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Increasing the donations across all Reform sites



Online fundraising for Reform

Let's review the barest facts about the state of today's online Reform donation channels:

The current donation channels of all the Reform sites are totally messed up and broken, serving only to *discourage* donations. Hitdonate.net supports everything I'm saying. The current donation channels strongly discourage initial joining, renewal, and 1-time donations, and scheduled donations. They are not online at all -- for example, NORML's "print and mail" donation page -- which I give a big "F" grade to, for online utilization.

To change this, the Reform sites need to be persuaded to do a major rearchitect that is goal driven and usability centered. One mandatory way to grok what I'm talking about is that each Reform site manager should take $75 and try to donate part of it to each of the major sites. Instead of me explaining, you should see for yourself just how bad it is. Don't just take my word for it; experience it firsthand. Would *you* use these un-compelling donation channels to spend *your* money?

The bottom line for my own activism is, if I want change, I'm going to have to post a specific list of changes to make for each site. And post ways that they can work together to form a consortium of donatible sites, interlinked. We need to make donation a standard, trendy, coordinated thing to do. Site managers, you should post your appeal of why people should donate to your particular org, but also provide links that strongly encourage them to donate to your sibling orgs as well. Take the attitude of working together to encourage the attitude of donation.

That's the thing that's missing these days: the change-through-donation mentality. Good news: you can help efficiently by donating to the Reform orgs online. You can simply "buy" reform, online. This is especially good news when combined with the state initiative revolutionary successes of November 2000 election day.

Right now there is a matching-donations fundraising drive for Alchemind.org, I think through Dec. 10, 2000. Why some donors set up matching contributions: those who have a comparatively large amount to donate want to encourage other people to donate a lot in addition. This is especially important now with the false accusations of the media and authorities that the state Reform inititatives weren't *really* supported by the voters, the poor voters were simply bought by Soros and two other undemocratic wealthy, alien outcastes. So wealthy donors have a problem: how to massively fund the movement without making it look like the movement has few financial supporters. This way, wealthy donors can encourage a great number of donors, which is important in addition to the final sum donated. The large-amount donor can withhold some of their money as an incentive, this way the big and small amount donors combine their efforts.

The Reform movement has it easy, compared to other charities -- we should be doing *way* better than other Causes for collecting donations. The most energized and devoted movement of any right now is the drug policy reform movement. Everything written about the potential of online funding and importance of iteratively improving the online donation channels ( http://www.fund-online.com , http://www.hitdonate.net ), applies more to our movement than any other charities. Other people donate millions to emergency events around the world... but in our movement, it's a permanent emergency, an unfortunately ongoing revolution, a 70-year war that we can potentially bring to an end at last, especially if we *intelligently* and *effectively* use the Net.

One of the big worries of charities is sending email spam solicitations. But that's the least of the problems for the Reform movement, which is somewhat ahead of the other charities in the use of listservs -- the Reform supporters, those people who click Yes on the Reform online polls at news sites, are true activists simply by virtue of wanting to receive weekly news reports on the frontline progress of the movement, the WOD. The Reform movement is positioned to compete against the environmental movement for funding, because legalizing hemp will save the planet possibly more than the other areas of environmental activism. Donate to Reform, first, not to other AIDS groups, because needle availability would stop AIDS. Are you concerned about the massacres and oppression in Mexico? Donate to Reform, first. An so on with other activist concerns.

These days, there is one central, master area of activism, and that is our Reform movement. I think of the people who donate through redcross.org. It seems to me that their relationship with Red Cross is weak compared to the potential support for our Reform movement. Our movement could very well be the most compelling, gripping, urgent movement that affects the world more, in more ways, than the other Causes. So we have a *huge* incentive, an *ideal* situation, for which online donations should be garnering incredible level of support. Imagine those 61% of prop 36 voters all donating to our movement online, in order to put some muscle behind getting the State to enact 36, in a way true to the intent, now that it's been clearly passed.

Steve Kubby took my advice and created a dedicated Donations page. He's been in the depths of court activity so couldn't make the other changes; some of his pages do not have a Donate link, and that's a loss of funding.

There are many orgs, I'm working to create a donation portal; there's also Helping.org, which uses the Guidestar.org database of nonprofit orgs. The good news is that people can quickly donate online, through several channels. You don't even need a credit card or checking card; my bank site and probably Yahoo enables setting up a payment online. The online payment is electronically transmitted to the org, if set up for EFT electronic funds transfers, or snailmailed by the bank if not set up for EFT.

You can also jump up to the meta level of donation, and donate your time and web usability design skills to email recommendations to webmasters regarding their donation channels. In any case, use my reform site rapid-navigation table.

The webmasters need to feel great and confident about linking to this navigation device. As much as I want to promote my philosophy site by putting useful resources there, I don't want to limit the use of this navigation page by putting it at my philosophy site. Therefore I purchased and am preparing Reformnav.org. I will ask webmasters to massively link to this navigation-utility site, or Reform portal site, from each of their standard pages.

Site managers and webmasters, I'm asking you to make various specific changes to multiply online donations by 300. To get that figure, consider that online charity donations are now only 1/3 of 1 percent of non-online donations. I actually think the potential is much higher than multiplying today's online Reform donations by 300. I spoke yesterday to reform leader David Borden, asking "Do you guys actually need money? Would money actually help? Because from the lack of appeals pages and links to them, and the lack of pure donation pages, it is not evident that the reform organizations are serious about wanting funding." He replied, "Yes, we do, it's critical. I'm looking forward to reading your specific recommendations for a redesign of that aspect of our site."

My activity for opening up the donation channels to fully utilize and awaken the potential of online donations is my own volunteer contribution -- I hope that you join my activities. You could help by learning the principles I found which are the same as hitdonate.net (which is related to Erowid.org). I guess hitdonate.net is personally advising Erowid's appeals page, which is why Erowid is slightly more sophisticated in some ways than the donation design of other Reform sites.

All the sites have reached merely a "first quick attempt" to set up a donation channel online. You are not finished, guys! You have only begun. Now you need to do at least two more passes of usability re-design of your online donation channel.

This posting is infinitely more enervating than asking some people to make a $50 donation to one organization, once. Instead I've detected that there is the possibility to put into place an attitude of giving, which translates into a sense of empowerment, by providing a wide-open donation channel. This means getting the site designers and org managers to coordinate all their donation channels, making various adjustments to their site design, so that the resulting scenario is:

Think of it this way: at a higher level, there is a competition between charity sites in various areas. Will you donate to the various health sites, or to the various Reform sites? The actual situation is *competitive appeals* for donations, not only between Reform sites, but betweeen charity areas. How can the Reform sites provide The Reform sites can be more powerful donation channels than the other charity areas are, *if* the Reform sites work together.

I am changing the spirit of the Reform sites... instead of being somewhat popular but of limited influence, they would be more popular if they had more influence and could report more progress.

Today: Right now we're stuck in this homeostatic equilibrium state:

Future: Here is the future desired goal homeostatic state:

Even if this support is purely monetary donations, not even joining the org as a member, that financial bond will encourage further donations and possible other actions. After donating hundreds of dollars to the organizations, taking other actions such as online letter writing to representatives or media, or attending a rally, sure feels good, like progress has been made through donations of money and time both -- not donations to an org, but rather, to The Movement, the drug policy reform movement.

It feels somewhat good, but mostly *frustrating* now, to donate online. There is a sense of throwing money into a dark hole with no sense that the money is really needed, or what it is used for, and no sense of "helping the movement". There is too much a sense of only giving to 1 org in isolation. DRCNet is not important, or DPF, or DrugSense, or the other organizations; what we donors / supporters of Reform want is to effectively and efficiently fund "the movement" as a whole.

The Reform groups have committed themselves to a false assumption: that you must get people to join as members before they will donate funding. The truth is the opposite: by spreading the good news that it is now easy to take action online to bring about specific measurable change, through pure donations such as at Helping.org, we open a path for passive supporters to gleefully turn their frustration into action -- financial action, and possibly *later*, membership or activism. The orgs are now discouraging people from getting involved because the orgs are dictating how to get involved. The orgs now wrongly assume that the steps of ease of involvement naturally go like this:

  1. Wishing things were different
  2. Voting Yes on a news site Reform poll
  3. Joining as a member
  4. Donating funding
  5. Donating time
But the steps actually go like this:

  1. Wishing things were different
  2. Voting Yes on a news site Reform poll
  3. Donating funding online
  4. Joining orgs as a member
  5. Donating time for The Cause

So the first thing Reform site designers need to do is create a completely separate online channel for pure donations, and promote that channel. You could include there a listserv checkbox, but keep the "membership" rat's nest of overcommitment well out of the way. Stop limiting people to connecting donation with membership. Stop dictating that they have to be a member of your stupid club just to donate to The Movement. They want to easily buy progress in The Movement, perhaps repeatedly at random intervals at their convenience; many, perhaps most of them do not first want to "join" your particular organization as a "member".

You have made membership a precondition for donating, and then you wonder why no one donates or joins as a member, and you wonder why when they *do* join, they don't donate any more at random times and often don't renew. Such rigidity has been driving almost everyone away from donating online. See all the Donate pages via my rapid-navigation table to see how ill-considered and rigid and unpersuasive today's donation pages are. Then study hitdonate.net and my pages that are linked to the table, to see how to get rid of your many barriers to online contributions, so your funding increases some 300-fold and today's frustrated, passive supporters of Reform become delighted repeat donors and then participants in other ways.

The outcome of this analysis is:

Why bother with the effort of creating such a nav site and getting webmasters to all use it together?

Why should I be the one to craft and promote such a site, a rapid-navigation site focusing on raising the navigation transparency in and among the Reform sites?


Notes about Nav Site Idea

Have a fill-in form to submit to human for entry. Heh - the form itself will show designers how worthless and counterproductive their current design is.

What is the potential? The potential contribution here is the difference between ideal reform-site design and today's 0.3% effective design.

To increase the effectiveness of today's sites -- by uniting and improving them -- by a factor of 300-1000.

Shit, just the table itself having an empty or placeholder "progress" would-be link... will do wonders to foster productive competition.

Helping provides a db... but first things first whats needed is more fundamental and rudimentary basic. The simplest little standards of navigation. Ultra fast loading pages.

There is really no need to advise each site. A checklist for everyone will do fine. That would be more valuable, to more site managers.

Have an "importance" rating, 1-5. Have an active form... that produces a rating.

For submissions, provide a block of xml and have them fill in their own junk and email it to me.

<site>
<sitemap>http://www.smith.org/sitemap.htm</sitemap>
<home>http://www.smith.org</home>
<about>http://www.smith.org/about.htm</about>
<membership>http://www.smith.org/membership.htm</membership>
<donate>http://www.smith.org/donate.htm</donate>
<guidestar>&nbsp;</guidestar>
<appeals>http://www.smith.org/appeals.htm</appeals>
<contacts>http://www.smith.org/contacts.htm</contacts>
<links>http://www.smith.org/links.htm</links>
<listserv>http://www.smith.org/listserv.htm</listserv>
<search>http://www.smith.org/search.htm</search>
<activism>http://www.smith.org/activism.htm</activism>
<news>http://www.smith.org/.htm</news>
<newsletter>http://www.smith.org/.htm</newsletter>
<etc>http://www.smith.org/foo.htm
<type>recipes</type>
</etc>
</site>

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http://www.reformnav.org
http://www.reformnav.org/sitemaps.htm
http://www.reformnav.org/homepages.htm
http://www.reformnav.org/searchpages.htm


http://www.reformnav.org/aboutpages.htm
http://www.reformnav.org/missionpages.htm
http://www.reformnav.org/progresspages.htm


http://www.reformnav.org/newspages.htm
http://www.reformnav.org/newsletterpages.htm
http://www.reformnav.org/listservpages.htm


http://www.reformnav.org/donationportals.htm
http://www.reformnav.org/donationpages.htm
http://www.reformnav.org/appealspages.htm
http://www.reformnav.org/membershippages.htm
http://www.reformnav.org/activismpages.htm


http://www.reformnav.org/linkspages.htm


http://www.reformnav.org/banners.htm

ordered reformnav.org at verio, 11/22/2000, for $38 for 2 yrs.order number is 918784.

I am the Soros of online navigation design.

I can make a *killer* navigation site, portal site - no one else can. Only I can do this, only I can coordinate all the reform sites. What is it worth to make all the reform sites ideal *and* make the reform sites link arms to become an integrated super-site?

My site, hosted at drcnet, is posed as a "navigation",directory, portal site but is just as much a donation portal.

Strongly encourage sites: if you want to be listed in reformnav.org, you should put a link to the appropriate reformnav.org page in each of your standard pages.

Common navigation interface for each site
Cross-site navigation interface

Because I am a navigation-design specialist, run a Reform portal site that is a master site.

I could host this at DRCNet.org.

Who is the most trusted? drugsense, drcnet, or mapinc...? In case I'm hit...

If the site is perceived as that of a lone maverick invidual, and is a key site, will attract shutdown forces. If it's hosted at the biggest org, will thwart shutdown forces.

What is the most respected, stable, reliable site?

God, XML/XSL would be perfect for creating these pages. Just maintain 1 xml file, pull into an

It is possible to make a database of sites -- .... suck in the standard textual content for each site. Have one view that contains critical comments on site design - online checklist of design points. Unlike guitar sites, these are highly parallel.

I have nothing more to say about the philosophy of the experience of mystic ego death, but here I am taking the most concrete action to actually follow through and enable the death-and-rebirth religious experience for everyone.

<quikinfo></quikinfo>
<sitemap></sitemap>
<home></home>
<about></about>
<join></join>
<donate></donate>
<appeals></appeals>
<guidestar></guidestar>
<contacts></contacts>
<links></links>
<listserv></listserv>
<search></search>
<activism></activism>
<activism></activism>
<etc></etc>

XSL will enable a wide variety of views online. Load news.htm -- it draws from sites.xml and news.xsl.

Sick of status quo and sick of f-cking around. Tired of endless NORML efforts, a mouse against a monster. If money is what is needed, then that's the best news I've ever heard, because that is *simple* to provide.

The charity sites and Reform donation channels and sites are merely f-cking around. Let's get g-- d----- serious here. Time to get manic, time to go into overdrive, time to show the Web some serious shit, time to take it up to the next level of *utilizing* the web.

Bottom line: Today's online nav techniques are *SH-T*. Today's donation channels are *crap* -- they are *nothing*. If 1/3 of 1% of their potential is considered "success", I'd hate to imagine what "failure" would be.

Be almost casual in radical dismisal of today's web world. They might as well not even have a site. Absolute condemnation of all of today's reform sites.

A thousand times better. Why would I waste my infinitely valuable time on anything other than a thousand-fold improvement, at minimum? Ask Soros the value of time and strategy.

The sites are only weakly linked to each other. We need to have all the advantages of distinct sites, combined with all the advantages of one giant cumulative superimposed union site.

By sweeping and linking *across* all the major sites, we can take the best ideas from all of them, compete on a granular page-type level (Donations page competition, Links page competition, Site map competition).

Once this thing gets rolling, everyone will want -- need -- to be included.

Buy the domain name reformnav.com. [done]

They will all converge into an optimal standard model, filled with distinct content. Routine navigation will get out of the way.

Can your server handle a shitload of hits?

Go collect all the banners.


Donating vs. joining with a membership -- what is the impact?

Why Reform organizations should properly register at Guidestar.org - a very powerful donation portal site with secure credit card instant donations that is *already* set up for your 501(c)3 nonprofit organization. You should fill in the forms to improve your entry, which already exists, beyond the rough text from form 990.

Tear down all the micro-barriers to the open flow of donations. The webmaster doesn't see them, the visitor doesn't see them, but because of the microbarriers to donating, the visitor never clicks the link to see the donation info, and even if sees the info, doesn't contribute.

Pros and cons of Random vs. recurring vs. bulk contributions: ___.

How this project was inspired

Reform site donation-design improvements that this project has brought about

Design disasters I helped reform-sites fix

Drugsense.org site had one link to donation page. And that link was mistagged. I informed them, told I wouldn't donate until fixed; they fixed (I donated).

Kubby.com had plea for donations -- to find it, you went to home page then clicked "Contact", arriving at the email.htm page. I informed him, he made separate Donations.htm page and added Contribute link to home page.

Well, the whole issue of reform donation pages is just one giant design disaster; see the almost entirely negative evaluations of every aspect of the pages in my Donation page list.

Model contribution page

Copy and modify the following page: ___.

Copy and modify the following link to the donation page: ___

Why this model page is the perfect model: it fulfills all requirements for maximizing donations...


What the webmasters for the reform orgs need to change to increase donations by 1000

I can already tell, after just 1 day of this project, what the #1 huge million-dollar mistake is at these sites: The whole concept of gathering money by getting people to "join". This prevents multiple, random, or recurring monthly donations, and drives away people who for whatever reason don't want to join (and there are many reasons!) Separate building "membership" from gathering donations.

Why bank site "bill auto-pay" is so cool -- the donor uses an ergonomic online interface, though a meat-realm check gets sent to the org. Many orgs don't have a secure donation page.

http://www.prdi.org/drugweb.html - good list of reform-site links. Is this an org to donate to?

http://www.zeta.org.au/~aldis/liberty.html - drug law reform groups (links to org sites) - bad page: no hyperlinks!


Drug-Reform Link Pages

Email list for the reform organizations re: donations


The Drug Peace Campaign

>Dear Cybermonk,

>The Drug Peace Campaign is a California Political Action Committee dedicated to ending the War on Drugs that was launched at the Digital Be-In in San Francisco this year. We work with and support the activities of the many other wonderful drug policy reform organizations such as DRCnet, Lindesmith, NORML, BACH, Human Rights and the Drug War, FEAR, FAMM, MAP, MAPS etc...

>The Campaign supports the legalization and regulation of all psychoactive drugs, amnesty for non-violent Drug War prisoners and re-directing Drug War funds toward drug-related education and treatment. You can check out their Website at www.drugpeace.org for more information.

>Have included the Campaign's mission statement below and donations as well as Website links are much appreciated.

>(BTW, as one of the founders, can assure you that the Campaign directors are especially concered about prohibition of the psychedelics, MDMA and cannabis.)

>Highest regards,

J.

>MISSION STATEMENT

>The Drug Peace Campaign is a California Political Action Committee formed January 1, 1999, whose mission is to seek a peaceful end to the war now being waged by our own governments against us, the citizens of the United States of America, and the World.

>We are concerned citizens who recognize that the increasingly expensive and fundamentally unwinnable "War on Drugs" is as great a threat to civil society and personal freedoms as America has ever faced. Furthermore, we understand that this perpetual state of war causes more harm than the problems it is intended to solve and will never end until people who know better come together to devise and implement rational and consistent policies regarding the use of mind-altering substances of all kinds.

>The Drug Peace Campaign asserts the sovereign rights of individuals, as provided for in the Bill of Rights of the United States of America and in the United Nations' Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which have been violated or severely undermined by the enforcement of prohibitionist drug policies.

>The Drug Peace Web Channel is produced by the Drug Peace Campaign to support all ongoing harm reduction programs and to encourage Internet-based activism as a new way of achieving the consensus necessary to bring about social change.

>The time has come to stand up and be counted! Join the Drug Peace Campaign.


Subject: Who to donate to?

>I am ready to donate more money, such as $250, for the repeal of the laws against psychoactive substances. I am particularly interested in the repeal of laws against LSD (instituted Oct. 6 '66, in the U.S.), for reasons of intellectual and religious freedom.

>There are so many causes and so many fractional groups. I donated to >drugsense.com, national NORML, and DRCnet, through the Web.

>Should I donate in a lump sum, or sign up for monthly contributions? There >are various legal battles currently going on; each outcome sets a >precedent, so these particular lawsuits are important. Maybe I should >donate to an organization and let them decide which lawsuits to donate to.

>-- Cybermonk


>>I am ready to donate more money, such as $250, for the repeal of the laws against psychoactive substances. I am particularly interested in the repeal of laws against LSD (instituted Oct. 6 '66, in the U.S.), for reasons of intellectual and religious freedom.

>I'd give it to MAPS. They've accomplished a lot more than any other psychedelic group I can think of, and they have the potential to get a lot more work done, given the appropriate funding. You'll also get the benefit of a subscription to their excellent magazine for your donation. They can be found at www.maps.org. A good activist group would be DRCNet (www.drcnet.org)... they're a good organization doing alot of work towards drug law reform. They focus more on cannabis and needle exchange issues, those being two of the more visible drug war issues right now, but psychedelics are certainly within their agenda of drug law reform. If I were you, I'd consider giving each of these groups $125.

>Cybermonk:

>I received notification of your very generous donation in the amount of $250.00. Your T-Shirt will follow shortly. My sincere thanks on behalf of all the hard working staff and volunteers at DrugSense. It is through the generosity of people like yourself that we are able to keep working towards educating the media and the public on the damage being caused by the War on Drugs as well as to disseminate accuracy and facts on drugs and drug policies.

>Your idea as to adding a "How to Donate" link on every article and web page bears considering. I am getting a large number of people who seem to have found information from our web pages or a specific article as a result of web searches. I would think that this idea could increase our donation rates considerably.

>I have copied our webmasters and staff and by way of this post I am suggesting that the box at the bottom of all our pages be modified to include a "How to Donate" link.

>The bad link you pointed out has been corrected.

>Thanks again

Mark Greer
Executive Director
DrugSense
MGreer at mapinc.org
http://www.drugsense.org
http://www.mapinc.org

At 12:31 PM 8/7/99 -0700, Cybermonk wrote: >Contributed $250. Am open to contributing more, as a long-term supporter for Net activism.

>The MAP pages could make it easier to contribute/donate. Why not have a "Donate!" link from every page? Then, the page should have information about security and confidentiality. It should also help decide whether to do bulk contribution or ongoing.


This email shows how the current donation approaches are totally, completely broken:

>To: webmaster at mapinc.org

Subject: Broken link to donation page! Please fix immed.

>on page >http://www.mapinc.org/how2.htm >with text >Other Activities You Can Engage In Recruiters. Visit news groups, E-mail chat lists, and other sources for large groups of reform minded people and encourage them to visit our web pages, subscribe to our DrugSense Weekly newsletter and to get involved. Fund Raisers. We are always short of funding either contribute or try to find others to do so. To contribute conveniently on-line using a credit card see http//www.drugsense.org/donate.htm

>The above link is mis-coded as: http://www.mapinc.org/http//www.drugsense.org/donate.htm

>This is a crucial link. Please fix at once.

>Thank you -- a potential donor

IMPORTANT: go to these org donation page URLs and rate how easy to donate. A-F. Or a 1-10 multiaxis rating system. Spur of moment how easy to contribute online? Make it mega effortless as pushing a quick-key button. Best online shopping experience.

I shall set up a web interface to make spont donations effortless. Secure page is best -- no signup required, ... still should be easier. Too god dman much online-paperwork.

HOT NEW TREND - online donations. You already know what a *huge*, huge support there is online for reform. Turn that into money, which is what all these online quasi-activists want, as an outlet, and watch the dollars (= change-power) roll in.

REFORM MOVEMENT ORGs NEED DONATIONS - EZ donation path

My contribution is to change the web and make a whole new distinct area of drug policy reform activism - focus *purely* on maximizing online-oriented donations, and online activity focusing on solicitnig donations. I vow never to go to a conf - pure online mastery. I am hereby fully and exclusively committed to maximizing deployment and full activation of online potentialities.

ORgs solicitors root for each other and compete - who can get the max dough?

Hyper-agrressive solicitation... hyper-persuasive, very official and formal, slick design... steal pics from November...

Outreach specialty pages.

Ideal - spend as much on sacramental molecules as on reform support.

focus: efficiency/ergonomics. How you can help most efficiently: send money via efficient online banking -- not spend time.

Email zipped pkg of mirror of potent pages to them. My page is a stark guide to exactly the money channels -- the wod is all about $ flow, well here now is clear the reform$ flow. Glowing charging blaster, needs more money to fire a charge at govt/corp propaganda.

Also, all these sites must register at charities. Money is pure concentrated change-power.

But by working through the framework I have defined, you are not helping in a status quo way - you are demanding these orgs become more effective in their activities and solicitations.

Run booth focused every bit as much toward the reform org solicitors as donators -- a matchmaker effort mirrored holographically throughout web (reform and user sites, newsgroups, and email lists).

Aggressive brainstorming to maximize donations, to set and pursue finanicial goals, where finance = pure concentrated change-power. A dollar is a change-power unit. The money is totally out there. The frustrated users totally want to help. But it's not easy enough. Solution: fully maximimally utilize and mobilize online reserouces to bootstrap a financial goldmine that vastly surpasses the gov't billions. Literally buy our way out, purchase reform. Online fundraising as a bootstrap holistic holographic strategy.

The sites explain how to easily donate & why. URLs to these pages gget posted in newsgropus. Emails fly between and among the orgs and users and banks as well. The *least* of our problems is the existence of the money. THE MONEY IS THERE, BIGTIME. Suppose 10% of pop contributes $20/month. 520000000. 6,240,000,000/yr. Suppose 1% of pop contributes $10/month. 26,000,000/mo = 312,000,000/yr.

So at the least we can say that the orgs should set the goal of "many millions per year" of donations.

Reform Donation Coalition. I'll be the most valuable...... contest for "most valuable solicitor".

First of all, these "charities" that are always listed -- where in the hell is mapinc, csp, alchemind, etc.???!!! Registered charity

They *must* mirror my page because mine must not be seen as tactical shut-down point. Network/distributed is mandatory as we get the $millions flowing.

This is also a way to promote my philosophy site (developed while almost shunning money) -- be the main millionaire hub of reform activism. Got a rich friend who is frustrated about the wod? Thrill them with this URL.

It would be nice to collect donation figures every month from these orgs.

Encourage people to use vision-logic and stimulants to brainstorm on fundraising. We need especially: fundraising, activism-awareness outreach such as newsgroups, and nothing less than 100% voter turnout/mobilization (>99%).

Your current donation online efforts are 99.9% failure. There are millions you are pushing away.

What is the relation between $ and action? Why and how does sending $100, 10, or 500, or 500,000, change anything? How does policy reform work? How can you buy freedom for the POWs, grant amnesty and voting rights? Is it right to send $10 and think the thought, "I caused change"?

Why should I a visionary focus on getting you guys to cough up the dough, rahter than, say, writing yet another book like Ain't Biz, or Pol Consciousness, etc? Reform investment step-by-step book.

Of all the miracles I can contribute to reform, why pick vulgar money as a focus? Money and information together are power that we all can participate in. Learn, post, publish, donate, persuade.... the other thing is political activity (communications). But TIME comes into the picture. Money is a way to help wihtout spending any time or mentaleffort... your time is worth $75/hour, so should we expect you to spend 10 hours a month studying and posting/maileing for reform? That would be $750/month -- too expensive, too much to ask. Your time is too expensive, we don't need that. All we need is merely your money. Don't give reform 10 of your $75 hours, simply give it $75 of your dollars instead.

We need some to contribute time, and some to contribute money. Both are needed.

Note:

Make email list for all of them. Tell them all: you *must* have a *dedicated* email addr for donations. And dedicated web page with clear URL for donations. And instructions on addr for autopay. What if pay cum amt that would be bulk membership amt? Should be eligible for mem goodies.

Must have phone # - required by bank.

Need list of orgs, and list of autopay banks.

[CHECK MY INBOX FOR "WHO donate to"? from VPL, WPenna, etc.]

Post my URL about donation all over the place. Email it to all the orgs. Ask for more orgs. Get them to link to my page and mirror it. *change* the orgs -- make them make available statements and promises. Make them make their scorecards available for what effect they have had. Make them post their figures. Make them fix up their pages for tenfolding their income every month.

Ask BG for philanthropy advice. Hell, if they don't make up a dedicated email addr for donation, I will. See how many bounce.

Explain how tax deduction works.

Erowid donation page - one of the best. Still, much too hard, pledging sucks compared to auto bill pay. "Donate" link is PRACTICALLY INVISIBLE on home page. Don't let cheapskates like me use the resources at the site without donating! Take lesson from shareware -- don't let anyone be oblivious -- Please, please send money! We will have to shut down without it!!

membership gifts...an autographed copy of either PiHKAL or TiHKAL (signed by both Sasha and Ann Shulgin) for donations of $125 or more.

Publically post critiques and destruction of each site and email all webmasters together, and tell them together what a lame job they are throwing away millions. Tell them I've also posted this to the individual newsgroups to light a fire under them, and that I've asked other people to email them as well. You *must* post the progress of the pledge drive - get everyone thinking in terms of maximizing funding and getting involvement through donorship. There's *huge* resources there. Do calculation - 5% people strongly want reform, enough to send $10/month. 260 million U.S. 13000000 people. $130,000,000/month. Because of the wrong ascii characters you are posting, you are missing out on millions. You message is failing to get those millions.

But remember in calif, 61% voted for 36 --- indicating that 5% is too low.

GuideStar eligible charity search - drug reform - keysrch - no records found.

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guidestar.org/npo news


Copyright 2000 The Pantagraph

THE PANTAGRAPH (Bloomington, IL.)

October 24, 2000, Tuesday

SECTION: News; Pg. A1 LENGTH: 931 words HEADLINE: Snagging donations with the Web BYLINE: DAVID BRUMMER BODY:

At public radio station WGLT-FM, four flesh-colored push-button phones in a small room were the most popular link between listeners wanting to pledge money and volunteers accepting donations during a fund drive last week.

The trusted routine went like this: Between newscasts and jazz songs, on-air personalities at the Illinois State University-based station asked for contributions. Phones rang and callers pledged money, providing a major source of income for a station that doesn't sell advertisements.

For years, this was the only way such stations lured donations during fund drives. But in the past year, WGLT added another option that already is starting to change the way public broadcasters, charities and even politicians raise money.

By accepting donations through the Internet, WGLT and others are plugging into an increasingly popular fund-raising source that some consider more convenient and comfortable than traditional methods.

Experts say online donations may never replace the Jerry Lewis Labor Day Telethon. But as generations weaned on mice and monitors grow into the next wave of donors, raising money over the Internet could become just as common as a phone call.

"What we're doing is planting a seed here. And it's going to grow," said WGLT director of development Kathryn Carter. "And the next time, more people will pledge online, and maybe next time even more people will pledge online."

...a few congressional campaign sites in other parts of the country failed to use secure servers, according to a report in The Hill, an online political magazine.

Many politicians already accept campaign contributions through their Web sites. In fact, U.S. Senate candidate Rick Lazio, R-N.Y., reportedly raised $1 million on the Internet during the first week of his campaign against Hillary Clinton.

...

"It's been a nice feature to have," said campaign manager Kelly Larkin. "It's a chance to express your support in different ways. It certainly makes it easier."

...

John Morris, vice president for development at WTVP, envisions a day when his station's Web site can provide a virtual clearinghouse for nonprofit groups, with fund-raising links to community organizations.

"We're going to have to do it if we're going to offer all our folks in the area the most convenient way to contribute," Morris said.

_ - great info for reform org webmasters etc.

_

_

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Site maps are *so* important, if you don't create one (and link to it from every page), I will create one for your site. Well, my nav table itself acts similar to a site map.

error: no site map at DRCNet.org. TO DO: Add black word for such should-exist pages, in my navtable.

To Do

Todo: dona2.doc was not incorpd yet. It's on floppy in pc at home.

To do: incorp dona2.doc. Incorp emails to alchemind into.

Xxx

Here is a chance to definitely use my navdesign skills for good, in fact for the most good.

I know, grant them permission to move the hosting of that domain to their own site... have them mirror my site, without exposing/promoting it, at. http://www.drcnet.org/reformnav/ Then if something bad, they move the domain to their server and the old links continue to work. A single directory.

That way I retain control etc but they can hold onto it in case.

DPF might host is

Create a local, reform-oriented version -- more concise -- of hitdonate.net.

What about the main content of a site -- have an "articles" link to the info-guts of each site?

Must be simple, static...

Coordination through conscious strategic convergence of navigation design. Try to be the official... the Yahoo of portals for reform.

Why link your main pages to the matching main page of reformnav.org? Because promote donations. Because can steal the best ideas from each others' sites. Because this way we can build momentum and involvement for the movement as a whole, forming a union site or union space, not just a whole bag of separate locations.

Supermap... Reform .... a new era for reform-site navigation, to fully access... allow people to fully access your site. Improve your site, and even if you don't, enable people to move through it.

Build it up into a super navigation site. An efficient way for reform managers to steal from all other reform sites, so that we unite forces and all improve each other. This will cause the quality of all standard pages to magically rise, by leaps and bounds, creating a strong bootstrap effect toward max effectiveness of all of our sites. remember, online navigation is a *huge* problem and disasterous barrier... you way underestimate this. Saving a click is worth a million dollars. My Donations page has links to online-funding resources. Cornerstone sites: drugsense, mapinc, drcnet, lindesmith/dpf, norml, alchemind, csp, erowid, lyceaum, csdp,

No matter how good each site is as a standalone site, a systematic master nav mechanism, a master navmap, would bring them together to a higher-level whole.

ReformNav.org is a service of DRCNet.org.

Have a feedback form for improving the site. Start simple, with just an email address shown (explicitly and clickable).

Would be excellent to have crique fields for each page of each site. Then have a page for each site, to expose the critique. This would show publically my recommendations for improving effectiveness of each site. Buglist for each page.

Makes sense because a main purpose is to improve each site, each page, and the whole - all.

Donation page vs. membership page? Why not let the user pick. While they are filling in donation page, make it easy for them to switch to mem page, or see justification for joining as member, or the appeal, or go to other sites, or see progress. The current pages don't address the barriers and objections and concerns.

-- Michael Hoffman
Reform site advisor
Reformnav.org
A navigation and donation portal providing navigation design advice for drug policy reform sites. Serving as a unifying interface for all reform sites.

Imprv
Map
Home
About
Memb.
Donate


It is interesting to note that the first general drug reform orgs to take advantage of this good online resource are psychedelics-related. Alchemind, MAPS.

I have not looked into the hemp reform orgs much.

The category of "drug policy reform organizations" is variable. There are few organizations that have such general scope.

In categorizing the orgs, there's also the axis of Location. NORML is U.S. -- "National" ("American"? Ott would say "Usan".)

This would be a short list: Groups that are:

bear's wod essays


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