BY MARTÍN KOPPEL
By end of the third week of the 10-week Militant Fund drive, it's clear Militant readers need to take several determined steps to get back on schedule. The fund campaign has slipped behind for the second week in a row - with $29,592 in hand. We stand at 24 percent of our $125,000 goal, whereas we should be at 30 percent.
In basketball, what does a team do to rally from an 6- point deficit? It starts playing "catchup ball." This means coming up with a game plan - making a number of special moves - to get ahead and win.
It's not so different in a fund drive. In this case, the Militant is asking its supporters in each city to set a catchup goal to get back on schedule by Sunday, November 5, the end of the sixth week. By then we should have collected 60 percent of the goal, or $75,000 overall. November 5 also coincides with the end of the target week in the Militant subscription campaign.
Here are three elements that Militant readers report are key to picking up the campaign momentum:
Organize a fund meeting as early as possible. "We held a Militant Fund Meeting at the end of September - that's what really got the campaign going here," reports Jacquie Henderson from St. Paul, Minnesota, adding, "A number of people attending that event made pledges there, so we've had time since then to organize to get steady payments on them." Organizing public fund-raising meetings in late October and early November will be key to getting the needed momentum going.
"On November 18, in fact, we'll even hold a second fund meeting, to celebrate our progress and ensure a successful completion of the campaign," says Henderson.
Collect payments on pledges every week. "We're not doing anything spectacular here, but we've paid attention to regular payments from the beginning," Pat Grogan comments from Salt Lake City, where Militant readers are right on schedule. She notes, "One thing that creates a campaign atmosphere here is the beautiful chart we've made." The chart, displayed at public meetings sponsored by the Militant Labor Forum, indicates progress both on the local and the national drive. "It's accompanied by an attractive chart for the Militant subscription campaign, with space next to both charts to post the latest Militant articles on these campaigns."
Reach out to new contributors. "The other day, a member of the Steelworkers renewed her Militant subscription at a union meeting," Henderson reported. "She was asked for a contribution to the fund and she pulled out an extra two dollars. An auto worker who enjoys reading the paper recently gave a $10 donation."
"In Brooklyn we started calling new Militant subscribers," Nancy Rosenstock reports. "It was a real pleasure. Many of the new readers just started telling us how much they loved getting this paper every week. So it seemed quite natural to them that we would ask them for a contribution help keep the Militant and Perspectiva Mundial coming out."
This underlines the importance of linking the fund campaign with the subscription drive, both of which are also vehicles to get involved more effectively in political activities such as those in defense of the Cuban revolution.
At the October 13 Militant Fund meeting in Brooklyn, a longtime Iranian political activist spoke about why, after many years of rethinking politics, he came to agree with many of the ideas presented in the Militant, particularly its forthright stance in defense of revolutionary Cuba. He encouraged everyone present to contribute to the fund and signed up to help sell subscriptions to the paper.
Readers will notice a few changes in the accompanying Militant Fund scoreboard this week. To highlight better the progress in the campaign, countries and cities are now ranked by the percentage paid on their goals. Those cities on or ahead of schedule are listed in bold type.
Many Militant supporters already send in new subscriptions by express delivery. Those who do so can also include payments on the Militant Fund to maximize the amount received in the Militant office by the Tuesday deadline for reporting results on the scoreboard.