Here are some comments I have written on the rule and purpose of AEON, as well as the history and management of its donation fund. I'm pretty sure there is also a related post on bitcointalk but I couldn't find it so I'll add that if I come across it later.
Do you think the success of the donation fund is a reasonable retort to my assertions that I needed to ICO to get a coin well funded to do massive development post launch?
I would argue AEON coin holders are desperate given Monero in the distant lead and so many CN clones. So I will argue it is not an applicable comparison. Sorry that is off topic here...