Move to Amend: The National Campaign to End Corporate Personhood and Demand Real Democracy!
Last week, the Move to Amend national leadership team met in El Cerrito, California for our annual meeting. Board members and staff gathered together to analyze our growth and capacity, internal projects and programs, budget and operations, status within the larger movement, and our progress towards accomplishing our mission to pass the We the People Amendment and establish real participatory democracy. We’ll be reporting back in full to you, as soon as the information is collated.
Move to Amend remains on track, big time: still growing, still organizing, still advancing and still working to end corporate rule. On the flip side, we still struggle to meet our budgetary goals. Please contribute today.
Every retreat is a discussion of how we engage and empower more people to join with Move to Amend as informed citizens participating in concrete democratic action against oligarchy and corporate rule. And every discussion entails how we can do better, including how we can:
- Be more responsive to our grassroots volunteers,
- Be more diverse and better allies,
- Be more effective in getting our message out,
- Stretch our budget to meet our goals
This is no Koch-style retreat with lavish hotel rooms, gourmet food, a pool and a golf course. The team works in very close quarters — an older six-bedroom house with creaky floors in the El Cerrito neighborhood provides sleeping and meeting space for 17 people, who also host a fundraiser and do the cooking and cleaning over the intensive three days of meetings and work sessions.
To host that many people for four nights and three days for a few thousand bucks is a testament to the national team’s commitment to our mission. It’s also a miracle of Move to Amend accounting, representing the frugality we implement in everything we do. Please contribute today.
And, we get a lot of bang for those bucks. Click here to see how your donations are spent.
Our volunteers and grassroots organizers employ our internal and external education, an incredibly robust website and database, materials and resources to win resolutions and ballot initiatives, while national committees perform outreach and provide professional communications and materials. National team members crisscross the country attending events like Neil Young’s Monsanto Tour, the US Social Forum, and the ‘What the Bleep Happened to Hip Hop?’ tour, along with Move to Amend specific events and barnstorming tours.
Most importantly, over 100 local affiliate groups are working in their communities to build support for the We the People Amendment—and succeeding 100% of the time. Please contribute today to keep it going.
The national team is in it for the long haul, and we believe you are too, Egberto. Like you, national board members donate many hours to this work. And just like you, we are regularly called upon to contribute financially. That’s the price we pay for political independence.
As we approach the beginning of the fourth quarter and we have a budget gap. We need to raise $136,000 to get us through the end of the year. Please contribute today.
To ensure that what happened at the national leadership retreat in El Cerrito doesn’t stay in El Cerrito, we need the necessary funds to keep pushing forward, spreading our message, and engaging all kinds of people in communities across the country. Contribute today with the certain knowledge you won’t find more bang for your buck anywhere else.
In appreciation,
Daniel Lee, David Cobb, Egberto Willies, George Friday, Jerome Scott, Kaitlin Sopoci-Belknap, Keyan Bliss, Laura Bonham, Edgar Franks, Shamako Noble, Virginia Rasmussen
PS — We celebrated our latest victory on Tuesday when 64% of voters in Kent, Ohio voted for a constitutional amendment to end corporate personhood and money being defined as free speech…and the creation of an annual “Democracy Day” public hearing for residents to testify on the impact of big money on elections from the wealthy and corporate entities. Kent is now the 7th Ohio community to have passed a Move to Amend ballot initiative. City Councils in 10 other communities have passed resolutions calling for our constitutional amendment. Congratulations and thank you to the all volunteer team of Kent Move to Amend organizers! Please help us keep the fight going by making a donation today!!
MOVE TO AMEND COALITION
PO Box 610, Eureka CA 95502 | (707) 269-0984 | www.MoveToAmend.org
We, the People of the United States of America, reject the U.S. Supreme Court’s Citizens United ruling and other related cases, and move to amend our Constitution to firmly establish that money is not speech, and that human beings, not corporations, are persons entitled to constitutional rights.