hosted on E-Democracy.org.
Our volunteers put in a lot of time and effort into hosting this
forum. Your donations are a huge thank you - they tell us that you
value this community service and inspire us to continue bringing
neighbors together online.
These recent donations will specifically support broader and more
inclusive forum outreach. Details below.
If you missed the chance to donate on Give to the Max Day, donations
are welcome everyday: http://e-democracy.org/donate - Donate securely
online or by mail
Thanks,
Steven Clift
Founder and Executive Director, E-Democracy.org
Full details from our blog:
http://blog.e-democracy.org/posts/1342
Thank You – Your Donations Make Things Happen!
Give to the Max Day was a big success.
We’ve doubled our number of donors to over 150 total on GiveMN.org,
with 76 donors contributing on or near Give to the Max Day. We raised
$2,215 which earned our local “Leader’s Challenge” match of $1,000.
That means we now have $3,215 in 2012 to support grass roots
neighborhood and community Issues Forum outreach – primarily for our
forums that do not currently have special grant funded outreach
support.
Your donations are a huge thank you to our dedicated local volunteers
– our local “forum managers.” Without them and their time, there would
be no online public space for your community or neighborhood.
Your donations will support our efforts to further support their
dedication and energy:
Printing of posters, handouts, and other outreach materials
distributed locally by volunteers. (Become one and help get the word
out. Our forum volunteers need your help.)
* Tabling at key community events – a crucial part of our
in-person outreach strategy.
* Special “inclusive” outreach leveraging field work by our
outreach team. Our inclusive outreach grant funds have specifically
supported forums in lower income, highly diverse areas. Your donations
will make it possible to extend diverse community outreach to the
middle income neighborhoods where participants donated. For example,
we can pay our Latino outreach leaders to do some work in the
Standish-Ericsson neighborhood where just over $500 was donated.
Being part of Give to the Max Day was a great opportunity. Across this
Minnesota-focused event, over 47,500 donors donated $13.4 million to
about 4,000 nonprofits. This reminds us how important it is to ask
those who support our work or find a real benefit from our forums to
contribute toward their success. While 76 donations is our most at one
time ever, we need to do more to support all of our forums with your
donations. In fact, it is not too late to donate this year.
This year we set up a team challenge to extend inclusive outreach in
our Minnesota forums. Almost $1,000 of our $2215 raised came in via
our local volunteers – in order of the amount raised:
* Steven Clift, Minneapolis Standish Ericsson
* Sara Bergen, Minneapolis Powderhorn
* Peter Fleck, Minneapolis Seward
* Jeff Ueland, Bemidji
* Nick Cross, Minneapolis Phillips
* Jason Stone, Minneapolis Nokomis East
* Jonathan Carter, Saint Paul East Side
* Sally Fineday, Cass Lake Leech Lake
* Dan Haugen, Minneapolis Northeast
Thank you team! (Now let’s rev up the outreach engine. :-) )
Here is what we heard from some of our donors:
* “I learn SO MUCH about my neighborhood through E-Democracy.
Keep up the great work!”
* “An excellent, non-partisan source to discuss local news and
social issues. MPR – watch out!”
* “E-Democracy is one of the best ways to address and discuss
local issues. I think this is especially true in rural areas where the
options for news and discussion are far more limited.”
* “The battle for democracy will be won or lost in our local
communities. E-Democracy is helping us win the battle by creating the
public spaces for our conversations about our communities.”
* “One of the very best sources for information and discussion of
state and local issues ever! That includes MPR! Thank you
E-Democracy.”
Thanks again for your donations.
The financial support from participants will become increasingly
crucial in every community we serve. We’ve built a low cost,
volunteer-driven model but supporting our volunteers and effective
outreach will cost more every year as we challenge ourselves to be
more inclusive and grow.
We also need support from our global supporters who see real value in
high quality non-partisan, non-profit inclusive community and
democratic engagement online. Your donations make a statement to us
and crucially the foundations and other major donors looking to invest
in inclusive online community engagement and democracy building that
this work inspires and makes things happen.
Steven Clift - http://stevenclift.com
Executive Director - http://E-Democracy.Org
Follow me - http://twitter.com/democracy
New Tel: +1.612.234.7072