Using Online Tools for Fundraising

Leeway is offering a special workshop led by writer, performer and grassroots fundraiser Ezra Berkley Nepon (ACG ’07) and Yaba Amgborale Blay (ACG ’10) on September 30, 2:00pm-4:30pm in our office (1315 Walnut Street, Suite 832). Venue is wheelchair accessible. ASL interpretation provided by request. This workshop is FREE but pre-registration is required.

Workshop Description

Online fundraising campaigns are spreading around social networks to raise money for creative projects, activist campaigns, or personal needs like medical expenses. These kinds of campaigns are often referred to as “crowdfunding.” Indeed, crowdfunding websites like Kickstarter, or IndieGoGo, are online tools that make the process of grassroots fundraising accessible and fun for people who might be hesitant to participate in a call-athon or host a house party. The visibility of all these successful online fundraising tools helps to encourage lots of new fundraisers and donors to dream big and bring in the funds to make it happen. But not all crowdfunding campaigns are successful. A fabulous online fundraising page is just a tool—raising money still requires asking lots of people to give. Fundraisers need a large network (in this case, online) that can be mobilized to give and to spread the word and ask their networks to get involved. The general strategies of grassroots fundraising still apply: Planning, Asking, and Thanking are all crucial, and they take work! This workshop will teach you how to make the most of the medium.

About Ezra Berkley Nepon

Ezra Berkley Nepon formerly served for three years as Director of Grassroots Fundraising for Sylvia Rivera Law Project and has recently consulted with Philly groups including Mariposa Food Co-op, Books through Bars, and Mill Creek Farm. Nepon is the author of recent book Justice, Justice Shall You Pursue: A History of New Jewish Agenda and received the Leeway Foundation Art and Change grant in 2007 to attend a month-long Yiddish program in Vilnius, Lithuania in research for their 2009 play Between Two Worlds: Who Loved You Before You Were Mine. Ezra is also currently enrolled in the Transformative Language Arts M.A. program at Goddard College.

About Yaba Amgborale Blay

Yaba A. Blay, Ph.D. is a researcher and scholar of Africana Studies and Women's & Gender Studies. She received a BA in Psychology (Cum Laude) from Salisbury State University, a M.Ed. in Counseling Psychology from the University of New Orleans, an M.A. and Ph.D. in African American Studies and a Graduate Certificate in Women’s Studies from Temple University. Among her many publications, Blay’s ethnographic case study entitled “Pretty Color and Good Hair: Creole Women of New Orleans and the Politics of Identity” is featured in the Hampton Press anthology Blackberries and Redbones: Critical Articulations of Black Hair/Body Politics in Africana Communities (2011). She is currently editing her first book-length manuscript, Yellow Fever: Skin Bleaching and the Politics of Skin Color, which investigates the social practice of skin bleaching in Ghana. Dr. Blay is the recipient of a 2010 Leeway Foundation Art and Change Grant through which she embarked upon (1)ne Drop: Conversations on Skin Color, Race, and Identity, a portrait documentary exploring the intersection of skin color politics and negotiations of Black identity.