Wednesday, April 18, 2007

Proposal 277 needs your delegate's vote NOW!

In only six days, Proposal 277 will either have passed or failed.

The proposal, which deals with the ever so exciting topic of State Sharing Programs changes the way the National Party and state parties split the proceeds between the National Party and the various states.

As it stands now, anyone who gives to the National Party is offered the opportunity to split their donation with their state. Whenever someone does this, 1/2 of the donation goes to the state, even if the state was not involved in soliciting the donation.

Here's a "Real life" example. Say the National Party sends a mailing to retired teachers in South Carolina, focused on what Greens across the nation are doing on education and retirement issues. A retired teacher who taught as a passion, not for the income, gets the mailing and sends in a check for $10,000. Not knowing that the state even has a state chapter, she clicks the "Share with my state" box.

Now, if that check came from York County, where I live, I would ask the state party for a portion of that money, but they are under no obligation to do so.

But, what if the check came from someone in a state or community where we are not even organized yet?

So, having done nothing, my state would have been sent a check for $5000 by the national party. Under the new rules, my state would get 40% instead of 50%, or $4000 instead of $5000. Not bad for not even lifting a finger.

This is a fair proposal, and deserves a vote, and now. This should not fail because it was not "sexy" enough an issue to get Green National Committee members worked up enough to actually vote.

To see if your delegates have voted yet, check this page.

If you are a delegate, and haven't voted yet, you can vote by clicking this link.

To read the full text of the proposal, click the first link, or look behind the "Read more!" link...


Background
State sharing programs (SSPs) support both state Green Parties and GPUS and, as such, are a basic and important part of fundraising programs at both state and national levels. In order that the number and variety of SSPs continue to expand, it is vital that both state Green Parties and GPUS are appropriately compensated for fundraising efforts within these programs.

Our current SSPs do not differentiate between contributions that come in through state efforts and that come in through national efforts. In order to encourage state participation in fundraising, and to make it financially worthwhile for state parties, the Fundraising Committee is introducing a series of state driven SSPs.

Along with an increasing menu of state driven SSPs, we are reconfiguring the way state sharing is calculated. For contributions deriving from state driven programs, the state's share will be 60%, instead of the current 50%. For contributions deriving from national efforts, the state share will be 40%.

The key to the success of this system will be identifying whether a donation came in through state or national efforts. Our current donation tracking system assigns a solicitation code for each contribution. Identifying a contribution as state driven or nationally driven will utilize this current system for tracking solicitation codes. The tracking codes become part of the database records used by our accountant in calculating state sharing.

A description of programs follows, along with details on how contributions from each program will be tracked.

STATE DRIVEN PROGRAMS

State Sustainer Program:

The national office will provide for states a customized donate page and printable template for sustainer donations of $10 month or more per month ($120/year). The state party will be in charge of promoting the program on-line, at meetings, mailings, events. The national office will handle
credit card or check processing, data entry, thank you letter, green pages subscription, and lapel pin. A unique tracking code will be assigned for both the web donation and the printable template indicating that it is a state driven program.

State Driven One Time Contributions:

Details same as state sustainer program, except that the donor signs up for a one time donation, again with a minimum of $10. As above, a unique tracking code will be assigned for state drive one-time contributions.

Green Party Card:

The national office provides for states a customized Green Party card page and printable template for Green Party signups ($36 or more). The state party will be in charge of promoting the program on-line, at meetings, mailings, events. The national office will handle credit card or check
processing, data entry , thank you letter and GPC packet. As above, a unique tracking code will be assigned for state driven Green Party Card on-line transactions. If a state party chooses to use the printed applications available at the office, they will need to write the code SD
(state driven) on the bottom of the card and make sure the state sharing option is checked.

GPUS DRIVEN PROGRAMS

Nationally driven programs will be handled as they are now. State sharing will be an option on all direct mail, web, sustainer and GPC solicitations. The only change will be that the GPUS driven Green Party Card solicitations will now make state sharing optional rather than automatic.


PROPOSAL

Beginning 1 April 2007, the first day of the 2nd quarter, State Sharing Programs (SSPs) are defined as state driven and national driven.

State driven SSPs are defined as those in which contributions come in through state efforts. For contributions deriving from state driven programs, the state's share will be 60% of gross.

National driven SSPs are defined as those in which contributions come in through national efforts. For contributions deriving from national driven programs, the state's share will be 40% of gross.

For all SSPs, the tracking system will continue to assign the solicitation code of the program to each contribution so that each contribution is identified as being part or a state driven or national driven SSP. The tracking codes become part of the database records and are used by our
accountant in calculating state sharing.

The SSPs described in detail in the BACKGROUND above are examples of current and currently planned programs and are not meant as an exhaustive list of the possibilities for the SSP system.

Contacts: Jody Grage jody at gp.org
Liz Arnone larnone47 at yahoo.com
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Comments:
Isn't this issue somewhat moot? It's my impression that GPUS has been stiffing the state parties for a long time now.
 
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