March 27-30: National Fundraising Weekend for BA Everywhere!
Why? Because the people need to know there is a radically better way the world could be.
Because people need to experience: BA Speaks: REVOLUTION—NOTHING LESS!
March 3, 2014 | Revolution Newspaper | revcom.us
The BA Everywhere campaign is announcing that each month this year, there will be a weekend of nationally coordinated and focused fundraising and popularizing of BA. This will be an important way the campaign can begin to develop momentum and raise really big funds in 2014 to make Bob Avakian—BA—and his vision and framework for a radically new society concentrated in the new synthesis of communism known throughout society.
These nodal points will have themes and financial goals that will enable the consistent and ongoing work of fundraising to make leap upon leap so that BA Everywhere advances in waves over the course of this year.
Taking BA Everywhere to campus, February 2013.
Photo: Special to Revolution
The first focused weekend will begin on Thursday afternoon, March 27, on campuses and at high schools and continue society-wide through Sunday, March 30. This will be a weekend of national fundraising for BA Everywhere with a concentration on utilizing and popularizing the film BA Speaks: REVOLUTION—NOTHING LESS! Bob Avakian Live."
BA Everywhere committees and people everywhere who are inspired by the difference this campaign could make in transforming the whole political terrain should get together as soon as possible to plan. This week, even as preparations and organizing for International Women's Day are underway, BA Everywhere committees should be making plans to get with everyone who has seen BA Speaks: REVOLUTION—NOTHING LESS! during the past year and tell them that this month we are going all out to raise big funds as part of the BA Everywhere campaign to widely promote the film. People need to be reminded of the deep feelings they had after seeing this film, the profound questions that were provoked, what they felt was possible, and then be challenged to be part of raising funds this month so that many more people know about and can see BA's incredible talk.
Since BA Speaks: REVOLUTION—NOTHING LESS! premiered one year ago, we have seen the deep impact of experiencing BA straight-up through this film. As we wrote after the premieres, most people have "never heard anything like this before." BA breaks down for people the problem we face in this system and how the solution is nothing less than revolution—and this is real. Those who catch the hardest hell from the brutal dog-eat-dog of this system have said over and over: "He's talking about my life. He's talking about us." And BA is challenging people to be a part of the great struggle to emancipate all of humanity. The film is, indeed, a daring, substantive summoning to revolution that can change how people see the world and what they do with the rest of their lives.
Over the next year, spreading the film needs to build on the premiere screenings in major venues, the significant public library showings in Los Angeles and Berkeley, the campus showings at UCLA, the deep discussions in bookstores and living rooms, and the many partial viewings on the streets. March 27-30 should begin to make real the potential of this film to generate new contributions for BA Everywhere overall and, as a part of that, to make possible much wider promotion and screening of BA Speaks: REVOLUTION—NOTHING LESS! this year.
Work should begin on the college campuses and at high schools on Thursday and Friday, showing the film and raising funds and involving students in the BA Everywhere campaign. Work for showings of the film at schools and campuses needs to get underway now. Students from middle school to college should be inspired to be a part of this campaign that is not just about doing good in a bad world, but about contributing to bring about a whole, radically different and better world.
March 27-30 should be a weekend of diverse activities that build community, spirit, organization, and most of all raise big funds. BA Everywhere committees should strive to have some real house screenings/fundraising parties. Depending on the strata of people, a party could raise from $200 to $1,000.
One idea is for a committee to develop a plan to go out to 25 or more people—including all those who the committee has met over the past two years and certainly everyone who saw and was moved by the film. There should be outreach that involves "cold calling" and going door to door, all with the aim to have serious one-on-one fundraising appointments, utilizing BA Speaks: REVOLUTION—NOTHING LESS! and the overall BA Everywhere campaign material. In some cases it may be possible for an area or a campus group to plan to do a showing of BA Speaks: REVOLUTION—NOTHING LESS! as a fundraising event.
Fundraising materials that highlight the need for massive promotion of BA Speaks: REVOLUTION—NOTHING LESS! in the next year will be prepared. The BA Everywhere page will develop a short piece on the film—its import, ways to make it a focus—as a spur to raising funds for the campaign as a whole as well as for the particular needs of promoting the film itself.
An important way to kick this off and introduce people to Bob Avakian is to listen together to BA's New Year's statement, one-on-one or in small groups, and to play it in settings where lots of people can hear it (audio available here and text is available here) This is a key tool to be used consistently and widely—especially among the youth. It should be a big part of cohering people around BA, the campaign, and the movement for revolution. And each month there should be a couple of days when focused work with the New Year's message is done at high schools. There are small cards with a QR code that link to the audio—let's use them.
Mass work on the weekend of March 27-30 as well as leading up to it, in the 'hoods, at the schools, on the campuses, and in culture scenes, should incorporate wearing and popularizing the REVOLUTION—NOTHING LESS! T-shirts and getting sponsorships for the shirts.
The monthly nodal points with their themes and financial goals will build momentum and a national sense of a movement; they will be opportunities to forge community; they will provide a boost to fundraising.
At the same time, the BA Everywhere campaign needs to be out in the world organizing fundraising among all sections of the people on a continual basis. Mass fundraising among the most oppressed people and among middle class people and setting up house meetings, individual appointments, etc. should be ongoing... consistently tracked, summed up, and a sense of national progress toward goals projected. The numbers of people donating should increase, with cores of people working on the campaign growing in cities as well as outlying areas to make this possible. Among the wealthy as well as the upper sections of the middle class, including opinion makers, fundraising must also be ongoing with methodical attention paid to breaking into scenes, meeting many new people, developing relationships, and working with people who are able to contribute significant funds.
The weekend focuses will marshal all of this ongoing work for leaps in the campaign as a whole.
And all of this will be projected and led from the revcom.us website, particularly the BA Everywhere page under the section: Fight the Power, and Transform the People, for Revolution.
Now is the time to get started so that the weekend of March 27-30 will be a culmination and infusion of energy and funds for BA Everywhere—providing focus, goals, and new experience... lofting BA Everywhere to a new level from which to go forward.
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