Some facts about this Fund collection drive
OK, NSC friends, first of all it was very nice to see responses from a lot of people from this forum. Since i rarely post here i thought that some people will question me 'who are you'. But you guys are so nice .
I guess that most of you might know me for some time because of some of the activities i have taken up over the past 1 year. To quote a few of them : I am one of the lead authors(edison being the other one) of the petition that we all signed and sent to the Ombudsman some 6 months back. When Rajiv Khanna has decided to file the law suit, i have created threads in all the forums asking for plaintiffs and the final plaintiffs are picked from those threads. I have also created threads in all the forums to discuss about validgrounds for lawsuit. This was to help Rajiv come up with strong arguments. Finally i was one of the founding members of the core team formed with members from all the 4 I485 forums with the aim of fighting the backlogs. 'MrCoolz' is the core team member from NSC forum.
In addition to the above activities, which are not VSC specific, i continue as an active member of VSC forum, answering as many questions as possible from new comers regarding I485 issues.
Now coming to the Fund collection issue, well, we started immigrationportal.org with high hopes. We thought that atleast 1000 people will make contributions because this site is visited by thousands of I485 applicants and we are fighting for them (us). We thought that we can easily collect 100K and hire liasion officers to represent us and meet all the congress men to apply presure on BCIS to speed up the I485 process. We also plan to try and change the citizenship law so that we don't need to wait for another 5 yrs after GC for citizenship. The goal is , we should be able to vote in 2008 elections. With all these plans, we worked hard for 2 to 3 months in registering the organization, opening an account, developing a web site etc. Finally we launched our organization (actually it belongs to every one here) on April'6. We are stunned when we saw just 5 donations from all the forums together on the opening day. We collected just $500 on that day. The second day went with no collections ($0)
It was a big shock to us and we are not sure what to do next. The signs were obvious that this fund collection is going to be a big failure. Then on the third day, i made an honest appeal in VSC forum, asking people to give me feedback about why they are not contributing. Then i realizes that the main reason for the lack of response is sheer lethargy , a tendency to postpone the things. Majority of the people said that they will contribute later. That gave me hope and i started reminding people every day and slowly people started to contribute, around 5 to 6 peoples per day, steadily. Then 'kashmir' has started serious efforts in CSC forums for the fund collection and that also picked up good momentum. Now most of the people in VSC and CSC forums treat immigrationportal.org as their organization. Most of them associate themselves with immigrationportal.org . Due to these relentless efforts from myself, kashmir, edison etc we now have collected more than $13000 in one month. Now we are targetting to make it 30K by the end of this Month. That's why i have started efforts in TSC and NSC forums now. Once we reach 30K, then we can start hirig a liason officer to work for us and represent our community at various levels like United States congres, Senate, Indian / Chinese / British Ambassies, BCIS, AILA etc.
Just as a dismal and almost failed venture (fund collection) has turned into a successful campaign, i am sure that we wil be able to shake the USCIS with our UNITED POWER. You just need to believe in your strategy and your ability. When the fund collection was going no where, i doubted our ability, not our strategy. That belief in the strategy kept us going and now we have reached a stage where it is impossible to doubt about our ability. We are at the threshold of creating history, just as "ISN.org" has done in 2000 when they collected money and successfully campaigned with the congress to enact AC21 law , the benefits of which we are all enjoying now. Unless sow a seed now, you can't ripe a fruit tomorrow. So please believe in our united power and contribute what ever amount you can afford to. Rajiv Khanna is also a director of this organization and we will not spend a single penny for personal expenses. The expenses will be kept transparent to all the donors. So far, we have not withdrawn a penny from the money collected in the last 1 month.
If you have any questions, i will be glad to answer.
because it is a new organization. Jokes apart, it is a registered organization formed by a team of volunteers from all the four I485 forums to fight the backlog issue. We have been mainly preparing petitions, assisting Rajiv in his lawsuit etc and now we came up with an organization so that we can appoint a liaison person to represent our community at various levels (congress, senate, ambassadors, caucus groups etc). We need the money to bring the community together, maintain the web site, pay to the laision person, accountant etc.