Dynamic Experiment in Grass-Roots Fund-Raising Will Launch as Barack Obama is Sworn In as 44th US President
by Ned Barnett
When the economy tanks, charitable needs go up, even as corporate, philanthropic and non-profit funding resources dry up. Corporations, which can donate up to five percent of profits to lower taxes, get no benefit from contributions if they don’t first make a profit. The charitable organizations they supported are suddenly struggling to maintain basic services without that corporate support, according to Michelle Roberts, CEO and publisher of Not Ur Momma’s News, a socially-conscious organization and cyber-publication that supports personal empowerment in the black community.
“Socially conscious foundations and wealthy individual donors, who actively support charitable initiatives, are finding that their stock portfolios have suddenly dropped precipitously and apparently irreversibly,” Roberts said. “If these foundations and philanthropists were invested in blue chips, their portfolios have dropped 40 percent – but if they had invested their wealth through Bernard Madoff’s just-collapsed $50 billion dollar Ponzi scheme, they have just lost 100 percent of their portfolio’s pre-collapse net worth. Rather than making generous charitable contributions, these once-wealthy philanthropists and charitable foundations are scrambling just to remain viable – donations will have to wait until they’ve assessed the crash and rebuilt their endowments.”
Realizing that old ways will not meet new needs, Not Ur Momma’s News has launched 100,000 Angels, a dramatic new experiment in bootstrap charitable fund-raising. “We are building 100,000 Angels around a new micro-funding strategy that has been designed to help worthy community groups, one dollar at a time,” Roberts explained. “The experiment is an innovative, almost brazen approach to financing charitable endeavors as well as community-based for profit and not for profit start-ups. We see 100,000 Angels as a virtual tweak of the nose at the crumbling economy.”
NUMN is calling on its constituents and other supporters to contribute, on January 20, 2009, at 12-noon Eastern Time – the moment when Barack Obama is sworn in as America’s 44th President – to log onto the Internet and donate just $1.00 each.
“Instead of seeking significant big-dollar donations from a few funding sources,” Roberts pointed out, “we are challenging everyone to give $1.00 to our 100,000 Angels program, or to another charitable cause they support.
“Most of us are dealing with dollar doubts”, Roberts explained, “but mercifully, most of us can still scrape up a buck. Recognizing this, 100,000 Angels has been modeled on the remarkably successful Internet-based fundraising program innovated by the Obama presidential campaign. Following their example, we have created an easy-to-duplicate self-financing system that will free us from traditional bureaucratic – and often ambivalent – funding sources. We expect this 100,000 Angels experiment to provide us a funding solution that will eliminate our communities’ need for bankers and welfare, and create a model that other worthwhile organizations can emulate.”
Reflecting the Pay-it-Forward philosophy that Not Ur Momma’s News has been built upon, 100,000 Angels will immediately put fifty percent of the program’s after-tax proceeds back into the community. Three youth-oriented community service organizations, a start-up entrepreneur, and two contributing angels are slated to be the first 100,000 Angels beneficiaries.
“January 20, 2009 at precisely twelve noon marks America’s long-awaited moment of change,” Roberts said. “Together, one at a time, $1.00 at a time, we can significantly change thousands of lives, and inspire thousands of hopeful visions, across our community. Together, we can create the change our community needs.
“Following this Obama-style model, everyone can be a part of 100,000 Angels by logging on to The 100,000 Angels Experiment. If this experiment works as well as we expect, we will have created a simple and easily-copied formula for creating reliable economic growth, community wide, even in the most challenging economic times.”
NUMN will ensure that 100,000 Angels program will be fully-transparent by making all 100,000 Angels-related accounting records available on request.
Commentary
Obama’s Cabinet Picks Reflect Wisdom and Prudence
by Di'Aire White, Staff Writer
After the most watched, scrutinized, and riveting presidential election of modern times, we are now watching the media pundits and politicians dissect the President-elect’s Cabinet appointments. President-elect Obama has conducted one of the quickest transitions and appointments of recent administrations, according to the nonpartisan White House Transition Project, an organization of academics who study presidential transitions. To be fair, a great deal of credit must be given to President Bush for this expedited yet smooth transition.
As much as Obama stressed changed and unity, its unfortunate that he’s received so much partisan criticism from those in his own party and other liberal political organizations. He has received criticism from the GOP on some of his picks, but that’s to be expected from the opposition. That’s simply standard two-party American politics. However, as much as Obama’s Republican opponents tried to paint him as a far-left liberal, the reality is that Obama is more of a centrist or moderate than what we have been told.
Obama’s picks for his cabinet strongly suggest that he is willing to hear varying opinions and not just pander to his own party. During the campaign, Obama never wavered on the fact that he’s moderate, yet the GOP continued to label him far-left (even though they knew that wasn’t accurate), and the liberals themselves expected him to operate as a liberal even though he never has.
Matt Bennett, co-founder of Third Way, a moderate public policy think tank, told CBS news, “Barack Obama has never made any bones about it: He is a moderate, people who ignored that did so at their peril.” People on both sides of the political spectrum need to stop and take a look at how practical Obama is being in his selections. Obama has made it clear he intended on assembling a ‘team of rivals’, and he didn’t just give that point lip-service. Let’s look at some of his prominent picks:
Joe Biden: Vice President
- Former rival for Democratic nomination
Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton: Secretary of State
-Former First Lady and fiercest rival for the Democratic nomination
-
Robert Gates: Secretary of Defense
- Not officially registered as a Republican, but has served under two Republican presidents – holdover from W.’s administration
Bill Richardson: Secretary of Commerce
- Former Governor of New Mexico and rival for Democratic nomination
Tom Vilsack: Secretary of Agriculture
- Former rival for Democratic nomination
Obama has not hidden his admiration for President Abraham Lincoln and he clearly wants to emulate some of his actions. Abraham Lincoln appointed three rivals to his cabinet, Obama appointed four former rivals, and a fifth, former Senator Tom Daschle (D-ND) who was appointed Secretary of Health and Human Services, considered running as well.
“Lincoln basically pulled in all the people who had been running against him into his Cabinet because whatever, you know, personal feelings there were, the issue was, ‘How can we get this country through this time of crisis?’” Obama told an audience in May. “That has to be the approach that one takes, whether it's Vice President or Cabinet, whoever.” (WSJ)
