Help Us Decide : What to do with the Fund Collected

[voronv]

Can you please CLEARLY and SHORTLY define the "original plan"?

We, at immigrationportal.org... so far have collected about $21,000...need your suggestions regarding how we should spend the money.

I'm not a contributor, at least NOT YET. So many times I've read rude responses from the originators of this initiative on this forum, kind of: "you, such and such, not participating, you wish to get everything for free, while we, decent people, taking care for all - get out of our forum!".

But the reason I didn't participate was that I couldn't understand what for.
I thought I was too stupid to understand all the statements on immigrationportal.org to indentify the initiative's objective and strategy. (sorry, I'm not absolutely fair regarding objective: it's clear enough). But with this posting for help I began thinking maybe I wasn't stupid. The strategy and tactics, the actual plan... what's in it?

Let's see:

we should still go ahead with our original plan, but we may have to settle for a cheaper contractor to work for us for 2 months.

"1) We will work towards reducing the I485 and I140 backlogs..."
"2) We will also form statewide teams and organize events to meet the local congress men and senators."
"3) Sensitizing the various Govt. agencies/departments about the immigration laws and problems"
"4) We will also work towards improving the immigration laws"

It's looking for me as something very much political. Am I missing anything because I don't see any material content here?

Can you, initiators, please specify precisely and concretely the ACTIONS you'd love to do if you had enough funds?

Thank you.

 

[dsatish]

I'm not a contributor, at least NOT YET. So many times I've read rude responses from the originators of this initiative on this forum, kind of: "you, such and such, not participating, you wish to get everything for free, while we, decent people, taking care for all - get out of our forum!".

But the reason I didn't participate was that I couldn't understand what for.
I thought I was too stupid to understand all the statements on immigrationportal.org to indentify the initiative's objective and strategy. (sorry, I'm not absolutely fair regarding objective: it's clear enough). But with this posting for help I began thinking maybe I wasn't stupid. The strategy and tactics, the actual plan... what's in it?

Let's see:


"1) We will work towards reducing the I485 and I140 backlogs..."
"2) We will also form statewide teams and organize events to meet the local congress men and senators."
"3) Sensitizing the various Govt. agencies/departments about the immigration laws and problems"
"4) We will also work towards improving the immigration laws"

It's looking for me as something very much political. Am I missing anything because I don't see any material content here?

Can you, initiators, please specify precisely and concretely the ACTIONS you'd love to do if you had enough funds?

Thank you.

voronov,
Click on the "click here to contribute" link in my signature. That will answer most of your questions. The rest of the questions will be taken care by me in the evening.

 

[nagpurichokra]

Specific Ideas

Ideas change the world! but what we are seeing here is a classcial examples of subcontinental traits. Remember, no venture no gain and fortune favors the brave. When I contributed, I was apprehensive about the gains, but I did it, because I don't want to be among the whiners without action. I appreciated the noble intention and public service of the individuals who took the lead. This venture matched everyone's selfinterest, but few like us, ever take initiatives and but we are good at criticizing those who do. Its like someone goes and builds a 100 ft dam and it couldn't withstand the floods. But others, who didn't even lift a stone, crticize him for not building 150ft dam.
Now to topic, with limited amount and grangantuan task of reforming a babudom (beaurocracy), which has distroyed great empires like Soviet union and sucked life out of India, very limited effect can be had. But fight we will, giving up without fighting is our heritage and now a gentic disorder (now called smartness, practiality, etc).
Now specific ideas:
1. No point in hiring a person, what will he do?. Oursorce it to some small time lobbying firm, be as it may, with little effect. I'm sure it will be better than what ONE person can do in ONE month.
2. Do a targated campaign donation for immigration committee members, friends of India caucus, etc.
3. Some media infomation campaign with some PR firm, etc.
4. Money can be used for compling cases with documentries (aka dateline style with background music) where, great harm had/has been done with these delays.
God bless those who have guts to do something for the rest of us whiners and onlookers. God speed...

 

[timaeuti]

Hi Every one,
We, at immigrationportal.org, need your suggestions regarding how we should spend the money. So far we have collected about $21,000 . Out of this, let us set aside $4000 for running expenses ($2000 for the accountant + $2000 for software, Stationary, Corporate Filing Fees, Minimum balance etc). So we might have about $17,000 for spending. In recent days, the contributions have slowed down very much and we begin to feel that it is futile to wait and do nothing till you get the minimum target of $30,000 required to hire some one for the organization for 3 months. We don’t know how long it is going to take to get that much money. So what are our options now ? What is the best course of action ? Any suggestions are most welcome.
We (core team) have discussed this issue in our last meeting but we could not agree on the outcome. Here are the different voices heard at our meeting :
1) Hire a less capable person for lesser period (2 months). That means, we should still go ahead with our original plan, but we may have to settle for a cheaper contractor to work for us for 2 months. Many people did not favor this idea.
2) Continue the Fund raising effort and wait till we get the required amount and go ahead with original plan (without diluting it).
3) Keep the money with the organization and use it for long term goals and also for advertisement etc.
4) For those who have contributed larger amounts (more than $50) , return the money over the $50. This way, we might be left with around $12,000 and that can be used for long term goals. That means, those who have contributed $70 should be returned $20 and those who have contributed $100 should be returned $50 etc.

Note : The backers of arguments 2 and 3, feel that we should not spend the money just for the sake of spending it.

I personally have preference to one of the above 4 options but I won’t let the cat out right now because that might influence more people’s evaluation of other options. Please feel free to tell your preference. You may also come out with new ideas about what’s the best way to utilize the money or ways to reach the target amount quickly.

Irrespective of the success or failure of the fund collection drive, we will continue to work in personal capacity towards putting more pressure on INS to act on the backlog reduction. I have prepared one strong letter to be sent to the congress men and I will present it here for review in a couple of days.

Normally fundraisers know how the money will be spent before they raise funds. The money is normally spent for specific goals, and fighting backlogs or creating more world peace is not nearly specific enough. While I admire your purpose, it seems that you have raised quite an amount and are still not sure how to spend it. That looks to me like putting the carriage before the horse. Why do not you settle on very specific goals and then let people know how you indend to spend the money?

 

[feb6361]

I fully agree with nagpurichokra..

Ideas change the world! but what we are seeing here is a classcial examples of subcontinental traits. Remember, no venture no gain and fortune favors the brave. When I contributed, I was apprehensive about the gains, but I did it, because I don't want to be among the whiners without action. I appreciated the noble intention and public service of the individuals who took the lead. This venture matched everyone's selfinterest, but few like us, ever take initiatives and but we are good at criticizing those who do. Its like someone goes and builds a 100 ft dam and it couldn't withstand the floods. But others, who didn't even lift a stone, crticize him for not building 150ft dam.
Now to topic, with limited amount and grangantuan task of reforming a babudom (beaurocracy), which has distroyed great empires like Soviet union and sucked life out of India, very limited effect can be had. But fight we will, giving up without fighting is our heritage and now a gentic disorder (now called smartness, practiality, etc).
Now specific ideas:
1. No point in hiring a person, what will he do?. Oursorce it to some small time lobbying firm, be as it may, with little effect. I'm sure it will be better than what ONE person can do in ONE month.
2. Do a targated campaign donation for immigration committee members, friends of India caucus, etc.
3. Some media infomation campaign with some PR firm, etc.
4. Money can be used for compling cases with documentries (aka dateline style with background music) where, great harm had/has been done with these delays.
God bless those who have guts to do something for the rest of us whiners and onlookers. God speed...

 

[kadamtal]

Media does the tricK....

I like the point 3 in nagpurichokra's reply. Media has the power to bring changes in any responsible organization/individual. It has the power to move things from worse to better or vice versa. But sure it will move.

IMHO, we should come up with "ads" which mention the one single most important bottleneck factor of USCIS and i think that is backlogs/processing delays. This when narrated by a personality who has good visibility in the industry gets more attention. Being in California, i hear quite a lot of similar "ads" on the radio/TV which mention the issue at hand and how it is affecting community.

You will have atleast 100 heads turning and getting attention. We have an edge right now, a lawsuit is going on, backlogs are at their peak, we should make use of the situation now. Hit the rod while it is still hot, you can bend it.

 

[dsatish]

Normally fundraisers know how the money will be spent before they raise funds. The money is normally spent for specific goals, and fighting backlogs or creating more world peace is not nearly specific enough. While I admire your purpose, it seems that you have raised quite an amount and are still not sure how to spend it. That looks to me like putting the carriage before the horse. Why do not you settle on very specific goals and then let people know how you indend to spend the money?

timaeuti,
Have you contributed to the fund ?

 

[timaeuti]

timaeuti,
Have you contributed to the fund ?

No, I have not, and I am unable to decide whether to contribute until you decide how you will spend the money.

 

[bharad1]

In response to some of the comments, the primary goal should be to lobby congressmen, senators etc. (the legislature) and make them aware of the horrendous problems facing the legal immigration system here. While they probably are aware of this in passing, so far they mostly get to hear the CIS side (security is very important, right person, right benefit blah blah....). They should hear the other side.

The only way to get out of this current mess is to get support from elected reps..We don't care what the USCIS thinks -- they simply follow the law
and if it changes, they will have to change.

Just my $.02.

 

[cosmos]

…
1) Hire a less capable person for lesser period (2 months). That means, we should still go ahead with our original plan, but we may have to settle for a cheaper contractor to work for us for 2 months. Many people did not favor this idea.
2) Continue the Fund raising effort and wait till we get the required amount and go ahead with original plan (without diluting it).
3) Keep the money with the organization and use it for long term goals and also for advertisement etc.
4) For those who have contributed larger amounts (more than $50) , return the money over the $50. This way, we might be left with around $12,000 and that can be used for long term goals. That means, those who have contributed $70 should be returned $20 and those who have contributed $100 should be returned $50 etc.
…

There are four key questions that you want to answer whenever you embark on a new project:
1) Where are you today?
2) Where do you want to be tomorrow?
3) How do you get there?
4) How do you know you got there?

In the current context, it is easy enough to answer the first 2 questions.
1) Stuck in the backlog black hole
2) Reduce backlog to less than or equal to six months

What about question 3? Unfortunately, there is no single correct answer. Just look at the sheer number of parameters involved:
i) USCIS has to improve processing efficiency
ii) USCIS needs more resources
iii) USCIS needs to stick to backlog reduction plan
iv) Congress has to hold USCIS accountable
v) Security climate

The list was just a teaser. You and I know that there are more. But you get the picture.

I would say our best bet for finding a solution is to seek help from Congress. Why in the world will they be interested in helping us?
i) I may be naïve, but I believe most in the Congress will help the citizens and constituents whenever they can, because they are fundamentally decent human beings who have chosen to serve the public.
ii) Most of them are a lot smarter than you and I. They recognize an opportunity (gain new voters, funds, etc.) when they see one.
iii) All said and done, a million people are granted permanent residency every year. I think this symbolizes the spirit and generosity of the Congress.

Now, how many Congress members are aware of our problem? I have no idea. But I can only assume that not a whole lot. If we expect the Congress to do something, we need to make them aware that there is a problem and people are hurting. We need to reach all the 100 Senators and 434 Congress(wo)men, even though a bill proposal starts from a subcommittee. I think if they all received about 50 faxes from different people within a span of a week, the impact would be stunning. How soon that would result in some tangible action leading to backlog reduction is another matter. There have been several admirable efforts such as Project Ocean email and fax campaigns to Congress that have attempted raise the awareness and the level of debate. Also, I think 485-litigation has raised the level of awareness. In my view, that is one of several reasons why we are seeing some pickup in pace of late.

For better success with the Congress, high profile lobbyists need to bat for us. 21K is hardly sufficient for this purpose. Media ads will also be expensive. Perhaps, we should try to get onto serious shows such as Meet the Press and 60 Minutes that have a loyal audience with a political bent.

This is a true catch-22 situation. The general expectation of people who contributed probably is some tangible action that results in backlog reduction. I don’t know if anyone contributed with the expectation of pushing only his or her case. On the other hand, if there is no tangible action, not enough new people are interested in contributing.

In the end, we have to play with the cards we are dealt with. If 21K is all we have, it should be used to at least ensure all the members of Congress are aware of our problems and request Congress to hold USCIS accountable by specifically pointing out past promises and disappointments. If the general population agrees, we can discuss then the best way to reach the members of Congress.

Question #4: How do we know we got there?
It is easy enough to gauge the # of approvals of cases that are older than 6 months using some of the scanner projects, but the question is how do we know to what extent our efforts succeeded. I would like to believe that our efforts significantly contribute to the process. But it would be nice to be able to measure our success. I know it is hard to measure, but people will always be second-guessing no matter how successful our efforts are. Depending on what we decide to do, it would be good to come up with ideas to measure our success.

Regards!

PS: In the interest of full disclosure, I have to admit that I am already approved. But still I believe I am expressing my opinions in an objective way. But I will let you be the judge of that.

 

[nkm-oct23]

One wild thought, have you considered hiring a lobbyist? I am not sure if the amount you collected is anywhere enough to pay a lobbyist but this is another angle not discussed before.

 

[dsatish]

My Thoughts

First of all, let me give a short answer to those people who have said that we don’t have a plan and we are trying to search for one in the middle of fund collection. As I have already told them, just click on the link provided in my signature and you will see a detailed plan. Don’t tell me that you guys need more details. There is no limit to the word “details”. It depends on person to person. At least to me it is a detailed enough to tell people what we are planning to do.

Well, coming to my thoughts on the current situation, as i have said before, time is running out and we have not yet got the minimum target fund (some where between 30 to 35K). It’s difficult to say if we have failed in our mission. The mission is for people to contribute and if they don’t do the way we expect them to do, then I think that either we have not understood people’s nature properly or we have failed to convince them properly. I am going with the former conclusion because I have made my best efforts to convince the people and so does other core team members. Our plan was pretty detailed and we have repeatedly asked for people’s feedback. After the detailed plan was presented, nobody ever said that it was not detailed enough. Also nobody came out with a better / alternate plan. So I personally feel that we have over estimated people’s willingness to join our fight . Obviously more people believe that nothing will come out of this type of effort or they are willing to wait patiently. That is the reality that has made us to re evaluate our plans.

My initial preference was for option 1 and if more people don’t like that then to go for option 4. Option 4 was purely my idea because if we really fail to hire a person to work with the congress men for our cause, then we would have betrayed a lot of people who have made high contributions by believing in our plan (Here I completely agree with Kadamtal). Please note that about 3 or 4 people have donated $500 each and a couple of people have made $300 and more than 20 people have donated $200 and above. Any way, the core team will take an appropriate decision on returning some portion of the money to those who have made large donations.

Now based on feedback, it seems that the majority view (or better view) seem to be to spend the money to advertise about our problems. Some people have mentioned about hiring (outsourcing to) a lobby firm. Well, we have discussed that in the beginning, but felt that we may not be have enough money to hire a lobby firm. Another problem is that we can not make political contributions (as non citizens or non GC holders) either directly or indirectly. So we are little hesitant to use the word “Lobbying” because that word traditionally refers to making political donations. Ofcourse, we can hire a lobby firm which does not make any payments to politicians. Even if you get a lobby firm to work for us for $20,000 , the problem is that , the moment you use the fund collected from people for lobbying , then we might not be eligible for non profit organization status. It is not clear if this is 100% true, because I guess that ISN.org has done precisely this (hiring a lobbying firm) and I guess that it still got a non profit organization status. rk4gc, your inputs here will be helpful. Let’s also ask Rajiv about this. Because of these reasons, we thought of going in the safe route of hiring an employee on our own and assign him tasks.

This discussion has brought some good points, especially by cosmos and nagpurichokra. I think that majority seem to favor their ideas. We should use media more effectively. We should prepare our stories and push it to the media. Most of the core team members also favors this idea. The problem with this approach is, it is an intense job and it needs a lot more effort and co-ordination from core team members. If it requires going to media offices on a week day, then it is going to be much more tough. Let’s think about that. We need to prepare a good media plan now. We will do brain storming on this idea in our next meeting. We will make that meeting open to every one.

People can keep giving suggestions. Once our revised plan is ready (should be within 10 days), we will publish it here and we can continue fund collection from there on. Also, if you spend some money on an effective purpose, more people are likely to join us.

Note : vi00, kadamtal etc --- Please bear with us. We(core team) are not sleeping. Please realize that nobody made contributions with an expectation of certain level of activity from us. Our plan has always been (as published) to hire a person to do the job for us. We are collecting money for that. We are also human beings and I485 applicants like you and we also have our families and responsibilities. Our role is to provide a platform for the fight and we have not failed on that. Just remember all those trips Kashmir etc have made to those town hall meetings to meet the congress men to fight the backlog delays. Fighting the back log is every one’s responsibility, not that of just core team members.

 

[nkm-oct23]

Lobbying is not political donation; most countries hire lobbyists to promote their concerns in the US congress. Lobbyists are professionals who have better access to lawmakers and bigwigs and can present your case directly and convincingly.

 

[dsatish]

Lobbying is not political donation; most countries hire lobbyists to promote their concerns in the US congress. Lobbyists are professionals who have better access to lawmakers and bigwigs and can present your case directly and convincingly.

I agree. Our first priority will be to explore the option of hiring a small lobbying firm. If we can't get a lobbying firm for this amount, then we have to spend the money on media publicity to our cause.

 

[feb6361]

dsatish,

I have provided one very good contact in NJ to the core team..please take his advice for a free and go from there as per his advice for the media publicity!

Thank you!

First of all, let me give a short answer to those people who have said that we don’t have a plan and we are trying to search for one in the middle of fund collection. As I have already told them, just click on the link provided in my signature and you will see a detailed plan. Don’t tell me that you guys need more details. There is no limit to the word “details”. It depends on person to person. At least to me it is a detailed enough to tell people what we are planning to do.

Well, coming to my thoughts on the current situation, as i have said before, time is running out and we have not yet got the minimum target fund (some where between 30 to 35K). It’s difficult to say if we have failed in our mission. The mission is for people to contribute and if they don’t do the way we expect them to do, then I think that either we have not understood people’s nature properly or we have failed to convince them properly. I am going with the former conclusion because I have made my best efforts to convince the people and so does other core team members. Our plan was pretty detailed and we have repeatedly asked for people’s feedback. After the detailed plan was presented, nobody ever said that it was not detailed enough. Also nobody came out with a better / alternate plan. So I personally feel that we have over estimated people’s willingness to join our fight . Obviously more people believe that nothing will come out of this type of effort or they are willing to wait patiently. That is the reality that has made us to re evaluate our plans.

My initial preference was for option 1 and if more people don’t like that then to go for option 4. Option 4 was purely my idea because if we really fail to hire a person to work with the congress men for our cause, then we would have betrayed a lot of people who have made high contributions by believing in our plan (Here I completely agree with Kadamtal). Please note that about 3 or 4 people have donated $500 each and a couple of people have made $300 and more than 20 people have donated $200 and above. Any way, the core team will take an appropriate decision on returning some portion of the money to those who have made large donations.

Now based on feedback, it seems that the majority view (or better view) seem to be to spend the money to advertise about our problems. Some people have mentioned about hiring (outsourcing to) a lobby firm. Well, we have discussed that in the beginning, but felt that we may not be have enough money to hire a lobby firm. Another problem is that we can not make political contributions (as non citizens or non GC holders) either directly or indirectly. So we are little hesitant to use the word “Lobbying” because that word traditionally refers to making political donations. Ofcourse, we can hire a lobby firm which does not make any payments to politicians. Even if you get a lobby firm to work for us for $20,000 , the problem is that , the moment you use the fund collected from people for lobbying , then we might not be eligible for non profit organization status. It is not clear if this is 100% true, because I guess that ISN.org has done precisely this (hiring a lobbying firm) and I guess that it still got a non profit organization status. rk4gc, your inputs here will be helpful. Let’s also ask Rajiv about this. Because of these reasons, we thought of going in the safe route of hiring an employee on our own and assign him tasks.

This discussion has brought some good points, especially by cosmos and nagpurichokra. I think that majority seem to favor their ideas. We should use media more effectively. We should prepare our stories and push it to the media. Most of the core team members also favors this idea. The problem with this approach is, it is an intense job and it needs a lot more effort and co-ordination from core team members. If it requires going to media offices on a week day, then it is going to be much more tough. Let’s think about that. We need to prepare a good media plan now. We will do brain storming on this idea in our next meeting. We will make that meeting open to every one.

People can keep giving suggestions. Once our revised plan is ready (should be within 10 days), we will publish it here and we can continue fund collection from there on. Also, if you spend some money on an effective purpose, more people are likely to join us.

Note : vi00, kadamtal etc --- Please bear with us. We(core team) are not sleeping. Please realize that nobody made contributions with an expectation of certain level of activity from us. Our plan has always been (as published) to hire a person to do the job for us. We are collecting money for that. We are also human beings and I485 applicants like you and we also have our families and responsibilities. Our role is to provide a platform for the fight and we have not failed on that. Just remember all those trips Kashmir etc have made to those town hall meetings to meet the congress men to fight the backlog delays. Fighting the back log is every one’s responsibility, not that of just core team members.

 

[whatwhenwhy]

I would suggest continue contributions and start acting with whatever ..

I would suggest continue contributions and start acting with whatever funds available. Once action is seen, more contributions will flow in. Also, I can't seem to find the on-line contribution link. Each time I click on the red link it takes me to another discussion thread.

I am going to contribute right now, not expect any refund and hope for the best !

If everybody, unless you have dire financial difficulties, keeps this spirit reaching the $30K target will not be an issue.

Again, please send me the direct link to the online payment...

Thanks

 

[dsatish]

If everybody, unless you have dire financial difficulties, keeps this spirit reaching the $30K target will not be an issue.

Perfectly said. There is no need to stop the fund collection. I will only stop asking for the contributions till i publish a revised plan. But it will be good if people repose faith in ip.org and contribute what ever small amount they can.
If only 500 people contributed $100 each, we would have been talking to Gerge Bush right now. I am not joking. That was the idea with which we started this move. For some one suffering so much due to the delays $100 should not be a great amount. The main people behind the plan (core team members) have contributed $200 each and i guess that there is nothing wrong in expecting that people will make a $100 contribution.After seeing the slow response, we started asking for $50 and if only 500 people made that small donation, we would have definitely reached our minimum target by now.

 

[dsatish]

Again, please send me the direct link to the online payment...

I forgot to answer this. Go to www.immigrationportal.org and click on the "paypal" button on the left side of the main page. Paypal is a payment processing product owned by Ebay. You don't need an existing paypal account. All you need is any credit card. It takes just 10 minutes to complete the transaction.

 

[kadamtal]

we are like USCIS...

Seems to me that we are like USCIS in all respects....

1) we depend on the money collected from individuals on the forum ~ like budget of USCIS depending on application fees

2) We have written down guidelines on a generic scale of what we want to do ~ Memos sent out to Service Centers which do not provide detailed instructions to the IIOs but leave them to interpret it in such a way the backlog is increased.

3) Cannot hire professionals to lobby ~ pay scale for IIO is so low that they cannot fillup the positions to work on cases.

4) 4 or few more campaigns and we are done.... ~ 2-3 pilot programs and they are done...

The list goes on.... dstatish, when you choose to go with the thought that you understood people and how they will contribute and are attributing it to the low fund raising, you are making a big mistake. You should choose the other thought where you said, did not make enough effort to raise money.

I respect kashmir, 140_takes_4ever and many others on this forum. I have met these guys and they are THE people who ran this marathon from start till where it is now. But if you win your race and you are out, what about the people who are following you till now. don't you want them to reach the finish line. It doesn't seem to be that way now since kashmir got approved.

We had action but, we need more action now that winds are blowing our way. we need to see things happening around.

Judge me as the negative element in this discussion, i don't care. This is my perception purely. I have always contributed my share in fax/email campaigns or monetary wise and will do as far as i can stretch.

 

[Edison]

Seems to me that we are like USCIS in all respects....

1) we depend on the money collected from individuals on the forum ~ like budget of USCIS depending on application fees

2) We have written down guidelines on a generic scale of what we want to do ~ Memos sent out to Service Centers which do not provide detailed instructions to the IIOs but leave them to interpret it in such a way the backlog is increased.

3) Cannot hire professionals to lobby ~ pay scale for IIO is so low that they cannot fillup the positions to work on cases.

4) 4 or few more campaigns and we are done.... ~ 2-3 pilot programs and they are done...

The list goes on.... dstatish, when you choose to go with the thought that you understood people and how they will contribute and are attributing it to the low fund raising, you are making a big mistake. You should choose the other thought where you said, did not make enough effort to raise money.

I respect kashmir, 140_takes_4ever and many others on this forum. I have met these guys and they are THE people who ran this marathon from start till where it is now. But if you win your race and you are out, what about the people who are following you till now. don't you want them to reach the finish line. It doesn't seem to be that way now since kashmir got approved.

We had action but, we need more action now that winds are blowing our way. we need to see things happening around.

Judge me as the negative element in this discussion, i don't care. This is my perception purely. I have always contributed my share in fax/email campaigns or monetary wise and will do as far as i can stretch.

dsatish,
Please post this link in our Volunteer yahoo group. Members who don't vist this forum daily might contribute their ideas.