Jackson County Democrats

"Our Treasurer Anna Dale Williamson tells me we are now down to 42 donors who are giving a total of $985 per month, an average of $24.02 per donor.  Some give $5 or $10 a month, others more." "...whether we can keep our headquarters open is subject to a whole lot of doubt.  Our current 3-year lease is up in April and right now, we don't have the resources to maintain it beyond that date." -- Allen Hallmark, Chair JCDP

We need to double our number of Grass Roots to 84 donors.  Even in this terrible recession,

surely YOU and 42 MORE local Democrats are willing to give $5 or more a month to keep our local party organization solvent. 

If you are not yet a GRASSROOTS donor -- become one RIGHT NOW!!

Click here to download form to become a GrassRoots Member, or contribute from secure web page - Thank you!

As most of you know, we have been able to rent and maintain an office for the Headquarters of the Jackson County Democratic Party for the past five years. For the past couple of years it's been located at 40 S. Central Ave., across from the Craterian Theater.

In my opinion, having an office in downtown Medford has made a huge difference.  Just having the office with our sign out front lets people know the Democratic Party is strong and getting stronger and that it's okay to be a Democrat.  And our office has attracted several valuable volunteers, including Charlie Sinclair and his wonderful wife Mary.  When they moved to the valley and saw the sign, they came in to investigate and we put them to work.

So, our having a permanent headquarters in downtown Medford that is very visible is a tremendously important factor if we expect to grow our party and to elect more Democratic candidates here in the future.  Our office is the hub of most of our activities and it's the base we need if we are to win two county commissioners races and some important state legislative races -- and the governor's race -- in 2010, which, amazingly, is next year.

Our Campaign Committee is planning a series of workshops at our office in the fall and winter to develop the political skills of would-be candidates and campaign managers and workers.  So, for those and a bunch of other reasons, I think we need to keep our Medford headquarters open for business.

However, as Charlie's budget report demonstrated, whether we can keep our headquarters open is subject to a whole lot of doubt.  Our current 3-year lease is up in April and right now, we don't have the resources to maintain it beyond that date.

A couple of years ago our former Vice Chair Gary Moore, working with a Fundraising Committee, reframed our fundraising goals for maintaining our  office on a long-term basis.  He & his committee proposed the idea of encouraging a lot of local Democrats to become "Grass Roots" donors & dedicating these donations to the Jean Maack Fund Office Fund that had already been established.  Jean Maack was essentially "Ms. Democrat" in Jackson County for decades, a real party stalwart and a Grass Roots donor!

GRASSROOTS donors are those who agree to donate regularly -- many of them authorizing automatic withdrawals from their bank account or their credit card. 

Gary presented this idea at several Central Committee meetings and many of you signed up to be GRASSROOTS monthly donors to our party for which we are very grateful. 

However, the number of our monthly donors has sadly begun to dwindle.  Our Treasurer Anna Dale Williamson tells me we are now down to 42 donors who are giving a total of $985 per month, an average of $24.02 per donor.  Some give $5 or $10 a month, others more.

This wonderful, but unfortunately it falls far short of the amount we need to pay for our basic office expenses like rent, electricity, Internet service, etc.  Charlie projected that we will raise $15,160 for 2009 in Grass Roots donations, which includes some donors who give on an annual or semi-annual basis but designate the money for Grass Roots.  But the Jean Maack Office Fund needs $27,800 to cover all the basic office costs for one year.

So, we're reforming our Fundraising Committee with Charlie Sinclair, Gwen McMahon and others.  That committee will be coming up with a couple of events  or activities to raise much of the money we need.  But in addition to that effort, we really need to do at this point is to double our number of Grass Roots donors.  Even in this terrible recession, surely 42 more local Democrats will be willing to give $5 or more a month to keep our local party organization solvent.  WE CAN DO THIS, CAN'T WE?

Currently, we have about 2,100 Democrats who regularly receive our weekly newsletter by email.  Surely we can find 42 of them who would be willing to donate to help maintain our downtown Headquarters.

I want to urge each and every PCP and every other Democrat here tonight to consider becoming a Grass Roots donor and to reach out to another family member or friend, who you know is a Democrat, and ask them to become a monthly donor too.  If most of our 75 or 80 PCPs would become Grass Roots donors, we'd be a lot closer to the goal.

I'd love to be able to come back to you in November and be able to report that we have doubled the number of Grassroots donors.  And when our lease comes due next April, why I'll be the happiest guy in the county when I report to you that we have so many Grass Roots donors that we no longer have to worry about our Headquarters because its future is secure.

So, please, help me do this.  If you are not yet a GRASSROOTS donor -- become one tonight.  Just email us at mail@jcdemocrats.org and put Grass Roots Pledge in the subject line, or call the office at 858-1050 and leave a message for Anna Dale Williamson to call you.

Thanks!

Allen Hallmark

JCD Vice Chair (and Acting Chair until August)