BAsics Bus Tour Fundraising Flow Chart above and Fundraising Letter below Sample Fundraising Letter The above is a sample fundraising phone call flow chart and following is a template for letters to send out to people broadly to raise funds for the BAsics Bus Tour. You can draw from and adapt this template, or write your own letters—the important thing is to reach out to everyone you know and call on them to donate to this tour that will make a big difference in the world. You can use the version below, or download the letter in a Word version. Dear         , I am writing to ask for your support for an exciting and impactful venture… the next leg of the BAsics Bus Tour hitting New York City and surrounding areas in mid-July. [[MORE]] This is building off the last leg in May, which went from Atlanta to Sanford, Florida (where Trayvon Martin was murdered), capturing the imagination of thousands and connecting people with the vision and work of Bob Avakian, the revolutionary leader who has developed a new synthesis of communism. The tour went to housing projects, high schools, and immigrant neighborhoods, getting out copies of BAsics—a book of quotations and short essays from Avakian speaking to essential questions of revolution and human emancipation. The multinational, multigenerational crew of volunteers worked to involve people in the campaign to spread BA’s voice even further as part of building the movement for revolution. They held discussions in people’s homes and local bookstores… showed clips of Avakian’s talk Revolution: Why It’s Necessary, Why It’s Possible, What It’s All About… held protests, picnics and bbq’s where people could get into questions deeper and talk about getting organized with the revolution. The volunteers created a big scene and stirred up debate and controversy about something people have never been allowed to consider. As they did, they drew people forward and linked them to a national movement. All this was reported on in near-real time—and was part of affecting the political terrain across the country and around the world, reacting back on and changing what people think is possible. (For more on the tour, including the powerful message that was delivered to Sanford, go to basicsbustour.tumblr.com and see the links below.) The tour through the South tapped into people’s outrage at things as they are, and their hopes and aspirations for a different way the world could be… and a profound connection was forged between some of the most desperate sections of the U.S. population and BA’s voice and revolutionary work. This connection needs to be amplified and spread in this next leg of the tour hitting New York and nearby areas. But this won’t happen on the scale required without your support. New York is the global financial center of imperialism, a place of great wealth and opulence. But right within the city’s borders, and in smaller nearby cities, there are neighborhoods that have been left to rot. The tour will go to where police brutality and the New Jim Crow are the sharpest. It will reach out to the diaspora of immigrants driven into the sweatshops and margins at the heart of the empire. The tour will reach into places with some of the greatest wealth disparities in the country, places where the high school dropout rate is close to 50 percent for some oppressed nationalities, places that are centers of housing foreclosures and staggering unemployment. This is where the tour will bring word of Bob Avakian and spread the movement for revolution. $50,000 is needed for this leg of the tour. There have been more volunteers asking to be part of it, and we’re aiming for two RVs this time. The last leg was funded by hundreds of people across the country—people who helped organize bake sales and raffles, and people who contributed large individual contributions. I’m writing to ask if you’ll be part of this and give a contribution that can make a big difference in the world right now. I’d also like to ask you to send a statement of support. You can see others HERE. In talking about this tour, a Black woman from Sanford who bought BAsics and took part in a speak-out at the local police station put it well: “I just want everybody that was there to be encouraged and to continue to do what you’re doing because it is a message that he has that is really opening up our eyes. Some may not want their eyes to be open and want things to be as it always has been, but this is something that need to be told. This story need to be told. It need to open up the eyes of what is really going on in America.” I look forward to hearing back. Best,   P.S. I really encourage you to check out these articles: A video collage of the message that was delivered to Sanford, and the movement that began around this Getting Down to BAsics With the People of Sanford: “I Couldn’t Put It Down,” by Michael Slate Getting Down to BAsics With the People of Sanford: Strange Fruit, by Michael Slate In an Atlanta Neighborhood with the BAsics Bus Tour, by Sunsara Taylor July: The BAsics Bus Tour and Making Big Leaps With BA Everywhere  
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BAsics Bus Tour Fundraising Flow Chart above and Fundraising Letter below

Sample Fundraising Letter

The above is a sample fundraising phone call flow chart and following is a template for letters to send out to people broadly to raise funds for the BAsics Bus Tour. You can draw from and adapt this template, or write your own letters—the important thing is to reach out to everyone you know and call on them to donate to this tour that will make a big difference in the world. You can use the version below, or download the letter in a Word version.

Dear         ,

I am writing to ask for your support for an exciting and impactful venture… the next leg of the BAsics Bus Tour hitting New York City and surrounding areas in mid-July.

This is building off the last leg in May, which went from Atlanta to Sanford, Florida (where Trayvon Martin was murdered), capturing the imagination of thousands and connecting people with the vision and work of Bob Avakian, the revolutionary leader who has developed a new synthesis of communism. The tour went to housing projects, high schools, and immigrant neighborhoods, getting out copies of BAsics—a book of quotations and short essays from Avakian speaking to essential questions of revolution and human emancipation. The multinational, multigenerational crew of volunteers worked to involve people in the campaign to spread BA’s voice even further as part of building the movement for revolution. They held discussions in people’s homes and local bookstores… showed clips of Avakian’s talk Revolution: Why It’s Necessary, Why It’s Possible, What It’s All About… held protests, picnics and bbq’s where people could get into questions deeper and talk about getting organized with the revolution. The volunteers created a big scene and stirred up debate and controversy about something people have never been allowed to consider. As they did, they drew people forward and linked them to a national movement. All this was reported on in near-real time—and was part of affecting the political terrain across the country and around the world, reacting back on and changing what people think is possible. (For more on the tour, including the powerful message that was delivered to Sanford, go to basicsbustour.tumblr.com and see the links below.)

The tour through the South tapped into people’s outrage at things as they are, and their hopes and aspirations for a different way the world could be… and a profound connection was forged between some of the most desperate sections of the U.S. population and BA’s voice and revolutionary work. This connection needs to be amplified and spread in this next leg of the tour hitting New York and nearby areas. But this won’t happen on the scale required without your support.

New York is the global financial center of imperialism, a place of great wealth and opulence. But right within the city’s borders, and in smaller nearby cities, there are neighborhoods that have been left to rot. The tour will go to where police brutality and the New Jim Crow are the sharpest. It will reach out to the diaspora of immigrants driven into the sweatshops and margins at the heart of the empire. The tour will reach into places with some of the greatest wealth disparities in the country, places where the high school dropout rate is close to 50 percent for some oppressed nationalities, places that are centers of housing foreclosures and staggering unemployment. This is where the tour will bring word of Bob Avakian and spread the movement for revolution.

$50,000 is needed for this leg of the tour. There have been more volunteers asking to be part of it, and we’re aiming for two RVs this time. The last leg was funded by hundreds of people across the country—people who helped organize bake sales and raffles, and people who contributed large individual contributions.

I’m writing to ask if you’ll be part of this and give a contribution that can make a big difference in the world right now. I’d also like to ask you to send a statement of support. You can see others HERE.

In talking about this tour, a Black woman from Sanford who bought BAsics and took part in a speak-out at the local police station put it well: “I just want everybody that was there to be encouraged and to continue to do what you’re doing because it is a message that he has that is really opening up our eyes. Some may not want their eyes to be open and want things to be as it always has been, but this is something that need to be told. This story need to be told. It need to open up the eyes of what is really going on in America.”

I look forward to hearing back.

Best,

 

P.S. I really encourage you to check out these articles:

A video collage of the message that was delivered to Sanford, and the movement that began around this

Getting Down to BAsics With the People of Sanford: “I Couldn’t Put It Down,” by Michael Slate

Getting Down to BAsics With the People of Sanford: Strange Fruit, by Michael Slate

In an Atlanta Neighborhood with the BAsics Bus Tour, by Sunsara Taylor

July: The BAsics Bus Tour and Making Big Leaps With BA Everywhere