Raising Funds for the BAsics Bus Tour!
Raising Funds for the BAsics Bus Tour!
We will report in a few days on the results of the efforts to raise $25,000 by the weekend of July 6-8 for the upcoming leg of the BAsics Bus Tour set to begin in New York soon. Volunteers across the country are packing their bags, teams in NY have been spending time in the areas the Tour will be going to… people are beginning to get involved. In order to make all this happen, fundraising for the Tour needs to go to a whole other level… reaching and involving many more people, and giving them the opportunity to be part of something that can make a big difference in the world: a Bus Tour aimed at spreading Bob Avakian’s vision and works throughout society, connecting with sections of NY and the surrounding areas that are most cast off, repressed and brutalized by this system as well as reaching out further to other strata who don’t like this situation… through this Tour, all these people finding out about Bob Avakian, and getting organized into the movement for revolution.
A total of $50,000 needs to be raised by August 1. For the coming week, along with ongoing forms of mass fundraising – the yard sales, tamale sales, events, all of which are essential in the BA Everywhere Campaign, we also want to encourage people do a lot of meetings with individuals about contributing. See this post for a call for matching contributions as one aspect of what people can do (though there are also people who can give larger sums who should be reached about this Tour).
Remember to also ask people for a statement saying why they are contributing and encouraging others to donate too.
Here are some key fundraising materials to use (also see the “What You Can Do” page of this blog):
Video about the last leg of the Tour
BAsics Bus Tour Phone Banking Script (Word file)
“I gave to the BAsics Bus Tour” card (to give to donors as a memento of their much appreciated contribution)
Announcing the BAsics Bus Tour: Kicking off from New York City... Reverberating Across the Country
This is reposted from Revolution newspaper, http://revcom.us:
The BAsics Bus Tour… fresh off its second leg in May, will be heading out in mid-July from New York City. Right now, $50,000 and hundreds of volunteers are needed to make this next leg happen—contributing funds, volunteering for the tour itself, and throwing in, in whatever ways they can, to get this tour on the road.
This leg will be building on—and taking further—the most recent experience with the bus tour which began in Atlanta, Georgia, and made its way to Sanford, Florida. Sanford is the site of the murder of 17-year-old Trayvon Martin by a vigilante, and it is the place where tens of thousands came to protest this modern American legal lynching. (For more on the second leg of the tour, check out basicsbustour.tumblr.com.)
This tour has reached out to, and captured the imagination of, thousands—connecting people with the voice and work of Bob Avakian, the revolutionary leader who has developed a new synthesis of communism. And all throughout the tour, the volunteers have worked to involve people in the campaign to spread BA’s voice and work even further as part of building the movement for revolution. Hundreds of people all across the country came together to make this tour happen—contributing and raising funds, sending support statements, following and spreading the blog posts from the tour, helping to house and feed the volunteers in the places where the tour went. Hundreds were part of sending a message to the people of Sanford through signed banners with quote 1:13 from Avakian’s BAsics featured in the centerspread of this issue.
Be Part of Taking the BAsics Bus Tour Higher
This is reposted from Revolution newspaper, http://revcom.us:
People have begun to volunteer and teams are beginning to be assembled to build for this leg of the tour. But in order to make this tour happen, and for it to reverberate across the country—many hundreds need to be involved nationally and in NY itself. $50,000 is needed to have a real impact—in this region… and across the country. The situation in the world is demanding that people know about Avakian’s work, and have a chance to be part of the movement to bring a radically different world into being. This is a crying need—and if we are able to reach out far and wide, tap into the inspiration and excitement (see the statements of support at basicsbustour.tumblr.com) that the boldness of this bus tour has garnered, and organize cores of people to come together and raise the funds in broad and creative ways—this can be made possible.
Thank you for supporting the BAsics Bus Tour, now let’s take it higher!
Thank You to everyone who contributed to the BAsics Bus Tour!
We raised $32,866 to exceed our goal of $30,000. Hundreds of people across the country contributed, from many small contributions and a few larger individual donations. Over the past few weeks they stepped forward to make something very important happen… the first leg of the BAsics Bus Tour which went through parts of the South and delivered a message from those hundreds to the people of Sanford. And in doing so, those people around the country and those that the Bus Tour met in the South have been part of beginning to cohere a national movement around the mass fundraising campaign to project Bob Avakian’s vision and works into every corner of society, BA Everywhere…Imagine the Difference It Could Make! Follow http://basicsbustour.tumblr.com to see what an impact this is having and all that was learned in the process.
Contribute now to take the BAsics Bus Tour even higher. While a budget and goals for the next leg of the Tour haven’t been released yet, it will likely cost around $30,000 or more. Raise funds, as you build on what has begun through the Bus Tour, involve others in this movement, and spread the message of BAsics 1:13 everywhere.
$250 needed now. Help leave copies of BAsics behind in Sanford, FL.
Great news! Just $634 from the goal of $30,000 to pay for this leg of the BAsics Bus Tour and initial money for the next. BUT in addition $250 needs to be raised immediately to go towards providing copies of Bob Avakian’s BAsics to the residents of Sanford on a sliding scale or given free to those who are serious about getting into this book but have no funds. Donate now.
This money is needed TODAY so we can distribute the books tomorrow, Saturday.
Donate now. Talk with others about contributing, let people know about the Tour and what is being broken open with this. This contribution will make a big difference. Help us leave behind a powerful way for people to get into the revolution we need and the leadership we have. (If you’re directing contributions for this, please email us at baeverywhere@gmail.com to let us know.)
BAsics, from the Talks and Writings of Bob Avakian is a distillation of several decades of Avakian’s work. It speaks to the most essential questions of revolution and human emancipation.
YOU CAN’T CHANGE THE WORLD IF YOU DON’T KNOW THE BAsics!
On to Sanford! Your Support Needed.
We received this letter from someone raising funds and statements of support for the BAsics Bus Tour. It’s being shared here to help you take us over the top and begin funding the next leg of the Tour, and call on more statements of support, enabling people broadly to participate in many ways in all this.
Dear Friends and Colleagues,
The BAsics Bus Tour—which has been spreading Bob Avakian’s vision of a radically different way the world could be and the strategy to achieve it—will be arriving in Sanford, Florida this Friday! Sanford is the site of the murder of Trayvon Martin, the wave of mass protest that followed, and, now, high profile legal proceedings. In short, the tour is arriving at ground-zero of a modern-day lynching…and will be delivering a powerful message. Here is a video announcement about this critical, culminating phase of this leg of the BAsics Bus Tour: http://vimeo.com/42650948.
I call on you to issue statements of support and solidarity (you can send them to me) and/or to make a financial contribution to underwrite the costs of this tour (see below for how to do so). Join activist-scholar Cornel West, former Black Panther Richard Brown, New York University professor Andrew Ross, and Roger Dittman from Scientists Without Borders, and others who have issued statements (http://basicsbustour.tumblr.com/support).
Next Stop… REVOLUTION!
Get a taste of the impact Bob Avakian and this revolution are having, and donate to take this BAsics Bus Tour even higher!
Donate right now online and by check through The Bob Avakian Institute and RCP Publications.
The BAsics Bus Tour: Next Stop -- Atlanta and Beyond
From the article…
The BAsics Bus Tour is getting ready to hit the road in the South. Next week volunteers from Los Angeles to New York will stream into Atlanta. They will be traveling there on the money donated for this tour all across the country. Some will be taking greetings that were created and signed in the communities they’re coming in from. They’ll be representing something much bigger than themselves. As one volunteer put it: “This is a great opportunity to expand and widen the movement for revolution, as well as to let many more people know about BA and the revolution…the fact that this vision was brought to them and that they know that there are people who really WANT TO DEDICATE THEIR LIVES to change the world, that already makes a difference in the political atmosphere of the country.”
This crew will bring word of Bob Avakian and the new synthesis of communism he’s brought forward, the strategy for revolution he’s developed, the leadership that he’s providing to the movement for revolution. The focal point of this tour is BAsics, from the talks and writings of Bob Avakian—a book of quotations and short essays that concentrates over 30 years of BA’s work on everything that stands between humanity and its emancipation. This work can introduce people to “the basics” of understanding and changing the world and give them the foundation from which to act on the world and learn more. The tour will be getting out hundreds of copies of BAsics itself, and tens of thousands of palm cards and posters drawing from this work, letting people know about it and getting into all kinds of discussions off of it.
BAsics Bus Tour Kicking Off From Atlanta in Early May — Be part of taking it higher
The BAsics Bus Tour is going to hit the road again. After its successful pilot launch in California, the BAsics bus is going to take it higher. And $20,000 is needed to make it happen.
Momentum is building in the mass campaign to raise big money to project the vision and works of Bob Avakian into every corner of society. In the coming months, new rounds of the BAsics Bus Tour are going to be spreading out to different areas. And now, beginning in Atlanta, then heading out from there, the BAsics bus will be rolling into the thick of the struggle in a particularly hot area in this country. The crew aboard will bring the message of revolution and introduce Bob Avakian to people who are beginning to fight the power. This will be changing the atmosphere, bringing the fresh wind of the possibility of a whole new world, attracting people’s deep hopes for humanity and outrage at the world as it is… stirring up controversy, deep engagement and critical thinking. It will bring the answers people so desperately need about the way out of all this and involve people in different ways in the mass campaign: BA Everywhere! Imagine the Difference It Will Make! This is needed now more than ever, and if this is accomplished, it will make a very big difference.
Whatever you can do and wherever you are, you can make your time, effort and energy count! Your creativity, participation and support is needed to make a truly big difference in the world right now.
Source: revcom.us
