Fundraising Update

Years ago I recovered from a back injury that had immobilized me for months.  The recovery inspired a powerful, almost overwhelming experience of gratitude.  I wanted to hang on to the sense of noticing and appreciating blessings.  The intensity of that experience has waned, but there are moments when I am reminded of the life affirming power of gratitude.

Well, yes, this is about fundraising….but it’s about so much more.  It’s about living in a beautiful place, where, especially now in the spring, we are surrounded by green and birdsong,  It’s about appreciating the communities that make up Indivisible Northampton–the people who show up to learn about how to make this country live up to its rhetoric; who show up to volunteer to send postcards to voters all over the US; who show up to make phone calls and send texts; who show up to rally and speak out; who donate money to keep the work strong.  We are deeply grateful for your continued participation and support.

Most recently, many of you have stepped up to, in addition to rallying, postcarding, phoning and learning, donate money.  You have donated over $1000 to Indivisible Northampton, amply guaranteeing that we met the requirements for the matching grant.  This will fund our ability to subsidize our postcard campaigns, to maintain our zoom support, to create powerful rallies and (who knows?) fund a face to face picnic one day! We are deeply grateful for your generosity and your faith in the power of our work……Thank you, thank you!  Ever onward!

Marta Lev, for the Indivisible Northampton Steering Committee
 

For the safety of our community, we are conducting our meetings online until conditions permit us to resume assembling in person.

PENNSYLVANIA! 
Phone banks to flip PA   

Every Thursday, 6-8pm on Zoom  
 

Join like-minded activists from across the country on Thursday evenings, to help save democracy by expanding the Democratic electorate - and so electing more Pro-Choice, Pro-Democracy Democrats in the crucial swing state of Pennsylvania!

Our elected officials can truly represent WE THE PEOPLE, and pass laws to codify our reproductive and civil rights.  They can unrig the Supreme Court by passing laws to enact term limits, increase the number of Justices, and enforce ethical standards for SCOTUS.

But only if we elect the politicians who will do just this.

We know that PA is a pivotal state, with an open, flippable U.S. Senate seat, an open governor's race we have to hold (as the governor has provided crucial vetoes on attempts by the GOP dominated legislature to pass terrible voting laws), and new, much fairer districts that make flipping 1 or both state houses a real possibility this year!

Every Thursday evening, 6-8pm, IN continues our partnership with New Pennsylvania Project & Red2Blue on a unique, potentially game changing initiative to not only register new voters, but to make sure they actually get to vote!  

Join us in calling newly registered voters and help expand the Pennsylvania electorate and turn this state BLUE!

Here's the info & links, as always, training will be provided, so all are welcome:

And here's that zoom link:
Register in advance for this meeting:
https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZYsdu2ppjgqE9QjndGIV87IGy_2zAG4E2Q_

After registering, you will receive a confirmation email containing information about joining the meeting.

From our friends at Swing Left Western MA:
VOTE FORWARD’S 2022 LETTER WRITING STARTS NOW

Vote Forward, a close collaborator with Swing Left, has launched its 2022 letter-writing campaign and Swing Left Western Mass is ready to get going. As we did in 2020 and 2021, we’ll be preparing “Please Vote” letters aimed at “helping to increase the participation of historically underrepresented communities in the electorate.” By encouraging infrequent voters to vote in this year’s midterm elections, these letters can close the gap in close races and produce victory for Democrats. A few hundred votes, or even less, could make a crucial difference in determining who controls Congress next year.

In 2020, we had about 100 volunteers writing letters to infrequent voters in swing states. Together with several other groups, they prepared and sent some 35,000 letters – our contribution to more than 17 million nationwide. This year’s midterms are no less of a challenge: The “conventional wisdom” is that the president’s party loses congressional seats in the first midterms, but the country can’t afford that. These letters are one tool in the effort to defy the predictions and increase Democrats’ numbers in both the House and the Senate.
If you haven’t prepared these letters before, here’s how it works:

• Vote Forward provides pre-printed letters urging the recipients to vote in this fall’s elections. Each letter contains the name and address of the recipient.
• For each letter, the volunteer fills in the name of the recipient in the salutation, writes one to three sentences saying why they vote, and signs the letter.
• The volunteer then puts the letter in an envelope, hand-addresses the envelope and return address, and seals and stamps the letter.
• Letters are held until Vote Forward’s mailing date, close to Election Day for maximum effectiveness. All letters are mailed on that date.
• For a detailed description of how to prepare letters, click here.

And here’s how we run our Vote Forward campaign:

• You can get your letters in one of three ways:
  • I can download them for you and email you a batch of letters once a week. You print out the letters and prepare them. You choose the number of letters you want to receive and the day you want to receive them. You can change either of these, or pause or “retire” at any time.
  • If you don’t have a printer, you can pick up your printed letters each week at one of four locations – Amherst, Leverett, Montague or Northampton – on the day specified by the location host. You take them home and prepare them. Again, you can change your numbers, pause, or retire at any time.
  • If you already have a Vote Forward account and have experience using it, you can download letters yourself and prepare them. I only ask that you report your numbers to me once a month so I can keep track of our totals.
• Once your letters are prepared and in their addressed, sealed and stamped envelopes, you can store them at home until the mailing date or you can drop them off at the same locations used for pickups.
• When the mailing date arrives (you’ll get plenty of notice) you take your completed letters to your local post office or to a mailbox and drop them off.

Vote Forward’s campaign is already underway. Now is the time to sign up and get started. (One exception: The Leverett and Northampton pickup/dropoff sites will start the week of March 14. But sign up now and I’ll begin downloading letters for you in time for pickup that week.)

Please click here to sign up or copy this link into your browser window: https://forms.gle/k391Nq12mBUQr6pJ8. I’ll confirm your signup and start downloading your letters right away.
If you have any questions, please contact Michael Dover at mjdover44@gmail.com.

This section of our newsletter features one article written by a subscriber and one article selected by our steering committee. Subscribers to the newsletter are welcome to submit writing by email to info@indivisiblenorthampton.org with the subject line "Newsletter Submission".  
The opinions expressed in the writings don't necessarily reflect any consensus of Indivisible Northampton.

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