"There are still a handful of areas we need to hear from," said Sara Gates, who heads up the steering committee based in Seattle that organizes the monthly supporters contribution campaign. Ken Kawakubo and Stuart Crome are also members of the committee. "Because of this enthusiastic response, the steering committee will meet to adjust the national goal after we've heard from every city where supporters are part of this effort. We're asking those who haven't done so to contact us with their pledge goals right away," Gates said.

A supporter from Miami wrote to the steering committee: "We had discussions at our last two supporters' meetings about our contributions from Miami and had great success. Our initial goal the first month was to raise it by $50 per month by the end of July. But after thinking about it and getting the additional contributions this month, we surpassed that goal by $10 and raised our goal to $100 by the end of July. We have two additional people we want to talk to and ask if they want to be new contributors."

Supporter contributions are collected in each local area where there are supporters and are sent to the party national office on a monthly basis.

The current campaign to raise the level of contributions was launched on December 29 at a meeting of the steering committee in Seattle. The meeting discussed the opportunities and challenges facing the Party--from the international book fairs and developments in the international movement of anti-imperialist youth, to the volunteer weekend work brigades in New York to help in the reorganization of the Pathfinder printshop.

The response by supporters of the revolutionary party over the past several years means that the SWP can count on the monthly contributions as part of its operating budget and projects for the coming year.

The first big step along this road came at the Active Workers Conference in August 1999, where supporters launched a campaign to raise the amount of the monthly supporters contributions. Participants came out of that conference with a goal of $200,000.

A year later supporters set a course to increase the yearly contributions by another $50,000. This goal was met as well. During the two campaigns the number of contributors rose from 180 to 270. This marks a 50 percent increase in the number of participants and a 93 percent increase in the amount contributed.

On the heels of these successes, the organizers of the effort in Seattle launched an "in full and on time" campaign to underscore the need to make sure contributions are received at the party's National Office in New York by the fifth of each month so that the party can count on these contributions for its operating budget.

In early March the Seattle steering committee met to prepare the launching of a web site that will allow supporters in each local area to record the results of their collection each month. This will help make the work of each area's financial director more efficient and allow the steering committee to follow progress in the campaign.

By using the web site, supporters in each area will take on more responsibility for the work of organizing the campaign and eliminate hours of accounting work previously done in the party's National Office. The steering committee plans to have the web site up and running this month.

If you would like to become a contributor to this effort, please send an e-mail to Sara Gates at sjgates@attbi.com.  
 
 
Front page (for this issue) | Home | Text-version home