Indivisibles,

Hi! I’m Julia Leonard. I’m the Director of Digital Communications here at Indivisible. My team and I oversee our emails, text messages, social media, direct mail, and advertising programs -- so basically, lots of what you see coming from “Indivisible Team” every day.

I’m emailing you today to lift the curtain on our digital (nonprofit speak for “online”) program, and specifically, on our grassroots fundraising work and why we ask you to donate. If you’re someone who doesn’t like lots and lots of details, this isn’t the email for you -- instead, maybe check out our recent Twitter thread on what we’re up to!

Why we fundraise from the grassroots

Indivisible, like any organization, needs money to run. Donations cover everything from the grants we give to local groups to support their programming, to TV and newspaper ads, to healthcare for me and my colleagues (thank you!), to website hosting, to megaphones and water bottles for events. All of those things are a part of our overall strategic plan and how we accomplish our core advocacy goals. All in all, Indivisible Project (we’re a 501c(4) nonprofit) needs to raise $167,347 this month to fund all of it.

Now, we want to be really thoughtful about when and who we ask for money, so we’ve developed our strict fundraising philosophy that, among other things, prioritizes unrestricted donations from small dollar donors. (By the way, we also reject money from donors who want to direct what we’re doing, no matter how much they’re offering, and we reject all money from corporations, full stop!)

Most importantly, we raise money from the grassroots because we do everything with the grassroots. While we do take some high dollar gifts (nonprofit speak for “large donations”) and some money from foundations, grassroots donors as a group are our single largest “donor” and we want to keep it that way!

Why December is important

You probably heard a lot early this month about “Giving Tuesday” (nonprofit speak for the Tuesday after Thanksgiving) and are maybe seeing some organizations announce “End of Year Matches” and things like that.

That’s because for whatever reason, grassroots donors tend to really “check in” (nonprofit speak for “pay attention”) at the end of the year. It’s true for us, and it’s true for most other organizations. So, we build that into our projections!

The downside of that trend, though, is that there’s not a lot of margin for error at the end of the year. If I’m off by a little in February or June, we can usually make up ground later and still hit our annual goal. But if I’m off in November, we don’t have much time to fix things. That means that when I say we’re planning to raise $167,347 in December, we really do need to hit that goal to go into next year strong. Right now, here’s what my December online fundraising projection looks like:

The good news is recurring donations (nonprofit speak for “monthly donations”) are almost half of our projection, and we’re right on track. A HUGE thank you to everyone who’s a monthly donor (if you’re not one yet, you can set up a monthly donation here). That money is really important because it’s reliable, which means we can plan ahead with more certainty.

But that still leaves us about half of our money to raise this month, and most of that comes from emails like this one. To be precise, we’re hoping to raise $67,477 from our emails this month to stay on track to fund everything I outlined above. (If you’re bored of reading this and want to just donate, here’s a link!)

What does this all fund?

As I’m sure you’ve gathered by now, we’re not sending these emails just for the sake of it -- we really need to raise this money in order to run our massive programs. At the same time we develop a fundraising budget for the year, our program teams develop their own budgets. For example, the Organizing Department figures out how many events they want to host and how many trainings they need to run (and how much buffer they need for unforeseen developments!), and the policy and digital advertising experts collaborate about where they’ll want to run ads to pressure certain members of Congress and senators.

In the next couple of paragraphs, I’ve outlined a few of our short and long-term priorities and how our fundraising program supports them.

Passing President Biden’s Agenda

Progressives have been at the forefront of ensuring President Biden’s full agenda is passed -- essential victories for the American people next year and for the future. And Indivisible has been at the forefront of that work -- you don’t have to take my word for it. Here’s Rep. Grace Meng thanking us for the work!

But Build Back Better’s not quite past the finish line yet. We’re expecting the Senate to vote early in January, and we need to ensure every single Democratic senator (ahem, Sinema and Manchin) votes for President Biden’s Build Back Better package. That means preparing for one last huge push in a few weeks, including ads, call tools, and so much more.

Saving Democracy (no pressure)

Knock on wood, at the same time, the Senate will return to the democracy legislation! We’d hoped that this would be passed months and months ago. This bill was numbered H.R. 1 for a reason: It was the Democrats’ top priority.

Still, just because it’s taken longer than expected, that doesn’t mean we’re giving up. Over the next month we’ll be continuing to put pressure on Sens. Sinema and Manchin, the last two Democratic holdouts, as well as encouraging folks who seem on the fence (last week, we ran an ad in Delaware when Chris Coons didn’t seem as committed as we need him to be.)

It’s not exaggerating to say that both Build Back Better and the democracy package would be long-dead if progressive activists hadn’t kept up the drumbeat all year. We’re proud to be a part of that, and we're proud that we’re able to fund tools and resources to make that all possible.

This is where I ask for money

You know you’re not getting out of this email without an ask (nonprofit speak for “when we ask you to do something”).

I’m proud to be doing the work that keeps Indivisible funded so that our organizers, group leaders, and activists can focus on what they do best: activism. And I hope you will be too. Please, if you can chip in even $10 to fund the movement, support Indivisible Project, and make sure we have the resources to inform, educate, and organize next year and beyond, make your gift right away. Here are some handy one-click links:

If you've saved your information with ActBlue Express Lane, your donation to Indivisible Project will go through immediately:

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It’s as true of our fundraising as it is of organizing and advocacy: We literally could not do any of this without your help. Indivisible has always been and will always be driven by people -- individual people who’ve shown up, spoken out, and helped out. Thanks for being here, on this team, with us.

And thanks in advance for your help investing in the future of this movement.

In solidarity,
Julia Leonard
Director of Digital Communications, Indivisible

P.S. -- I’m the one who reads replies to this email address (the good, the bad, and the ugly). So if you have questions, please feel free to reply to me! I may not have answers to every question, but I’ll do my best.