Unfortunately, the world we live in today requires money and while we work towards a world in which money has no serious consequences on the quality of our lives, we must reckon with the place money has in our movements as young people.
When Uplift left our parent nonprofits we began to conduct our own fundraising efforts. Our team talked about what types of funding we would and would not accept. Central to our conversation at Uplift is the fact that all money comes from the exploitation of people and the Earth. This means that we must remain critical of the role money plays within social movements for change.
What is the role of money?
When Uplift began fundraising for our first year, we created a budget that laid out all our annual expenses. We included costs and services that we couldn’t do ourselves as well as our own salaries. However, as a young person organizing grassroots actions or events in your community, your costs would likely be travel related, perhaps gas to drive to an action or training camp, or seeds or vegetables to start a community garden, or a small land plot to start the community garden on.
It’s important to create transparent and accountable systems when handling money, while we often need money to create change, the goal of our movements and our activities is not to raise money. Just because we can raise thousands of dollars, does not mean we are successful in creating change in our communities. People creating alternative systems to capitalism everywhere must be mindful of letting money co-opt and lead our movements. At Uplift, we let our own ideas and needs lead us, and then seek to find the money to support those dreams. It is crucial that we follow ourselves and our communities, and not follow the money.
Types of Fundraising
Nonprofits, and those connected to nonprofits, raise money in three distinct ways: grassroots fundraising, major donors, and grants. Grassroots fundraising refers to everyday individuals who are giving small amounts of money either once or multiple times. Major donors are wealthy individuals who are giving significant amounts of money to organizations either once or multiple times. Grants are often awarded by other nonprofits or foundations to organizations in large sums, they often require an application and reporting process to the funding nonprofit or foundation.
If you are a young person wanting to start a project or program in your community, you will likely be working with grassroots fundraising. This could look like a GoFundMe, or Kickstarter campaign, a graphic with a call for funds and a Venmo or Cash App handle. However, there are small microgrants or funding opportunities that might come your way to support your project.
How To
In addition to learning how to fundraise, it’s important to know the expectations that come along with raising money.
As mentioned above, there might be small microgrants that can fund your project. Often you will need to submit a budget and a small proposal or application to get these funds. Important here is that you will need to be connected to a 501c(3) organization in order to receive money through a granting process. Also important to note, is that you will often need to send in a report after you have completed your project. This will often include a narrative of your project as well as a financial report of how the money was used.
For now, we’re going to focus on grassroots fundraising. You can think of grassroots fundraising as a form of organizing your community! Movements have long been funded by communities, families, friends, places of worship, and NOT large foundations for a long time.
Asking your networks and communities for money might be really scary. Money can be a scary thing to talk about, and it’s likely that you have messy feelings about money. When you are excited about what you believe in, others will be too.
When fundraising on social media, using pictures or video is more likely to catch attention and asking for small amounts of money (10$- 15$) is usually best and doable for people.
It is important to be cautious about handling large amounts of money if you are not connected or a part of a nonprofit. Remember the IRS exists and if large amounts of money are passing through your bank account, they could want to investigate. Refer to Dean Spades’ money management resources at Big Door Brigade to learn more about money management.
