So far, I haven't been able to find much specific information on the AFB.

The NFB does seem to have documentation for quite a few of their campaigns, but tracking them down is a bit tedious. So far, I've only found one that I'd count as a success (killing the ABC show "Good and Evil", which might have been 1991, I'm not really sure).

So far, this hasn't really provided much in the way of useful information. It makes me lean toward updating against the NFB actually having power and instead toward them just being the loudest.

So far, I've started about 4 sentences in this post with the words "So far," for some reason.

I'm not sure if this is germane for this particular topic, but I do not like the way the NFB handles inaccessible technology.  The goal is to make it accessible...And their solution is a lawsuit, which apparently doesn't even help.  The biggest I can think of is Apple (of which the NFB sued for an educational iTunes service), but how that culminated with other devices being accessible, I have no idea; moreover, I've heard completely mixed stories...So extracting the truth out of some of this could be nearly impossible...

@luke, I'm afraid the question of purpose and existance is not so simple.

In the Uk for instance, the government tends to farm out a lot of  services to charity organizations, at a reduced cost to themselves. This means there are a lot of charities who function as service companies with government grants but get away with recieving public donations too because they are "charities" despite the fact tht they function as businesses, and likewise a lot of actual charities who cannot get! government support because their contract so to speak has been bought out by someone else.

for example, the government is cutting back on providing actual nhs nurses and the like for the eldily by farming out those contracts to "care charities" which   has resulted in lots of scandles.

this is my issue with a lot of the  structure in th  the Rnib. They function as a business, despite appealing for charity donations, they engage in cost cutting measures often to the detriment of their members, they even (rather amusingly), got into hot water because they made most of their blind workers  redundent (and of course the board of directors don't have any actual Vi members do they), also as I've said before their focus on wills and legacy donations is frankly scary!

So, on a specific goal orientation, even for a  supposedly charitable organization you cannot make any sort of judgements.

also, with big organizations, there are often individual departments or objectives which get reached due to the efficiency of that specific department.

for example, the Rnib's political Lobbying has had some distinct achievements which, despite my dislike of so much  else the Rnib does cannot be denied. One recent example was making certain that under the governments new revision of the disability bennifits system,  blind people would not be denied the mobility component of disability bennifit, something they were up until  2009, (it always amused me that someone in a wheel chair with an adapted car could have less movement costs than a blind person who must use public transport, yet got three times as much money each week as a mobility component of their disability payment).

In evaluating the Rnib, it is just not clear to me that you can say one thing, some of their departments and goals are well achieved, others, particularly as regards attitude are not.

Of course, other organizations with a single purpose are much easier to deal with. For instance, I've often spoken my admiration for the guide dog association, because they are intrinsically very good at what they do, providing mobility training and, when they assess a person as capable, a guide dog. They have a few ansiliary functions, such as a rather fun holiday  service, but their main function they do very well (interestingly enough without! any government recognition). 

Myself, I would suggest a slightly different method of evluation, not evaluating the hole organization on simply a purpose function approach as though it were a machine, but defigning a set of  purposive  goals which a given organization has, devided into the catagories of personal, political,  and  idiological.
With the Rnib, i'd say idiologically they fail, but politically they often succeed, while personally they can be patchy at best depending upon which department one deals with and who you speak to.

this also as you will notice misses the idea of finance, since though organizations might function as business, the  intrinsic  difference betwene a business and a charity is that a business exists for it's own sake, a charity for that of others. Since organizations for the blind exists "for the blind" they cannot be judged on a business model, and indeed often such practices impaire their primary function.

thus, I don't see this as an economic or financial matter accept as the financial consequences impact upon the   catagorical consequences mentioned above.

Warning! Long ramble pending! LOL. I tend to be rather synical of most organizations for the blind, particularly the NFB here in the states. And don't even get me started on Voc Rehab, of which Commissions for the Blind are a part. And I'm astonished at how many blindness professionals, teachers and the like, are not aware of that fact. I had one such teacher from my school days ask me why I was going with Voc Rehab for my job hunting and not the Comission for the Blind. But every counselor at every Commission I've ever worked with has confirmed that they are in fact considered Voc Rehab. Their goal may be to help theblind as has been said, but it's usually on their terms and theirs alone. These usually involve attempts to force blind job seekers into identical little boxes which consist of a very small number of career fields that the higher ups consider "safe." The fact that not all clients will be suited for the jobs in question does not seem to matter, as they often operate under the "beggars can't be choosers" philosophy. In my experience they almost have to be. And even when they encourage trying new things they often want you to apply for jobs for which you have neither experience nor qualifications, as though said lack won't affect the employer's decision. Their rationale is that they can help to teach you the skills, which may indeed be true, but that assumes you'll be hired. In my experience the only time an employer will hire an inexperienced applicant is so they can avoid hiring a blind even if experienced and qualified person. They will even lie to avoid hiring us, even if you had a promising interview. That happened to me three summers ago while I was still engaged in the job search. My rehab counselor, however, did not seem to believe me or, at least, didn't see that as a problem. She even wanted me to reapply to that same call center, but Iflatly refused. My motto is if you lie to me once don't expect to receive anymore of my business in the future. So needless to say I have little faith in or respect for most blindness organizations.

Hello,
I must agree that all foundations and orgnaisations are biased by some founder or philanthropist who started the organization, for that is how they are built in the first place. Has there been any organization that is a mix? Not that I know of. I find this interesting because I am somewhat against the National Federation of the Blind, because they do not give people with combined disabilities a second thought, unlike the Helen Keller National Centre, and the National Prevention of disabilities. NOw that applies to organisations here in the United States. What about in other parts of the world with different political and economic systesms?

You have some guts to post this here CEA-Jones, because in my opinion this is not the most positive place in the internet to get blindness organization information.  my point exactly proven to the fact that dark has really been the only one to really offer anything positive about them.  that said, i am an avid proponent of blindness organizations, the NFB to be specific.  I'm not only a member, but i hold a board position, vice president, on my state student division, MOABS, the Missouri Association of Blind Students.
I'm going to address a few things in this post, in no particular order.

i can't really speak for any other organizations but the NFB,was formed in 1940, when sixteen people met in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania, to develop a constitution that would unite organizations of blind people in seven states (California, Illinois, Minnesota, Missouri, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin), in a national federation that would serve as a vehicle for collective action to improve the prospects of the nation’s blind citizens.  Gooooo Missouri, My home state.
the NFB does support other disabilities along with blindness and a listing of all their divisions and committees can be found
here.
i also have a friend who has Cerebral palsee, is completely blind, and holds a board position on the Missouri state NFB chapter board.  he is and avid membor and is well excepted.

as far as the NFB suing, When a law suit is passed and upheld, usually on the NFB's side it sets a pressident.  the NFB is able to sue in federal court.  all courts under them have to follow all pressidents set above them.  in some situations it is there only option.  like amazon and the Kendal.  amazon said that even with protests by the NFB and many emails, phone calls, and other forms of communication, they will not be swaded in there stance to ignore the NFB and to not make the Kendal accessible.  i know for a fact that suing is not there first option.  they protest, and try to communicate with companies.  however, usually the law suit is the part people here about.  so people don't know what goes on behind the scenes.

Hi Kile.

I do not personally know enough about the nfb or their practices to draw an evaluation, plus as I said different offices even within the same organization have different practices and goals which should really be evaluated individually.

I will say however that one thing i have noticed about blind people particularly, is that this forum is one of the few places where reasonably compitant blind people tend to share views which is why I discuss these things hear, ---- well that and of course it is a part of my own research.

I have noticed that in too many other places, blind cleaquism or learnt helplessness do occur, especially among blind people who have an attitude formulated by specialist education.

For example, i remember discussing university disability services with someone from a specialist school. he adviced me not to apply to one university "because the disability service there is really bad, ---- someone fell in the lake while looking around!"

My response was that the person who fell in the lake shouldn't have been such a berk, and must have pretty cruddy mobility if they were that stupid, or at the least been extremely unlucky, neither of which was a reflection on the uni or their disability services.

Therefore, while I take your point about negative attitudes, and to an extent I agree since it is too easy for people to focus on what they do not like in a monolythic organization, (I have done it myself), equally I'd ask why people in this community have! such negative attitudes in the first place and what characteristics of the organizations they have encountered created those attitudes, since personally i tend to trust the opinions of people in this community more than i trust blind people's opinions on average.

For example, Bryan has explained the experiences that cause his dislike of voc rehab. Whether there are other more successful or positive  aspect to voc rehab I don't know, since I don't know their goals and objectives and much else about them, but as regards the way they've interacted with Bryan I do understand his frustration with the service..

@Arq, that is perfectly true and I can understand how one person like yourself with a pleasant experience of an organization and another such as Bryan with an unpleasant one have differing opinions. that being said, if we sit back and say "it's all everyone's opinions everything is relative" we can form no really objective or reasonable judgements that are likely to actually have an effect.

for example, with the two contrasting opinions of voc rehab I would look at their idiology, their politics, and how various parts of their organization interact with yourself and with others.

For example, my opinion of the rnib is not jusd based upon my own experiences but that of others I have spoken to, and on their basic idiology and provision of services, ---- eg, their provision of braille knitting patterns but no accessible role playing books and their response that "most of our members wouldn't like that" when I proposed as much, or the occasion that someone I know who was an olympic class walker was put in touch with the rnib's blind ramblers group and described them as "a bunch of idiots who didn't walk so much as stop to feel up the pretty flowers and be condiscended to by a sighted guide"

I've also mentioned their focus in materials, policy, advertising etc on exclusively one! deffinition of blind person, hence my judgement, ---- which I freely acknolidge is only part of the truth since as I said their political wing has been known to do fairly well and I have occasionally encountered reasonable individuals who happen to work for them.

So Arq, while I agree personal opinion plays a part, equally if a person wants those opinions to count examining more factors of the matter and performing comparisons might gain a more balanced view over all and thus be more convincing.

The problem cae, is that employment is a, not usually down to an organization, and B, not the goal of all organizations.

guide dogs for instance don't make any pretense about employment, and though they will discuss taking dogs into work etc, they don't actually attempt to find people jobs. So how would you compare them to a scale that regards employment as a main goal?

Likewise, the "impressive things" the nfb or rnib may have done are only impressive in relation to other factors, and indeed the other factors might make such things pyric anyway, for example the rnib (along with the support of guide dogs this time), are trying to make a manditory requirement that all bus services in the Uk have audio announcements, something I support extremely myself, ---- however for those who have been through the rnib's education system and just spend there time at home or talking to other blind people, or have been convinced they need "a carer" to do anything it won't make any practical difference unless they change their own perspective which won't happen without the rnib.

To take another example, and one  close to home, we might claime that the game accessibility special interest group have failed in their goal of making mainstream games accessible, or providing employment for blind people in the games creation industry, however equally obviously they have been very successfull with a number of independent games, and (I hope), in promoting, cataloguing and providing news about existing games.

This is why I'm not myself convinced an over all efficiency scale is a workable solution, ---- or even a good thing given the aimes of different organizations are so distinct.

Rather I'd suggest something of an in depth analysis of the goals, idiology, effictiveness and availability of each organization individually, perhaps carried out by some knolidgeable independent body.

Indeed again, this is similar to one of the major suggestions made in my thesis.

I  there is a modern tendency (fueld partly by  a prominance on economics),t o wish to reduce  everything and every judgement down to a  psudo mathematical set of statistics, whether that is governmental surveys, business forms or the nealson ratings beloved of tv executives. The problem with such systems though, is that human affairs don't generally reduce down to mathematics, much less cost bennifit numerical analysis.

Myself, i'd prefer to rely upon good ethical judgement and creative reasoning, since after all %86 of all statistics are made up anyway.

Well Cae, even among specific departments of organizations different goals may change, as I said the rnib are a good example of this since politically they do! tend to make a significant change where as individually and idiologically they are much more shaky.

Then there is the fact that a simple, one note organization is just likely to achieve it's aims far more directly.

In Nottingham for instance, the nottingham goalball team for the entire city are basically three men who meet and go to tournaments. they don't train, neither do they particularly advertise. you could go with them if you wished, (I did once), but since they don't ever meet at the gym to train or similar, your chances of doing any good aren't particularly helpful.

Yet, because they make no pretentions of being a "representative team for the city of Nottingham" or "allowing the blind of nottingham to play in goalball matches" you could say they achieve their goal, ---- namely of the three of them heading off to tournaments, playing a bit of goalball and having a drink afterwards very well.

Contrast this with the Sheffield team who train on a weakly basis, send teams to the paralympics, and have tryouts, an under 16 team etc, even though they're a tiny organizationn. They! also achieve their goals.

Both these organizations, the Nottingham team and sheffield team do the same activity, and both achieve their goals, it's just that the goals of the Sheffield team are far more use to most other people.

Incidently, this is the sort of blind cleaquism I really don't! appreciate and something that unfortunately exists in a lot of blind sports (my  brother found the same in the British blind chess team).

So whatever you think about goalball, it's pretty obvious that if someone's horizons aren't high to begin with they are going to more easily achieve them, which again is a factor that needs taking into account in any analysis, indeed I'd myself much rather have an organization with distinct and lofty goals which were only partially achieved than one with the bar set so low they can just trudge over it.

Maybe a hybrid golf cart would be blind-drivable?

Oh, the nature of the goals do matter, but I'm mostly interested in the organizations that manage to keep a wikipedia article. If I find reason to believe they're exceptionally good at accomplishing what they set out to do, then I'll try to figure out if the sorts of things they set out to do are good/bad/of use to my diabolical schemes/etc.

\well, as a check on the NFB side of things, amazon has now made the Kendal iPhone app fully accessible.  the NFB has been on amazon for this for a while now.  while i can not strickly varify that the NFB was the sole purpose for this, i would like to say that it most deffenetly had a big impact.

click here to view it on the applevis site.

and apparently a lot of mainstreem news sources are covering it.