hey manny,
thanks for all the work that you do. i appreciate you coming to all of us with your ideas and looking for feedback. i understand the struggle of trying to get paid to do what you believe in and i whole-heartedly support it. (i used to run a union for non-profit workers–do-gooders need good salaries, health insurance, and time off too! otherwise they wont be around for long & that doesnt help anyone). i also understand the struggles of trying to run & finance community-based projects. i currently run an LGBT center and am constantly looking for new funding streams, etc.
so i know this is really hard stuff and i know that its really important too.
still, i need to be really clear that i am absolutely AGAINST any kind of corporate sponsorship. i already have to rely on war-profiting, prison-profiting, labor-exploiting, environment-exploiting, racist, xenophobic, homophobic companies and governments for so many things in my life. i would really hate to have to rely on them for support, love, and community building.
i know that community building, community organizing and community education does not happen spontaneously or without resources. but i think that part of working to create the world that we want to live in means being creative.
i think it makes sense to set-up ways for people to give donations (not required to participate). i currently use Network for Good. iGive is also great for shopping stuff. there’s also the www.goodsearch.com search engine. i have a whole packet of other online fundraising techniques that i can send you when i get back to the office. in addition to these tools, i love people’s responses about using volunteers. admittedly, volunteers can sometimes be more time-intensive to manage, etc. but! this is a very involved & motivated & contributing (key word) community. i bet we could set up a “welcome committee” (maybe as a group on the website) and they could be responsible for some of the work sending hello emails comments, etc. then maybe there could be another group that is responsible for promoting the different groups to new members. i am not suggesting that we shift all the responsibilities from you but rather suggesting that we let the people keep running with this project and make it a real grassroots community project. you have created an amazing structure and platform for us; there are some small tasks that folks can be involved in to shift some of those extra hours off your plate, you know?
lets resist the re-creation of the world that has gotten us in this condition in the first place. i believe in the power of us.
hasta la victoria,
l
