Tuesday, October 31, 2017

UPDATE: MoveOn's current situation (and how you can help)

The response to my email last week has been incredible so far, and really gratifying. Amazing! We're almost there.

Hi Eddie—

The response to my email last week (which is pasted below) has been incredible so far, and really gratifying. I asked for your help to raise $250,000 by the end of October—to close our first fundraising gap of the Trump era. MoveOn members have given over $180,000 so far in response to this appeal. Amazing! We're almost there.

Can you chip in $3, so that we can hit the ground running with fully funded campaigns in November?

For more details on MoveOn's current situation and how you can help close the gap, see my email from last week, below.


Dear MoveOn member,

In my three years, four months, and 10 days as MoveOn's chief financial officer, I've only emailed you a few times.

As the "numbers guy," I oversee MoveOn's finances and operations, but I'm writing to you now because I have a decision to make as I get ready to close out MoveOn's financial accounts for this quarter. And I need your help.

I'll get straight to it: For the first time in the Trump era, MoveOn is falling behind. We're coming up short this month by about $250,000, and I've cleared my desk to help my fundraising colleagues close the gap before the end of the month.

Which is why I'm asking: Will you please chip in $3 and help MoveOn close out the month without cuts to our critical work?

Here's the deal: MoveOn spent more last quarter than we anticipated. I'll tell you why in a moment (though—spoiler alert!—"Defeating Trumpcare" is a big part of the reason). But the bottom line is that our fundraising didn't keep pace with our campaigning expenses.

So either I have to help close MoveOn's financial shortfall, or I have to meet with our executive directors Anna and Ilya and propose cuts to our work over the next two months.

Eddie, my brain may be focused on stretching MoveOn's lean and mean budget, but my heart is passionate about MoveOn members' unparalleled and highly effective work for progressive change.

With major tax and budget fights in Congress on the horizon, plus the Dream Act, plus defending our health care victory, plus gearing up to take back the House in 2018, I can't see anywhere MoveOn members aren't needed to help lead the charge.

Please. Will you help close MoveOn's shortfall by making a contribution of $3 right now, so that members like you and our team can hit the ground in November with fully-funded campaigns?

You may be wondering: Why the shortfall?

As I see it, MoveOn's team and members like you have been working around the clock for more than a year, effectively responding—as a front line defense force—to the "firehose of bad," as I call it, coming from Donald Trump and the GOP.

Together—because of strategic and painstaking work on many issues all at once—we've clawed out some real victories which have made the lives of people across the country better. And I'm damn grateful for this work and so proud to be on MoveOn's team (and a MoveOn member, as well).

Here's just a short list of work we've done this year. Frankly, it gives me hope—and propels me to break out of my usual routine and ask for your help:

  • We saved the Affordable Care Act by stopping Trumpcare again and again—when so many said it wouldn't be possible.
  • With allies, we've rallied to beat back three separate versions of Trump's racist Muslim ban.
  • We've helped send corrupt people such as Steve Bannon, Michael Flynn, and Tom Price packing and won a special prosecutor to investigate Trump's Russia ties, despite all-out White House efforts to obstruct justice.
  • We contributed an awe-inspiring $3.5 million to hurricane relief in Puerto Rico and opened our homes across Texas and Louisiana for our neighbors seeking shelter.
  • And so. Much. More. (So much—I know, because I authorize the campaign spending, and field emails from MoveOn's team at all hours of the day and night.)

Now, we need your help to deny Trump and his cronies a tax break for the 1% and corporations. And we need your help to win a clean Dream Act—because it's the right thing to do and because the lives of 800,000 of our young neighbors depend on it.

I love MoveOn and am inspired by the dedication, grit, and sheer excellence of MoveOn's millions of members.

I want us not to give an inch. Not to falter because of a fixable shortfall. We need to rise powerfully--together--to do all of this important work. And—at the same time—we also need to start planning to take back the House in 2018!!

But we simply can't leap forward and do everything that we've planned unless we close the gap in our current budget.

Can you help by chipping in $3 right now?

The day after the election, MoveOn members organized and joined hundreds of vigils around the country, which helped spark a historic people's resistance to Trump and all that he represents. Two months later, we were part of the powerful Women's March and countless national and local actions that followed. In the months after, we denied Trump any major legislative victory. Together, we've made record-breaking numbers of calls to Congress, rallied at congressional offices, swarmed airports in opposition to Trump's racist Muslim ban, and built sharp-edged emergency response networks to help stop a Trump war before he starts one.

MoveOn members like you make this work possible. Heartfelt thanks for all you do.

–Robert Fox

P.S. I was almost tempted to write you sort of a schticky Halloween email pointing out all the ways that Trump and co. are terrifying. But I had to face facts: That's not me. I'm more of a cut-to-the-chase kind of person. And even if I could pull it off, I thought it just wouldn't be right because I trust that MoveOn members like you can hear and respond to a straightforward ask for help in a tough time. Please chip in if you can. And thanks.

Want to support our work? The MoveOn community will work every moment, day by day and year by year, to resist Trump's agenda, contain the damage, defeat hate with love, and begin the process of swinging the nation's pendulum back toward sanity, decency, and the kind of future that we must never give up on. And to do it we need your support, now more than ever. Will you stand with us?

Click here to chip in $3, or whatever you can afford.


PAID FOR BY MOVEON.ORG POLITICAL ACTION, http://pol.moveon.org/. Not authorized by any candidate or candidate's committee.

This email was sent to Eddie Alfaro on October 31st, 2017. To change your email address or update your contact info, click here. To remove yourself from this list, click here.

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