Name and Financial Credit

In 1947 the danger to Tradition Six walked in as an enthusiast with a good cause, asking for A.A.'s name. Bill W. described him (A.A. pamphlet P-17, p. 24): "He strongly feels that A.A. ought to place its name and financial credit squarely behind any first-rate research, hospital or educational project." Financial credit is the trust that lets you borrow or raise money. "Seeing that A.A. now makes the headlines, he argues that we should freely loan out our huge goodwill." Goodwill is the public's trust in a name. Bill named a motive without pretending it was everyone's: "The judgment of this enthusiast is sometimes beclouded by the fact he wants to make a career." Beclouded means fogged. The A.A. name belongs to every group at once, built by drunks who never charged a cent, and he wanted to lend it out. That is why the short form says a group must never lend the A.A. name to any outside enterprise, and the Long Form keeps even A.A.'s own clubs and hospitals from using it. Today the enthusiast is often a member who works in the field and asks his home group to put its name on his program's open house or its brochure. Test it tonight: ask whether anyone has asked your group to put its name to their work, and what the group answered.