
SARBC did make two donations to North Shore Rescue in February, both Redden and Danks confirmed.
While SARBC’s 25 members do not join accredited teams on searches, they do provide underwater searches and run a program called Candle in the Window that provides extra search hours at a family’s request after an official SAR team has been stood down.
Danks said his team’s supporters can still donate to their efforts the same way they always have.
“If you want to donate to North Shore Rescue, please go to our website or it can be sent to our mailing address,” he said.
