[CIMC-working] FW: [Imc-finance] Tactical Media Fund (TMF) Intro Letter:

[Chris Kaihatsu]

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From: Sascha Meinrath <sascha@ucimc.org>
Date: Fri, 10 Jan 2003 12:49:22 -0600 (CST)
To: imc-finance@indymedia.org, <imc-communication@indymedia.org>
Cc: finance@ucimc.org
Subject: [Imc-finance] Tactical Media Fund (TMF) Intro Letter:

>From the Tactical Media Fund collective:

***

Dear Friends,

As some of you already know, a group of Indymedia participants recently
came together to launch the Tactical Media Fund (TMF). Our primary goal is
to raise funds for critical and strategic communication projects
worldwide. As active members of Indymedia who continue to be inspired by
the Network and who seek to support projects in the Network, we want to
inform you of the TMF's existence and let you know where you can find out
additional information.  We are in the midst of moving our website over to
the www.tacticalmediafund.org domain.  In the meantime, for the TMF's
mission statement, follow this link:

http://internal.protest.net/osi/index.php?MissionStatment

The project is currently housed at the Urbana-Champaign Independent Media
Center, a U.S. non-profit that fiscally sponsors many local IMCs and
specific Indymedia projects, as well as non-Indymedia projects.  We intend
to develop the TMF into a separate and independent organization, and are
examining different organizational structures that will sufficiently
balance the legal requirements of U.S. non-profits with the
non-hierarchical relationships that maximize participation and
collaboration. This will be a challenge, but there are many existing
models of successful, radical non-profits (including the U-C IMC, Resist,
and Haymarket), and we are confident that the TMF can continue this
success, and perhaps even break new ground.

If you have suggestions in this area, please let us know by emailing
tmf@ucimc.org.

We also recognize the challenges of working within the foundation world.
We have made a conscious decision to work within that funding system to
divert as much of its resources as possible towards projects both similar
to, and within, Indymedia. Seeking major foundation support is not new in
the Indymedia network - the Los Angeles IMC received $10,000 from George
Soros's Open Society Institute for the Democratic National Convention in
2000; many other IMCs, especially in the US, have also received foundation
support.  What is new is that people from within the Indymedia network who
believe in this approach have decided to come together as an affinity
group outside of the network in order to do it.

As the TMF develops, we expect to see an increasingly diverse group of
participants joining the project so that we can expand our interests and
expertise.  For a list of the people involved in TMF, and their personal
statements, follow this link:

http://internal.protest.net/osi/index.php?ParticipantList

We do not expect everyone in Indymedia to agree with or even support our
decision.  However, we would hope that we can all work together,
respectfully, to support our mutual work -- even when we agree to
disagree. We also ask for your patience while we work out the details of
supporting Indymedia.  Please extend to us some of the trust and
solidarity that have built the Indymedia network over the past three
years.  We realize that there are cultural differences about working with
foundations: in the so-called developing world, where some NGOs have been
particularly devious and destructive, people are rightfully suspicious;
whereas in the United States, people are more accustomed to working with
foundation support -- even for radical projects (for example, Resist is
partially funded by money from the Ford Foundation).  To help navigate
these issues, TMF is drafting guidelines for accepting funds, which you
can view by following this link:

http://internal.protest.net/osi/index.php?FundingGuidelines

We hope that our actions inspire other fundraising initiatives that follow
a similar path or develop totally new ones. The TMF does not intend to be
the only or even the principal funding source for Indymedia projects.
And it does not intend only to fund Indymedia projects.  We see ourselves
as another model in a diverse array of funding strategies and mechanisms
for independent media projects.  There is a lot of work to be done, and
some of it is going to require money to complete.  We hope to contribute
to that effort.

To review TMF's first proposals, follow this link:

http://internal.protest.net/osi/index.php?ProposalIntroduction

We have always planned to send an informational email to the IMC-Finance
and IMC-Communication lists once the OSI proposal was sent to the
foundation.  This e-mail is to notify Indymedia that we have launched the
TMF and are in the process of submitting this proposal. We had a lot to do
on an extremely short timeline, and there was a collective sense that in
the midst of our difficult and somewhat chaotic work, we would not be able
to adequately introduce the TMF or answer questions in a timely manner.
We made the decision to wait until we could approach the topic more
thoughtfully and thoroughly, both as a collective and as individual
participants.

We are committed to transparency and we will maintain a dialogue with the
groups and collectives who will be putting the funds to work.  We hope
that the documents contained in this letter will help address many of the
concerns that people have raised and demonstrate the TMF's committment to
addressing these issues.  We encourage you to contact us directly if you
have questions.

In solidarity,

The Tactical Media Fund

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