Plans to Scale Up Fundraising After Chicago Livestream

August 5, 2019 | revcom.us

 

The following was sent by a reader after a group watching of the Revolution Tour livestream on Sunday, July 28:

We wanted to share some of our experience with others.

First, our goal for August is $5,000. This seems it would be a good contribution from here to the total, and is a “stretch” but doable.

This was a mix of people who came to watch the livestream—people who have known the revolution for several years and people new to the revolution, including people involved in Refuse Fascism. People were intent throughout, and afterwards people engaged in informal discussion and real ideas and plans for raising funds for the tour. One person who attended started tearing up when his letter was read on the livestream. Writing is not something he’s comfortable with as English is his fourth language, so this really mattered to him. Another person watched the livestream on Facebook and made a $50 pledge afterwards. A teacher brought cookies and brownies that she made which people took out and sold at one of the Pulgas (flea markets) to raise money for the tour.

Beginning plans were made, with two “prongs” of moving ahead: Expanding the number of people who are donating larger amounts (including trying to open up possibilities for people who can make substantial donations) and going broadly on a regular basis to key places (while keeping open the possibility of reaching out to other outpourings, parts of town, etc.). We need to make the fact that there is a National Tour building for an actual revolution underway much more widely known through the course of this effort.

People bought books like THE NEW COMMUNISM and BAsics and took copies of HOW WE CAN WIN—How We Can Really Make Revolution to get deeper into what this revolution is all about.

Among the things planned:

An internationalist fundraising dinner. One of the teachers is going to find a location for this. We are going to work with some people who can build this among Iranians and Pakistanis in particular.

Moving forward, various immigrant communities are an area we are going to try to make headway among. Large numbers of people from many parts of the world characterize this city to an extent it does few others. This terrain is obviously full of contradictions and particular issues etc. among different nationalities, but overall is a potential strategic strength for our cause in general, and for this effort in particular.

Bake sales. The woman who is a teacher is going to doing some more baking, and looking into places that would be good to set up, as this area is not really a place with a lot of foot traffic.

A garage/yard sale. One thing we’re trying to figure out is how to promote and advertise things like this. It’s a different scene than it was in the old days of print, free newspapers, etc. One young person had some initial thoughts about this including someone who has more of an IT background.

We plan to be at two universities as school opens. We also want to pursue getting into some classes and working with some professors around this.

I think there is a pretty solid basis for all those who came to the livestream to participate in this and we need to develop some thinking quickly on how to go about developing some beginning collectivities that bring people forward, while mainly contributing to the effort to achieve the monetary goals. The immediate challenge is getting out of the gate on all this.

It would be very important to hear from others. How are you raising funds for the Revolution Tour? Send your plans and how it’s going: revolution.reports@yahoo.com.

Donate to the movement for revolution here.

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