Love the cause! Do they love me?
File under: Donor retention
Loved the cause. Wasn't sure the cause loved me back. Hadn't heard much.
I was just about to quit giving to this org. when, lo, an email from the ED arrived, asking if we might meet.
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I don't know when I first learned of the Womxn Project. Probably from Simone Joyaux, my life partner and co-conspirator.
Probably because Simone showed me a postcard campaign in 2019, a campaign that helped pass the Reproductive Privacy Act in our home state of Rhode Island. That act, upheld later by the state's supreme court against a Roman Catholic challenge, secured the rights of RI women to birth control and abortion procedures.
Reproductive Privacy Acts were passed in other liberal states, too ... anticipating what finally happened in 2022, when the US Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade. RI Congressman, Jim Langevin, a Roman Catholic anti-abortion advocate in the past, changed his position, calling the SCOTUS 2022 ruling the "most severe rollback of women’s rights in this country’s history."
For your information, here's the WomXn/Simone postcard:
I became a monthly donor. It just seemed like a good "values match," given what our household was into: equity politics, arts, activism. I made my gifts in Simone's honor, when she ascended to Existentialist heaven in May 2021.
(And, by the way, you pronounce it "The Woman Project" -- silent X. The goal of the X is to signal: "You're ALL invited" to join a movement of change and inclusion.)
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The Womxn Project practices something called "artivism." The term arises from a meeting in Mexico in 1997. It covers a fresh international push to re-unite activism and art ...
ARTIVISM is what, more or less? Quoting from the Womxn Project's delightful website: "...strategic arts-based action, education, expression, and disruption" -- pay attention to that last word: disruption -- "TO BUILD A MORE JUST AND EQUITABLE RHODE ISLAND."
What does The Womxn Project do? They rally those with similar values and goals. They testify at the statehouse for and against bills. They go on local radio to discuss the issues affecting women's rights in RI. They collaborate with other activists (including WFRI; see more below) to help get more women elected to statewide public office.
Rhode Island's motto offers just one thing: HOPE.
It's a promise. Hope for what, each generation of activists asks? Fill in your blank ... and do something. Fairness? Justice? Tolerance? Understanding? Growth? A place at the table? A better life for me and my family and friends? The door's open.
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Why is The Womxn Project important to me personally?
Let me preface this with a statement. It's not a bold statement. It's a bland observation, supported by modern psychological research.
People give for their own reasons. Each gift from an individual is triggered by something already in their hearts and histories. Or as many experts hasten to point out: "She is not your donor. You are one of her charities."
Why does WomXn speak to me today?
Because my bestie soul-mate mentor-spouse of 37 years, Simone Joyaux (1948-2021), co-founded, with an incredible board of heavyweight female politicians and activists, the Women's Fund of RI (WFRI) in the year 2000.
The chief reason for WFRI's existence: to elect more women to high political office in Rhode Island.
How has the state done?
Rhode Island can now boast that its state legislature is something like 38% female (vs. Indiana, a state recently notorious for suppressing women's rights; that legislature is something like 18% female).
Why seek a 33% percentage in the legislature (rather than, say, 50%)? Because studies globally show that 33% is the tipping point in law-making bodies ... after which policies switch from testosterone-driven huffing and puffing [let's declare war on someone soon!] toward maybe, finally, productive social-welfare issues such as affordable day-care.
(2023 data point: New research shows that there are now huge numbers of people in America who want to work but can't AFFORD to work ... because child-care is so expensive.)
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RI is a blue state. Kinda.
RI is also one of the top 2 Catholic-dense states in America ... which means birth-control and abortion are starchly contested by the Diocese of Providence, led by a hard-to-deny bishop. The patriarchy is entrenched. "Males know best" had been the rule, not the exception ... until recent decades.
Attorney and state senator Myrth York almost won the governorship ('94, '98, '02). She came within a whisker of taking office. Myrth York also served with lasting distinction on the founding Advisory Council for the Women's Fund of RI.
Rhode Island elected its first female governor, Gina Raimondo (Yale, Harvard, Rhodes Scholar; former beloved summer waitress) in 2014. She was open about the obstacles. Reporters asked her male opponents about their policies. Reporters (women and men) asked Gina about what she served her kids for breakfast ... as she neglected them on the campaign trail. (We spoke about this one night at a Planned Parenthood event.)
Gina is now, though, America's lauded Secretary of Commerce in the Biden administration ... and whispered as a potential 2024 presidential candidate.
Rhode Island also elected Nellie Gorbea as its secretary of state (the office in charge of elections, among other things). Nellie was the very first LatinaX elected to high office in ANY of the six New England states. Nellie says she was personally recruited into running by Simone and WFRI.
And now there's WomXn, stirring the same disruptive pot.
Yay.
I remain a monthly donor. The notice on my monthly credit card statement (hope yours, too?) goes by the WomXn nom de guerre: Give Butter.
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