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tangent4ronpaul
04-23-2010, 01:22 PM
This e-mail brings up some important points and really questions we should be asking. I've been on Downsize DC's mailing list for several years and this is the first time they have directly asked for money. With the economy as lousy as it is and high unemployment, I think it may signal that we are going to be in for a rough time fund raising.

It also talks about the fear mongering and screaming CRISIS at every opportunity that most organizations do. C4L has sent me some doosies as have other candidates and organizations. Some have been so full if BS, that I often don't even open them.

I also have to wonder how effective Downsize DC is. I know 3 of their campaigns have gotten through and had an effect: Audit the Fed, Read the Bills Act and the HC Bill. Others, not so much. Normally, Reps count calls and e-mails and keep tick counts of in favor or against. More recently, and especially with the Health Care bill and climate change, it seems like our Reps don't care what their constituents think, Hopefully that situation will change in November. I think they finally got the message that Americans are very angry! Anyway, the organization has been very effective at education about issues and connecting constituents with reps in mass, but individually tailored, e-mails about particular issues. The big question is if they listen to us.

Anyway, he makes some good points and it's worth a read.

-t


've always been candid with you about our situation, our thought process, and our strategies, as well as the lessons we've learned, even when our experiments have failed. Well . . .

Downsize DC may soon be in trouble. This Dispatch explains why.

Many organizations raise money in ways we avoid. For instance . . .

They try to spark fear: They tell you to send money now or the Republic will fall.

They demonize personalities: They tell you that some political figure they know you don't like is more evil than Lucifer, and that only your donation can stop these terrible people from torturing babies and cancelling the 4th of July.

Amazingly, these techniques work. One member of our team once heard the CEO of another organization claim that saying something nasty about Hillary Clinton was enough to make the checks flood into his office. But . . .

We can't use either of these approaches. It's not who we are. Instead, we tell you about our strategy, as well as specific projects we want to attempt. We specifically reject emotional manipulation, and try to sell reason and hope instead.

Have you noticed?

Does it matter to you?

Many organizations also spend . . .

* Millions on direct mail
* Hundreds of thousands on events
* And huge amounts of time travelling around the country meeting with donors

But DownsizeDC.org has done little of this. Instead, we've tried to use the Internet to avoid spending money to raise money, in the hope that we could focus your donations on the work that you want done. However . . .

As with most things involving money and the Internet, it hasn't really worked.

Yes, we've managed to survive, until now, but despite constantly growing, and having success and influence . . .

Our funding has gone down a little with each passing year.

This is not what we would have expected.

We would have expected that our constantly growing list of supporters, and our constantly expanding influence, would have been rewarded with constantly expanding financial resources. Instead, the reverse has been true!

As a result, many projects that could have made us grow very rapidly have remained undone.

How should we react to this?

We think there's only one possible reaction. We must submit to reality. And the reality is this . . .

We're probably not going to make it as an organization funded mostly through the Internet.

This means that we're going to have to go back to some of the old ways of fundraising -- the ways that spend money to raise money. We're going to start sending out fundraising letters. It's a simple fact . . .

Even though they cost a lot, printed direct mail letters also raise a lot (or at least it used to -- see below). Please take note . . .

We don't think it's our fault that we're having to do this. After all . . .

We've TRIED for FIVE YEARS to NOT do it, delivering success, and growth, and influence, but getting diminishing revenues in return.

This just seems to be the way things work in the Internet Age.

Expensive, wasteful things like printed fundraising letters have a long track record of being able to pay the bills, while free email pitches like this one don't. But . . .

Even though our first fundraising letter in years goes out in a few days, it's been so long since we've done one that we can't really be sure that direct mail fundraising still works the way it once did. After all, this is the Internet Age, and a whole lot of things have changed in the last several years.

So . . . DownsizeDC.org may soon be in trouble.

Our online fundraising has been in decline for a long time. Yet for the last several months, we've been investing a hefty chunk of our "capital reserves" in behind-the-scenes software projects designed to provide YOU with some powerful new online tools that will cause us to GROW FASTER. Our hope has been that doing this might also earn us some more financial support sometime in the future. But . . .

We may not have enough fuel in our tank to find out. Which brings me to my final point . . .

There's one other technique organizations use to raise money. It's called "the wolf at the door appeal." This is where the organization tells its supporters to send money or it will have to suspend certain projects, or perhaps even close its doors. We have NOT done such an appeal in several years. But we are now very close to needing one, depending on . . .

How you respond to this message. So, please consider this as a prelude to a "wolf at the door appeal." I need lots of contributions to this message, or . . .

I will have to really beg for support next week in order to avoid announcing spending cuts. And, if our direct mail letter doesn't work, things could get worse than that. Downsize DC could really be in trouble. The wolf really could be at the door. I hope I'm not wasting my time here . . .

If you want us to keep doing what we're doing, and add more things on top of it, please make a generous contribution.

Jim Babka
President
DownsizeDC.org, Inc.

D o w n s i z e r - D i s p a t c h

emazur
04-23-2010, 02:14 PM
It would be a shame if DownsizeDC was downsized out out existence. Free Market News Network was associated with them and they have disappeared already - I never did get to watch the Harry Browne TV shows

lx43
04-23-2010, 04:12 PM
I like Downsize a lot, I try spending about 30 minutes everyday copy/pasting old letters that I haven written on all the campaigns and every few months rewrite the letters. Sadly, for few people actually take the time to partipicate who are members of that site.