MEDIA NOTICE: Today (Friday), Jim Babka is scheduled to appear on “Straight Talk w/ Jerry Hughes,” starting at 3:05 PM Eastern. Details can be found on the DownsizeDC.org blog.
Quote of the Day: “A socialist is somebody who doesn’t have anything, and is ready to divide it up equally among everybody.” — George Bernard Shaw (1856-1950) Irish comic dramatist
Subject: Progress Report, April 2009
Our log-in problem is fixed and more improvements are on the way. Meanwhile, despite our recent technical difficulties, the Downsize DC Army has continued to grow. In this message I’ll tell you . . .
* How much the Army grew in April
* How much pressure we put on Congress
* How long it took us to grow the Army by an increment of 1,000
I’ll also share our thoughts about the growth-goals feedback DC Downsizers gave us, and tell you what marks we’d like to hit in May.
* The Downsize DC Army now stands at 25,004 — that’s a new increment of 1,000
* We grew by a net of 302 new members during April
* 710 people registered to use the Educate the Powerful System, which beat April of 2008 by 233
* We pounded Congress with 31,730 messages, which was down from April of last year by 6,781 messages, probably because of our technical problems
We’re constantly growing, despite our recent technical difficulties. But is it fast enough? Not yet. The feedback we got about growth goals seems to average out as follows . . .
* 100,000 members would probably give us a “critical mass” that would allow us to grow very rapidly
* And 1 million would probably give us sufficient strength to win major victories and start making our message heard by everyone, everywhere, every day
Those numbers seem about right to us. One hundred thousand and one million are both big goals, but big goals are no good if you can’t achieve small goals first, so it seems to us that we should start by seeing . . .
How fast can we grow the Downsize DC Army to the next increment of 1,000. It took us 176 days to get from 24,000 to 25,000. Can we get to 26,000 in less than 176 days, say maybe 150, 100, 50, or even just one month? It’s up to you . . .
We can recruit more people faster if more DC Downsizers forward the Dispatch to friends. But that’s not all we can do. Next week we’ll ask you to participate in an easy recruitment project aimed at recruiting more supporters for the “Read the Bills Act.” Stay tuned and be prepared to participate. Let’s get to 26,000 Downsizers faster than we got to 25,000.
We can also grow the Army faster by doing targeted mailings to likely members. It’s a simple fact, we can reach likely members faster with direct mail than we can with the random viral transmission of the Dispatch. We’ve stopped making fundraising appeals to you while we concentrated on our most important technical issues, but now it’s time to get moving again . . .
To make constant progress we need at least 20 people a month to start new monthly credit card pledges. They needn’t be huge. AND EVERYONE CAN MAKE A DIFFERENCE. Just 17 cents a day, which is $5 per month, adds up. Please go the DownsizeDC.org secure contribution form to start a monthly pledge, and let us know on the secure contribution form if its okay to publish your name here . . .
NEW PLEDGERS FROM APRIL: Mark J Wilson FROM MARCH: Franklin L. Webber, Scott Boeff, Darryl W. Perry, Raul Torres, Alex Vournas, James E. Sopher, Vincent B Grubb
You can help us grow faster by pledging more, if that fits your budget — $10, $20, $50, or even $100 per month. We have a pledger currently giving $225 per month. You can start your pledge on the secure DownsizeDC.org donation form.
Or, if you’d prefer to make a one-time donation please click on this link, and please also let us know if its okay to publish your name here . . .
NEW DONORS FROM APRIL: David Hyatt FROM MARCH: William R Scarborough, John O’Donnell, Mr. Kent, Jaret Osborne, Melanie Rogers, Cynthia Roe, Clarence L. Wallace
These are some of the people who made donations in March and April. We will use this money to recruit new DC Downsizers. Remember, your contribution is our outreach budget.
* Let’s see how fast we can grow the Downsize DC Army to the next increment of 1,000
* Let’s see if we can recruit more new members and send more messages to Congress in May than we did in April
* Let’s see if we can raise more money to do more recruitment and grow faster
Thank you for your help and for being a part of the growing Downsize DC Army.
Jim Babka
President
DownsizeDC.org, Inc.