2-DAY CONFERENCE
Friday Feb 20th, 7pm–9:30pm
Saturday Feb 21ST, 10am–6pm

Sha Grogan-Brown, Lucia Leandro Gimeno, Arun Gupta, Hugh Hogan, Jeanette Lee, Lynn Lewis, Yasmeen Perez, Ben Shepard, Christy Thornton, Helena Tubis & Max Uhlenbeck, More Speakers TBA

Join us Friday evening for our opening plenary and all day Saturday for a series of exciting discussions and hands-on workshops and skill shares.

Did Barack Obama get elected because of his charismatic leadership? his inspirational speeches? the thousands of volunteers working around the clock on his campaign? ….Or was it because he raised close to a billion dollars?

Although grassroots organizations on the left obviously do not have the same means to raise money that the Democratic Party has, the reach of our work is often limited because we do not take fundraising, and money in general, seriously enough. To wage campaigns, to provide volunteers with food, to pay staff people, to rent offices, to build user-friendly websites, all of this takes money as well as other resources. In the past several years more and more organizations have been feeling the need to move away from sole reliance on foundation funding and towards a ‘diverse’ strategy of generating revenue.

The question of grassroots fundraising, and how to reach our projected budgets in 2009, takes on an additional dimension as we move into an economic recession and possibly a larger global depression. Many organizations will either not survive or will need to cut back on their expenses in a major way. At the same time, our work has never been more important. More people are questioning the underlying principles of neoliberalism, corporate globalization and capitalism itself. People will be open to our ideas but only if our ideas are able to reach them.

Please come to the Brecht Forum’s first annual Grassroots Fundraising (mini) conference and share ideas and learn from others as we all navigate these unchartered waters together. Whether your part of a small local collective with no staff, or your part of an established left non-profit, this conference will build your fundraising skills, expand your imagination in terms of fundraising possibilities and allow you to meet other individuals and organizations who are struggling through the same things that you are.

Sha Grogan-Brown is the former Development Director of CISPES
Lucia Leandro Gimeno, former Development Coordinator at The Audre Lorde Project
Arun Gupta is development director at the Indypendent
Hugh Hogan is Executive Director at the North Star Fund
Jeanette Lee is Program Coordinator with Allied Media Projects
Lynn Lewis is Executive Director at Picture the Homeless
Yasmeen Perez is Leadership Development Director at FIERCE
Benjamin Shepard, PhD, is an assistant professor of human services at New York City College of Technology/CUNY
Christy Thornton is Director of the North American Congress on Latin America (NACLA)
Helena Tubis is Development Director at Jews for Racial and Economic Justice
Max Uhlenbeck is Development Coordinator at the Brecht Forum

Sliding scale: $20-$50
Free for Brecht Forum Subscribers

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