Act Up! Fight Back! Crowdsource!
Groundbreaking and recently reinvigorated AIDS/HIV activism organization ACT UP, whose effective and critical actions during the crisis were chronicled in the Oscar-nominated documentary How To Stop A Plague, has gone 21st Century with a $10k GoFundMe.com campaign.
The money will help allow ACT UP and its members, none of whom are paid, to: “join lobby days to advocate for implementation of Governor Cuomo’s Plan to End the AIDS Epidemic in NY by 2020; rent a float and booth at NY Pride to distribute HIV/AIDS information; print flyers and posters for our creative, life-saving demonstrations; cover the rental costs of our Monday night meeting space at the LGBT Center,” and more.
“ACT UP’s GoFundMe effort will hopefully become an annual event,” says longtime ACT UP member and activist Peter Staley, “and help the build a base of long-term donors for the group. Back in 1988, ACT UP launched a direct-mail campaign that did much the same. I chaired their fundraising committee back then, so it’s wonderful to see new vigor amongst today’s membership for building the group up like this. Online fundraising costs a lot less than direct-mail appeals and, besides, we’re all online these days rather than opening snail mail. ACT UP is also trying to reinvigorate their merchandizing efforts. We used to sell over $100,000 of t-shirts and buttons back in the day!”
Oh, yes, GoFundMe donors do receive swag. Fight back, get a T-shirt!
charmin88
This is great. I like to see us come together for a great cause.
Giancarlo85
Great article and one that addresses something our community has neglected.
There should be an article though on Ireland, which passed same sex marriage in a landslide…
Rick Isrigh
This is good news. Prep needs to be made available to more and more people. We also need to end all of these bareback parties that are occurring. They seem to be becoming more and more popular. I am in a serodiscordant relationship. Yes, we do play the field, as do all of our coupled friends. We just need to be more responsible in our play.