Money bomb for the "grassroots"

this will be fun

Could we start a project such as a "Friends Of Ron Paul" campaign or a "Committee To Elect Ron Paul"? I think a direct general fund should be established so that donations aren't going all over the place where they could be spread too thin or potentially create many underfunded projects instead of a few well-funded, well-performing projects.

I think any campaign should be aimed at individual states as their primaries are coming up, that way we can infuse national fundraising into a particular primary, thus bolstering results at that primary. This also would lead to more supporters being turned up and greater contributions to each successive primary drive.

I think the national awareness is good but probably overstated in importance. The national awareness we've been working on has lead to the fanaticism we've created and has lead to a wealth of funding for Ron Paul. I think we have capitalized on this to probably near peak returns at this point. National investment into localized primaries will be the next logical step because national awareness won't do any good if he doesn't make a good run through the primaries. National awareness has funded NHQ quite well but local focus is where we need to be. It is imperative at this point that we maximize the gains made in each primary. Local TV ads in each state as their primaries are coming up, ads in movie theaters, newsprint ads, etc.

A national grassroots fund should direct those funds into local projects as described above. This can be done by offering the funds up to meetups that submit projects that are approved. The amount of funding can be increased for meetups who get the best results and subsequent plan submittals will get more funding if the meetup has had satisfactory accounting of actions and their spending.

Volunteerism also needs to be complimented by paid efforts. We should be hiring full time sign people to put up Ron Paul signs just like those who do this work for home builders, etc. We can also hire young people to dance around at street corners with Ron Paul signs as we've seen done with mainstream businesses. Paid canvassers, phone bank staffers, etc. There also needs to be a paid local grassroots manager in most counties. Imagine every major city having paid full-time sign placers, think about how many signs that could be put up. Also, putting these tasks in the hands of paid help ensures it gets done and frees up volunteers to do things like speaking engagements, direct person-to-person contact, flashmobs, etc.

walking away from the RP Campaign is not a good thing to promote. They still have an important job to do, and we need to continue to support them

who have said you are interested in working on this project, but DP does not allow me to contact multiple people.

Please, if you are interested, email me through Daily Paul...

Copy of email I tried to send...

Hi, you're receiving this note because you might be interested in helping in the Grassroots Projects Center/MoneyBomb idea. Progress so far:

Outline
=======
A) Sites Contacted
B) Current Project Outline
C) Current List of Possible Workers

A) Sites Contacted
--------------------------------
I've contacted four different sites:
1) Paulunator
-- http://www.paulunteer.com/projects/
2) Ron Paul Reveres
3) Ron Paul Donors
-- http://www.ronpauldonors.com/
4) Pledge For Paul
http://www.pledgeforpaul.com/

1. Paulunator
   Brian said that he has wanted to do something like this. He has offered the domain "RonPaulProjects.com". We could create what we wanted on it and he would link to it (or to any other domain).

   Dan, from RonPaulGraphs.com has a whole page dedicated to grassroots chipin projects and has offered to give away control of the page. Brian also mentioned he knows many of the grassroots project leaders

2. Ron Paul Revere
   Patricia wrote that she is setting up a "centralized location for ideas such as yours". She agrees with our goal of setting up "a market place of ideas and products."
3. Ron Paul Donors
   Asked for more details. S/he expressed concern about unaccountable grassroot projects and that s/he favored pushing the PACs.
4. Pledge For Paul
   No answer yet..

B) Current overview of the project
--------------------------------------------------
I wrote a subset of the following outline of the project. If you are in, please comment:

The idea, as briefly talked about in DP, is that there would be one page that would overview all the different grassroots projects that one could invest in.

On that page, for each project, might be six items:

1. The official name;
2. An official description;
3. A link to a forum for supporters, potential supporters, and organizers to talk about progress, questions, etc;
4. A thermometer indicating how much money has been raised for that project
5. A link to a page to chip in.
6. Some investor information (length of time accepting fund, star rating by investors, etc.?)

At the top of this one page would be a thermometer that totals all the grassroots project contributions.

When any project received funds, the new investment would be reflected in the total thermometer, as well as the individual project's total.

A "grassroots money bomb" and other promotions could occur after we got this top page set up.

C) Current List of Possible Workers
-------------------------------------------------------
These are the people from DP whom I think may have expressed interest in the idea:

• tnjonline
• spearsoft
• fight4liberty
• beelzebush66
• Overhaul-with-Paul
• supporter
• mainah

Please write me back at to tell me if you are in or not, and if you are, what you can do…

Please add your name to the list by emailing me.

I will then setup a mailing list for official workers...

Thanks so much.

re[love]ution,
Dennis

Fantastic Idea! Please contact me @ barrera.ray@gmail.com with info on how I can help, I have a site (look at my sig) where I can help advertise, and I can even help with the site development, I am a web designer.

- Ron Paul 2008 -
Choose Freedom
http://patriotarmy.blogspot.com/

Excellent idea. It should be a site of all legitimate chip-ins....maybe a quick discussion of which ones people trust and like most. Money, of course, should go to each individual chip-in and not to one common fund. I assume this is your thought.

Also, timing is critical. Superbowl is too late; needs to be next Friday (payday) in order to benefit substantially for Super Tuesday. Maybe the following Friday, but not sure if that is too late.

Bedtime, have a sign wave tomorrow. There were 35 of us last week. The local GOP organizer happened to drive by and asked us to stop by and give them brochures on RP as people were asking. Naturally, one of our guys obliged. And yes, we had a crap load of horn honks and thumbs up......for this area, amazing. We will not assume anything and know we have a lot of work to do. Desperate need of some tv ads in FL too!

anyone ready to create the grassroots moneybomb website?

Pick the date January 22.

Post up the Chip in Page where all the grassroots items are.

Treg

Here's my post from before..

HQ is flush with cash. Our HQ bombs have been great publicity to gain old media attention, but perhaps the bombs have taken too much of our money too fast to produce votes efficiently?

"Headquarters should do this!"
"Headquarters should do that".
When did we become dependent on a central authority? What happened to our entrepreneurial spirit?

This is not how we got here! We got here via a decentralized effort. Lots of empowered minds thinking up lots of creative ideas. Have the money bombs drained our greatest asset -- our initiative -- as well as our financial wherewithall?

Let's stop the whining and our own disempowerment! We should focus funding to the grassroots projects of each person's choosing. Headquarters now has plenty of money for their efforts. Now it is time for us to place our bets. A grassroots money bomb.

Here's a plan:

• Select a coordinator. Someone with site building expertise would be best.
• List the people willing to pull this off. What can you help with?
• Create a coordinating site that links to all grassroots activities, with an "official description" and a forum for testimonials. (A good start!)
• Create a window to view each grassroot's donations.
• Create a Grand Total counter
• Coordinate with the grassroots organizations to update the totals and perhaps flash the contributors' names
• Run this for a while, advertising it often to various threads
• Select a date for a grassroots money bomb.

The number one rule of wise investing is to Diversify your Portfolio!!!

Fund Grassroots Efforts Now

I've emailed both the Paulunteer and a RonPaulDonors to see if they are willing to host this effort.

re[love]ution,
Dennis

Do something like this ,it doesn't have to be Jan 6th but would bring awareness to the fact that the media is biased . Hell, if its good enough it might be on TV http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ehg4qha3qUI

On January 2nd, 2008 tnjonline says:

All we need to do is make a website..like many of the other money bomb websites and decide which grassroot movements are going to participate on that day.

I think people get too worried about things such as who should be put there, what if they will run away with the money etc. I think we should just go ahead and make a website.

Then ask the few grassroot campaigns if:

1. They would want to participate
2. If they can have a post on their website summarizing their achievements till now and future plans.
3. Commit to a donation goal for the plans that they are already working on.
4. Commit to updating the amount raised every few minutes to 1/2 hour on the moneybomb day.
5. Commit to stop accepting donations on the moneybomb day after the goal has been reached. They can resume again later.

Those who accept can have banners on moneybomb website.

I think the above should cover all aspects. I am just thinking aloud here, but it seems a sound plan to me. The people who make the website will just function as marketers for these grassroot efforts...for free!

The date could be set for preferably around the 10th-15th of this month.

tnj

If done properly, this kind of money bomb could even attract foreign support as they woul be able to donate. Remember he has a huge following even outside your borders!

--------------------------------------
Conscious Co-Creation Now!!!

M. Raborn I fear that many of us who have been here since the start of the campaign are finding our pocket books are pretty flat. However, watching the numbers as we reached for the $20 million to end the 4th quater, most of the donors were new.
That is great and I think funding the grassroots ideas great. The grassroots are so professional and creative and they deserve the credit for getting Dr. Paul this far. I am confident they will continue to get him the nomination and then win the national election!
I would like to make one suggestion of an effort that deserves funding, that is Linda Hunnecutt and the Granny Warrior RV. She has been on the road for Dr. Paul since the beginning. I think she is currently on the road to Texas to make sure Dr. Paul wins the nomination in his home state. Also check out this link where she is broadcasting live Monday thru Friday.
http://www.gcnlive.com/Programs/RonPaulRoadShow.htm

I'd propose we need something that allows people to post proposals with budgets and vote on them. Then we do a money bomb to see if we can get enough to fund them.

As I understand it, airtime on TV is fairly expensive compared to radio. I'd like to see a comprehensive plan. Perhaps we can solicit a few marketing firms to submit proposals.

and then we will GIVE it to Ron Paul. It is OUR revolution, right or wrong. After last night we need to start swinging for the fences with our enthusiasm, creativity, and PASSION. Letting some centralized "managers" redirect our efforts into "mainstream" campaign efforts has simply "MANAGED" to get us BEHIND a has-been war monger and a half-dead TV actor.

If we are to go down, let's go down on our OWN terms, in our OWN way.
SUPPORT GRASSROOTS!!!!!

anti-bureaucracy,

why not make the Grassroots Moneybomb a simple website with a kick-ass ticker and with links to Denpratt's list, plus add others?

A couple of geeks could pull that off and then a team of wordsmiths like us could promote the hell out of it.

Better than filing for a 501C3 (I run a non-profit, I know) or becoming a PAC.

-JP

I'm in...

Can we bump this to the main page? Let's get an official list of potential money bombs.

am in!!This a grassroots effort.so let the grassroots decide the tv commercials!!!

My semi-official list of efforts: Most Effective Contributions

Just a few examples of what you can do with $100..

• Buy 400 Paul Revere DVDs and gave them out to your friends and acquaintenaces, telling them, "This is a person whom I really respect. Please take a few minutes to watch this video. Call me up if you have any questions."
• Buy 300 bumper stickers and plaster them on every signpost you see
• Buy 400 slim jims and leave them in every bathroom at the airport and every seat back on the plane.
• Buy 1/100th of a JBlack ad placement that plays in Michigan, which speaks more to the heart than to the mind.
• Buy via Operation Live Free or Die housing and food and transportation for three canvassers in a primary state for one night.
• Keep Ron Paul Radio on the air for one night

There's so much that you can do with your money....

What do you think is most important expenditure of your $100?

re[love]ution,
Dennis

He's known speaks very well and could set up a commercial

Give me Liberty or Give me death

Is there anyway a legal not for profit run ads them we could get tax deductions on investing alot of money
Give me Liberty or Give me death

http://www.operationbroadcastfreedom.com/

We look like Congress in 1913 when they abdicated fiscal responsibilty to the FED and IRS. We lost the country. We are losing this campaign to "professional" staff who (if you saw what they are paid) are "soft" core.
In less than a year our "culture" is already being diluted.

The early Ron Paul supporters had "red blood" in their veins. Now the blood is turning pink.

We have done or inspired everything good about this campaign. We have what it takes and with God's help we need to re-take the lead in this organization.

Before we go and start a new fund, we need to evaluate what existing projects deserve our help and then purpose in our hearts to AGREE on which grassroots ventures are worthy of focused support. Then set a schedule to focus our time, attention, resources and energy on each one systematically.

Grassroots: This Is Our Campaign - Own It.

If Paul wins the nomination then we can have a get him elected money bomb, but right now don't worry about Hillary/Obama

I do in fact think that a "moneybomb" for us would be a great idea. Money to be placed in actions around the country in various incarnations. But DO NOT believe for a second that the campaign will not need more money as this thing goes on, they will simply need continued support to compete with the $100 million dollar war chests of HILL-O-BAMA types.

After reading Goldwater's post last night about a central grassroots organization that the campaign HQ could or should be more in touch with, I tend to agree. However I say I would be happy to cut my donations by half to the official campaign. The real issue would be how to organize. Lots of different personalities and egos, and where? Maybe just centralize in cyberspace and by phone? Some ideas that come to mind is ad contests that can be voted on by donation (not by amount just by one donation) and I'm sure many more ideas are out in this very creative group.
The major hurdle is implementing any of this. Any suggestions?

After reading Goldwater's post last night about a central grassroots organization that the campaign HQ could or should be more in touch with, I tend to agree. However I say I would be happy to cut my donations by half to the official campaign. The real issue would be how to organize. Lots of different personalities and egos, and where? Maybe just centralize in cyberspace and by phone? Some ideas that come to mind is ad contests that can be voted on by donation (not by amount just by one donation) and I'm sure many more ideas are out in this very creative group.
The major hurdle is implementing any of this. Any suggestions?

The official campaign is incompetent. I suggested a grassroots money bomb awhile back as well.

The grassroots tell the complex story of freedom more simply and more personally. Especially via more JBlack TV ads, more DVD mailings, more canvassing, more personal letters. Let the grassroots fund the grassroots -- communicating the LOVE and the reLOVEution directly to the American people.

re[love]ution,
Dennis