The Allied Resource Initiative is a decentralized, grassroots fundraising strategy to support your participation in the AMC. This initiative supports fundraising to cover some of your travel, housing, registration and related costs through benefit events, merchandise sales, and funder outreach. We are also facilitating the development of plans for cost-sharing amongst AMC participant organizations.

Allied Media Projects provides some travel and housing scholarships, but not enough to cover everyone's needs. To help fill that demand, we have launched the Allied Resource Initiative to not only support our community's fundraising to get to the conference, but to build the base of skills needed to sustain our ongoing work.

Read below about tools and strategies to support your fundraising and about some of the outcomes of the Allied Resource Initiative.

Please contact us to request support for your fundraising project.

TOOLS & STRATEGIES

The 2009 AMC Case Statement is a tool that AMC participants are using to support their fundraising. This 14-page document presents the mission, vision and theory of change that drives the evolution of the Allied Media Conference and the Allied Media Projects (AMP) network. It articulates the year-round power of AMC participation and illustrates the breadth of our community.

The case statement was developed using information gathered in our annual online survey, and one-on-one conversations between AMC organizers and 35 members of our network.

Download the case statement (pdf). Or contact us to request a physical copy.

FUNDRAISE WITH THE CASE STATEMENT

• Set-up a meeting with local funders. Many community and family foundations offer discretionary funds to support travel, housing and registration for conference participation. Use this statement to show your local funders what kinds of skills and relationships you will bring home from the conference and how it will impact your ongoing work. Allied Media Projects has a growing network of relationships with funders throughout the U.S. Please contact us for suggestions of funders to approach in your area.

• Host a benefit event. House parties, art auctions, concerts, bowl-a-thons – all of these are excellent fundraising ideas that will help you raise the funds to get to Detroit. Use this document to put together a short presentation that will explain the awesomeness of the AMC and get people fired up to give you money. Contact us to request a powerpoint presentation with images tailored to your specific audience. Read more tips for hosting a benefit event.

USE THE CASE STATEMENT FOR OUTREACH

• Tell your friends to tell their friends. Think of all the most amazing groups you know and tell them to come to the AMC this year. Use this document to help you make your case. Imagine the kinds of workshops and conversations that will help advance your work and submit session proposals for what you want to see at the conference.

• Bring your network. If your organization belongs to a network that needs to schedule a face-to-face meeting in 2009, use this document to make the case for holding your meeting in Detroit before or after the Allied Media Conference. AMC organizers will work with you to set up your meeting and housing facilities, catering and A/V. Support the AMC through a "Network Sponsorship" by registering 10 or more of your members at the $100 level.

This Radical Women of Color Media poster was created by AMC organizer Nadia Abou-Karr based upon the results of a three-hour strategy session between women of color media makers and community organizers at the 2008 Allied Media Conference. The participants created a collective definition of what radical women of color media is and what it aims to do.

Click here for a high-resolution jpg version of the image that can be printed as a poster and sold as a fundraiser. (2.14.MB)

OUTCOMES

Here are some of the outcomes of the Allied Resource Initiative thus far:

• AMP organizers Diana Nucera, Jenny Lee and Nadia Abou-Karr toured the West Coast, with stops in Seattle, Portland, the Bay Area, and Los Angeles. They met with many, many organizations, supporting them in planning grassroots fundraisers and in preparing requests to foundations for travel support.
• In NYC, Nadia and Jenny spoke about the Allied Resource Initiative at the "Money & the Movement: Grassroots Fundraising in Times of Economic Crisis" conference. They convened a fundraising strategy meeting with AMC participants traveling with children to the AMC.
• Diana, Jenny and Nadia travelled to Chicago to convene a fundraising strategy session with six local organizations.
• Jenny toured through Austin, San Antonio and New Orleans. San Antonio Music Coalition Local 782 are now fundraising to bring their music community to the AMC. New Orleans organizations are in discussions about convening a Southern delegation to the AMC.
• The Seattle Young People's Project and Reclaim the Media are organizing a benefit event series and meeting with local funders with the goal of resourcing a 40-person delegation to the AMC.
• Youth Movement Records in Oakland are coordinating 10 Bay Area organizations in submitting an application to a local funder to support travel to the AMC.
• INCITE-L.A. is holding two fundraisers to cover travel costs to the AMC.
• In Philly, AMC board member Hannah Sassaman and Andalusia Knoll organized a Spelling Bee fundraiser that raised $900 towards the costs of AMC participation.
• Organizers in Philly and NYC are planning to save on travel costs by chartering a 60-person bus from each city to the AMC.
• The SPEAK! Women of Color Media Collective created an album to sell as a fundraiser for mothers and/or financially restricted activists attending the AMC. SPEAK! raised more than $1,000 in the first month of CD sales and they have held listening parties in Portland, the Bay Area, and NYC.
• Detroit activist Sarah Sidelko organized a silent art auction at the Motor City Brewing Co. that raised $900 for the AMC travel scholarship fund. Detroit Community Acupuncture hosted the first ever acupuncture benefit for the AMC, raising another $200.