When Cortez conquered the Aztecs he famously burned his ships to prevent retreat. We've done much the same thing many times, and we're repeating the strategy now. Specifically…
We're burning through the major donor money we raise to start each year so we can quickly provide you with powerful new benefits. Let me tell you what those benefits are, and when you'll see them, starting with……
A functioning Zero Aggression website
On Tuesday we told you we're merging Deny Consent into the Zero Aggression Project (ZAP). You'll soon get to see exactly what this means. We've already…
- Shown you early designs
- Tested the polling software that will be one of our key tools.
But the next version you see will have…
- New and improved polling software
- A new blog that will be easier to read than our current blog
- A “Heuristics Page” you can use to give people simple explanations of fundamental principles. Remember, a heuristic — pronounced hyoo-RIS-tic — is a simple principle that leads to quick, accurate decisions.
But as good as the above things are, the two most important things we'll give you are…
- A powerful new tool you can use to discover people who already agree with you.
- A new personalized recruitment tool you can use to MEASURE how people respond to your educational outreach!
Now let's look at each of these in more detail…
Have you ever wanted a place you could send people for simple explanations of your beliefs? Our new Heuristics Page will give you that.
- Imagine a page full of icons.
- Click on an icon and you'll see a simple explanation of a powerful, life-changing idea.
- Click on another icon and another idea will appear.
Your benefit? Use this page to teach people to think heuristically and they'll be less vulnerable to the regime media and political con-men. And that's a big step toward getting more of what you want. But that's not all…
What if you could gain the help of people who already agree with you?
Pick an issue, any issue. There are already millions of people who agree with you on that issue, but…
- You don't know who they are
- And none of them are organized to help you cause the change you seek
We're about to solve both problems…
We think finding people who already agree with you is as simple as ASKING THEM.
Imagine being able to send people emails containing simple poll questions, such as, “Do you favor drug prohibition or oppose it?”
Imagine that they click on an answer and get brought to the Zero Aggression Project website. If they…
- DISAGREE WITH THE ZAP POSITION then we share educational information, just as you experienced when testing our polling software.
- AGREE WITH YOUR ZAP POSITION then we ask them to sign a petition on behalf of their position and subscribe to our email newsletter.
The person who disagrees will also be given a chance to sign a disagree petition if he or she is unpersuaded by our educational material.
What could be easier?
Think about how simple this approach is compared to writing Congress.
Instead of asking people to read an essay and then send a letter, we simply ask them a question and ask those who agree with us to sign a petition.
You get to…
- QUICKLY discover people who already agree with you
- EASILY recruit them to join you
- PLUS, you also get to expose people who disagree to counter-arguments based on powerful heuristics like the Zero Aggression Principle.
We honestly believe this is going to be the most powerful education and recruitment tool yet devised. BUT…….
It gets even better……
- Imagine that you can create your own Zero Aggression prospect list — a list of names of people and their email addresses you can use to send out simple polling questions on a host of issues.
- Imagine that you can then go into your personal account on the ZAP website, click on a name in your prospect list, and see if that person has answered a question you sent them.
- Imagine being able to see those who agree with you, and those who signed the petition and joined ZAP because they agree.
- Imagine also being able to see the answers given to follow-up polling questions by those who disagree with you.
- Imagine being able to see how those who disagree adjust their answers as they interact with our heuristic-based educational material.
Can you see how all the pieces fit together? Do you want these new tools? Well…..
We want to provide them to you by the end of March.
And this is why we're burning through our cash reserves. We feel like we need to begin to discover, educate, and recruit, sooner rather than later.
We don't think we can afford to take months and months to develop the basic tools we need to make our new ZAP-based approach work. It's already taken us several months to reach this point, and we need to accelerate now. So……
We've hired two additional part time programmers and a new web-designer so we can push to deliver all the elements described above by the end of March.
We're making a bet that…
- You'll like our new strategy and our new tools
- These new tools will help us grow
- You'll help provide the funding to fuel our fast burn rate.
Will we prove to be right, or have we made a fatal mistake?
The verdict will be in your hands. We can only propose. You get to dispose. You are the customer, and in the Voluntary Sector, unlike the violence-based Statist Sector, the customer is always right. So the question is this…
Will you be a customer for what we're selling?
To keep pace with our burn rate we need to raise $16,000, above and beyond pledges, in the next 45 days, starting today.
Thank you for your consideration of our efforts on your behalf.
Jim Babka & Perry Willis
Co-Founders
Zero Aggression Project
& Downsize DC