This drive is taking place in the context of the sharpening situation, with the revcoms acting consistently to seize on this rare time where revolution is possible... working to wrench a revolution out of the current and coming storms. We shouldn't underestimate how widely people have been jolted by the events of the last months... and what that opens up in terms of people broadly wanting to contribute funds to an actual way out as concentrated in the title of the upcoming talk from Bob Avakian:

SOMETHING TERRIBLE, OR SOMETHING TRULY EMANCIPATING:
Profound Crisis, Deepening Divisions, The Looming Possibility Of Civil War—
And The Revolution That Is Urgently Needed
A Necessary Foundation, A Basic Roadmap For This Revolution
by Bob Avakian, Revolutionary Leader, Author of the New Communism

Spreading revolution... raising funds for this revolution! Plans for the Year End Fund Drive from a Revolution Club

We want to both build on experience from the last two fund drives in terms of people developing as seeding machines—spreading this revolution wherever they go—as part of building revolutionary organization. This included statements and videos from people whose families were murdered by police and another statement from people who lost loved ones to violence among the people.

We want to broaden this out so that more people are not just donating themselves but calling on others to contribute. This would include people around the Revolution Club, and people we've worked with in other organizations and arenas. We will be making collective efforts to expand the networks to more people getting out the word about the rare time we are in and the actual revolution we are organizing for and organizing others to contribute and be part of this revolution. For example, the revolutionary change jars reflect a higher level of commitment because the person is calling on everybody who comes to their house to donate. Same with the effort to get 50 people to donate $10 each, and those people begin to see themselves as part of the network for revolution and are introduced to the National Revolution Tour, The RNL—Revolution, Nothing Less!—Show, revcom.us, the Declaration and Call to Get Organized Now for a Real Revolution and Bob Avakian's urgent analysis in This Is A Rare Time When Revolution Becomes Possible—Why That Is So, And How To Seize On This Rare Opportunity.

We plan to reach out to people met in [an important outlying area] (including some of the more influential leaders) about the fund drive including with the aim of getting statements of support and/or calls to others to donate. If we are successful in this it could have important national impact.

In discussing reaching out to the lawyers who defended the revcoms recently (understanding that the world has been changing rapidly since then), we propose an idea that would be good nationally as well: Based on the “Revcoms in the News” article this week, put together a printed version of a visual representation of highlights of the revcoms in the last year, almost like a greeting card that could be mailed, to give people a sense of what the revcoms are accomplishing and show how the revolution is growing. We think that a snail mail card/letter (kind of like the letters people send out on the holidays updating family and friends) would be better than an email. People often don't open emails but snail mail is different. It could have pictures of the Club in action on the street and The RNL Show, as well as pictures of the covers of the Declaration and Call, Rare Time, and something about the new talk from BA coming soon.

Another idea that expands the networks is for people to ask their friends and relatives—instead of giving them a gift—to give to this fund drive, or become a sustainer of revcom or patreon of The RNL Show. This gets the website and The RNL Show out there to a broader audience. Related is giving to the fund drive in honor or in memory of someone. For example, the large extended family of one person in the Club had much appreciation to the Club for their response to the death of a family member from street violence.

A supporter of the Revolution Club has crocheted gift items and is planning to sell them for the fund drive. These could also be photographed and sent out with the fund drive flyer for other people to send to people they know to buy these gifts as a way to extend the reach. If she can get an indoor booth, they can also sell revolutionary posters and T-shirts and feature the Declaration and Call and Rare Time pamphlets.

In terms of goals, we thought that $5k from our Revolution Club would be the minimum, but that it would be more meaningful to break this down into the component parts of who/where this would come from—$x from the change jars, x $10-donations to = x total, $20-donations etc., $x amount from selling posters, $x large donations etc. This would give people a sense of the process that involves people on different levels and ways. We are going to flesh this out more this week.

There were other ideas from Revolution Club members. One was to build off the last drive where someone sold caramel apples at work to raise funds and find more people who would do something like that. Some sort of holiday bake sale is another idea although this city has a lot of regulations about selling food that might make that hard. Another suggestion was tabling downtown with the principal aim of raising funds with T-shirts, posters, stickers, etc. Another idea was some sort of social event to raise funds, but how to do that safely given COVID needs thought. One Club member proposed a national poster like was done for one of the earlier fund drives.

We also kicked around the revolutionary change jars and concluded this needed more thought as people often have few guests given the pandemic. One idea we had was a more decentralized version of this where the key person (one Club member with a large extended family for example) would spread the word he was collecting change and asking others to take this up and give that person their donations.

One person who is around the Club and raised $10 donations from a number of people last time said he knows a lot about fundraising and offered at that time to help the Club strategize about fundraising. We plan to take him up on that.