Will More Regular Updates from Core make You Contribute More?

[svn]

All,
The object of this thread is straightforward - it is to understand if you as a donor member will contribute more $ (or start contributing!) if you get more regular information updates (weekly?) from Core? I know there was a funding drive in March which led to us meeting the goal of $10,000 (and then some). However, while there has been a new goal of $10,000 created for April, we have made little progress towards that. As someone who contributed $100 the first time round in March, but haven't yet made a contribution towards the April funding drive, I can admit that one of the primary reasons for this is because there has been very limited information shared since then. While I COMPLETELY trust in the fact that the Core team is making every effort humanly possible to further our cause, I am also a member of the human race that by nature seeks information and looks for leadership to be more sharing about progress. I personally believe transparency is a key enabler not just to gaining participation and building momentum, but also to creating innovative solutions to problems by engaging more individuals in the process (borrowing this "leaf" from President's Obama's playbook will be highly beneficial to our casuse)

Let me clarify this is NOT an indication of lack of trust in Core NOR do I believe that there isn't a sincere effort being put in by a whole bunch of dedicated individuals. However, my suggestion is simply an idea to further the cause - would definitely like to hear how the rest of this immigration community feels!

Thanks for your participation in this poll.

Cheers

P.S: Just to be clear, I am referring to Regular Updates to DONORS i.e CONTRIBUTING MEMBERS

[lahiribaba]

Originally Posted by svn

All,
The object of this thread is straightforward - it is to understand if you as a donor member will contribute more $ (or start contributing!) if you get more regular information updates (weekly?) from Core? I know there was a funding drive in March which led to us meeting the goal of $10,000 (and then some). However, while there has been a new goal of $10,000 created for April, we have made little progress towards that. As someone who contributed $100 the first time round in March, but haven't yet made a contribution towards the April funding drive, I can admit that one of the primary reasons for this is because there has been very limited information shared since then. While I COMPLETELY trust in the fact that the Core team is making every effort humanly possible to further our cause, I am also a member of the human race that by nature seeks information and looks for leadership to be more sharing about progress. I personally believe transparency is a key enabler not just to gaining participation and building momentum, but also to creating innovative solutions to problems by engaging more individuals in the process (borrowing this "leaf" from President's Obama's playbook will be highly beneficial to our casuse)

Let me clarify this is NOT an indication of lack of trust in Core NOR do I believe that there isn't a sincere effort being put in by a whole bunch of dedicated individuals. However, my suggestion is simply an idea to further the cause - would definitely like to hear how the rest of this immigration community feels!

Thanks for your participation in this poll.

Cheers

P.S: Just to be clear, I am referring to Regular Updates to DONORS i.e CONTRIBUTING MEMBERS

kuch to problem hai mere bhai

[zen]

actually more meaningful campaigns spearheaded by core will make people donate more.
right now some members are saying that the donations being made is for lobbying.
how much does that cost ? how much is needed ..more information is needed.
say if lobbying costs half million and every month we are able to raise 10K ..then it will take 5 - 7 years just to raise that amount

[meetpravee]

Other than the trust that the core members are doing the right thing, I have no information/idea about the issues that IV core is focusing currently.

I think FOIA was a great success because the members knew exactly what IV was upto and everybody wanted to be a part of it. I believe that if IV could define several small goals like FOIA, post regular updates about the progress on the goals, a lot of people would be willing to support it.

[chanukya]

Yes
yes

[dilbert_cal]

Originally Posted by svn

P.S: Just to be clear, I am referring to Regular Updates to DONORS i.e CONTRIBUTING MEMBERS

Cant help but chuckle on your choice of words - DONORS = CONTRIBUTING MEMBERS.

So, others who volunteer their time, ideas ... are not CONTRIBUTING MEMBERS if they haven't paid 25 dollars in March ( since DONOR status started from March and 25 dollars is what is required to be a DONOR )

From a person who is in senior management position I'd expected better choices of words.

Now on to your point of more regular updates -- let me ask you this - do you give weekly updates to your subordinates every week ? Do you share your strategy plans every week ? I believe whenever their is a material update to be shared, IV core will share it - predicting the frequency of it OR assuming that you will get an update every X days and see a progress is not a good practical idea.

My apologies to you for my reply here and given your PD and the wait you had been through I can understand sometimes its hard to have any more patience but asking for more regular updates or calling DONORS as the Contributing Members is not going to help us in achieving our objectives.

[GCKaMaara]

Originally Posted by svn

All,
The object of this thread is straightforward - it is to understand if you as a donor member will contribute more $ (or start contributing!) if you get more regular information updates (weekly?) from Core? I know there was a funding drive in March which led to us meeting the goal of $10,000 (and then some). However, while there has been a new goal of $10,000 created for April, we have made little progress towards that. As someone who contributed $100 the first time round in March, but haven't yet made a contribution towards the April funding drive, I can admit that one of the primary reasons for this is because there has been very limited information shared since then. While I COMPLETELY trust in the fact that the Core team is making every effort humanly possible to further our cause, I am also a member of the human race that by nature seeks information and looks for leadership to be more sharing about progress. I personally believe transparency is a key enabler not just to gaining participation and building momentum, but also to creating innovative solutions to problems by engaging more individuals in the process (borrowing this "leaf" from President's Obama's playbook will be highly beneficial to our casuse)

Let me clarify this is NOT an indication of lack of trust in Core NOR do I believe that there isn't a sincere effort being put in by a whole bunch of dedicated individuals. However, my suggestion is simply an idea to further the cause - would definitely like to hear how the rest of this immigration community feels!

Thanks for your participation in this poll.

Cheers

P.S: Just to be clear, I am referring to Regular Updates to DONORS i.e CONTRIBUTING MEMBERS

Answer to your question: Yes.

Few questions roaming in my mind:

1. I am not clear what is core? All I know is Pappu so far. Who are the other members? What do they do? What is distribution of responsibilities? Hows core team formed? Do we or "donors" elect core every year?

[svn]

All those who have voted - thanks for your response so far and agree with the sentiments expressed. For those who have not voted yet, please take the time to log in and vote - YOUR OPINION COUNTS!

Originally Posted by dilbert_cal

Cant help but chuckle on your choice of words - DONORS = CONTRIBUTING MEMBERS.

So, others who volunteer their time, ideas ... are not CONTRIBUTING MEMBERS if they haven't paid 25 dollars in March ( since DONOR status started from March and 25 dollars is what is required to be a DONOR )

I am afraid, you are missing the point here - I did not intend to start a discussion on who counts as a "Donor". There have been several discussions on that topic and IV Core has laid out guidelines (if I am not mistaken, they have made attempts to go back and include folks who have contributed money in the past as well). Instead my focus is on how to increase "dollar contributions" towards our cause since as IV Core has clearly identified, nothing moves in Washington unless you have a strong lobby working for you, and as we all know, lobbying takes a significant amount of money. What I am interested in is simply - will you contribute dollars if, in exchange, you receive regular updates?

Originally Posted by dilbert_cal

From a person who is in senior management position I'd expected better choices of words. Now on to your point of more regular updates -- let me ask you this - do you give weekly updates to your subordinates every week ? Do you share your strategy plans every week ? I believe whenever their is a material update to be shared, IV core will share it - predicting the frequency of it OR assuming that you will get an update every X days and see a progress is not a good practical idea.

Since you ask - the answer is YES. Not sure if you have heard of the "Servant Leadeship" but that is a management philosophy that believes an organization makes the most progress when the "leaders" at the top take the attitude of being "Servants" to those below them. The idea is based on the simple premise that people are more engaged and motivated to work when their boss listens to them and takes the trouble to keep them updated on what is going on. Instead, "Leaders" can always take the "high and mighty" road where they look down upon those below them (for various reasons - lack of trust being just one of them) but that is never going to be as effective or efficient as the former model I just mentioned. Don't take it from me though - feel free to do your own research on this topic and you will find that an increasing number of companies are starting to adopt this philosophy in order to achieve superior results and you don't have to look far to see how this is being practised in the world of politics today (President Obama).

Finally, IV has clearly positioned itself as a grassroots organization, but by articulating a philosophy of "we will share updates when we feel like it and think its appropriate for you to know about it", it is essentially operating in a somewhat "elitist" manner (though I believe, this is a purely a side-effect of it's loose structure, rather than intentional in any way). This also explains some of the questions coming up on the poll on "who constitutes the Core?" - while the website has a listing of the "Core" members, I believe some of that has morphed over time leading to the loose structure of today.

All I am really advocating is more transparency ...which should lead to more involvement as well. Thanks for your time.

[zen]

Originally Posted by zen

actually more meaningful campaigns spearheaded by core will make people donate more.
right now some members are saying that the donations being made is for lobbying.
how much does that cost ? how much is needed ..more information is needed.
say if lobbying costs half million and every month we are able to raise 10K ..then it will take 5 - 7 years just to raise that amount

any new campaigns like removal of country limits, campaign for recapture, campaign to make EAD similar to temporary GC will make members donate more and attract new members !! Period.

Originally Posted by svn

Since you ask - the answer is YES. Not sure if you have heard of the "Servant Leadeship" but that is a management philosophy that believes an organization makes the most progress when the "leaders" at the top take the attitude of being "Servants" to those below them. The idea is based on the simple premise that people are more engaged and motivated to work when their boss listens to them and takes the trouble to keep them updated on what is going on. Instead, "Leaders" can always take the "high and mighty" road where they look down upon those below them (for various reasons - lack of trust being just one of them) but that is never going to be as effective or efficient as the former model I just mentioned. Don't take it from me though - feel free to do your own research on this topic and you will find that an increasing number of companies are starting to adopt this philosophy in order to achieve superior results and you don't have to look far to see how this is being practised in the world of politics today (President Obama)..

I have one question for you:
Are you willing to copy paste what you have written above and send it to your VP and CEO of the company and ask them to behave like your servants because this is the best philosophy for a company to progress?

Please also ask them to be transparent and keep all employees informed of all discussions because you contribute your sweat and blood for the company?

Can you do that?

Likewise can you write this to your lawyer and ask him to behave like a servant because you pay him lot of money?

Come on. Just because we have this open forum where we can hide our identity does not mean we can write anything. On this thread I see 2 anti-immigrant, anti-IV posters. They pose as regular members and whenever anyone posts such thread they do not lose any opportunity to attack.

Let me share my experience with IV. Initially I did not know much about IV and when my friends said lot of good things about it, I always dismissed them and never came to the site. Then one day I decided to check myself and contacted IV and a core member was nice enough to explain everything. My senior member friends from my town were also helpful in explaining. So I will let them do the good work they are doing. I know I cannot spend so much time on social service that they do. I would rather spend my time on the beach playing beach ball.

[praveenuppaluri]

SVN,

this poll is a good idea to understand what most of the members expect from CORE. I for one am looking for any updates about (1) new bills being proposed that we can support - calls, faxes etc and (2) any infomation that can help to "predict" whats happening with USCIS efforts to use all visa # (yeah, sorry.. had to use predict and USCIS in same sentence) (3) updates on efforts towards FOIA, country caps remoal, capture of unused #s, .... and anything and everything you can throw at me about immigration...

but I also understand that most of these lobbying efforts are done in the back ground and its not good idea to share anything in these times. who knows, may be there is an anti-immigrant lurking around (ofcourse paying $$ to become Donor, become senior member whatever) to get inside information. I would rather trust the CORE to do their work and give me directions when they see fit.. like meeting local senators etc..

transparancy is good as long as it doesn't hurt the cause. I agree with the fact that we pooled $10K in March for FOIA and core gave the game plan and now everyone who contributed wants to know. fine. but you can't expect core to have a goal a month just to get contributions, this is a grass-roots organization and any highly skilled legal immigrant should be able to donate $25 without waiting for updates every week.. I don't think asking updates every week because you contributed $25 or $50 is fair.. just my thoughts..

[thomachan72]

If I could hire IV by paying some money and then forget about it, i would do that. However, as far as I know, IV core is composed of regular folks who are also on visas and therefore can only work during their spare time/vaccation time. I know every one of us is impatient with this EB process, but the reality is our movment is not big/strong enough. Most of us once we get hold of the Green card (is it really green color??) completely forget that we were once part of an everlasting que with so many desperate people.
This is the main difference between EB community and the ilegals. Ilegals are united by a lot of factors and even their legal relatives dont think twice before struggling/fighting for them. How many of our dear Indian/chinese friends (who are citizens of this nation) will stand up for us??? Even though many came here and strugled to obtain the EB green card, now we are alien to them!!!
Consider the ilegal people:-
theoratically, they are not supposed to have any voice in this nation simply because they are ilegals and hiding from the law. How come then that they are able to have such a huge protest march?? because most of the people who protested for them and stand up for them are legals
We will be 100 times more successful if the major indian associations/chinese associations or other country associations raise the voice for us. They should "BECOME HUMAN BEINGS ONCE AGAIN" and feel for us. We should remind them once again of the strange and long path many of them went through to get the GC.
HOW COME THEY IGNORE US???? IF THEY IGNORE US, WHO WILL CONSIDER US???
IV??? my friends IV core member is a person of leadership quality for sure, but he/she is just in the same unstable boat as me and you.
WE DESPERATELY NEED FOLKS IN THE MAIN LAND TO REACH OUT TO US.

[zen]

what you say above is true. but the fact is that we are what we are ..and we are at cross roads ..and that is where we are.
the main question is how do we increase membership .. the answer to that has to be in meaningful and visible campaigns.
forcing people to pay money when their jobs are at risk will not increase membership.

[dilbert_cal]

I do appreciate your detailed reply - especially on these forums where civilized discussion is a thing of the past.

My apologies for nitpicking on the DONOR definition and Congratulations on the new management philosophy you are going with. I hope you succeed in your endeavour.

Still I've some open issues. If you look at the poll, there isnt a single person who voted NO. We should expect to see a healthy mix of Yes,No and Dont Care. But the way the poll has been put and partly the wording, partly the current IV environment, people are sceptical of putting their real thoughts publicly. This excercise is futile if you have minimal 'NO's --- hope you are getting my point here. The only thing you might end up with is x number of YES and hope to translate the YES into more dollar value for IV and there will be some YES who are already contributing monetarily.

You are right in saying that we need to increase dollar contributions but tying it to frequent updates is not a practical thing. There are reasons IV Core cannot share their strategical plans with the masses and this is true in most places. By saying donate more and get more updates, we are setting us up for failures esp. if we expect 'real' updates. Even in an ideal situation, you will not have real changes every week and certainly not regularly.

And once again thanks for the healthy discussion.

Originally Posted by svn

All those who have voted - thanks for your response so far and agree with the sentiments expressed. For those who have not voted yet, please take the time to log in and vote - YOUR OPINION COUNTS!
...
All I am really advocating is more transparency ...which should lead to more involvement as well. Thanks for your time.

[praveenuppaluri]

Dilbert_cal: thanks for giving me a green. I got so many reds for this post

I just don't care about reds.. I guess its just one way for some people to let their frustations out..

Originally Posted by praveenuppaluri

SVN,

this poll is a good idea to understand what most of the members expect from CORE. ...I don't think asking updates every week because you contributed $25 or $50 is fair.. just my thoughts..