Image description: Graphic shows colorful flowers blooming in a field. Text reads: Sustain Our Work: For The Sake Of / March 19 - March 26. Donate: lavenderphoenix.org/sustain / #sustainAPIENC, with APIENC logo in the bottom corner
Image description: Graphic shows colorful flowers blooming in a field. Text reads: Sustain Our Work: For The Sake Of / March 19 – March 26. Donate: apienc.org/sustain / #sustainAPIENC, with APIENC logo in the bottom corner

Sustain Our Work: For The Sake Of…

March 11, 2019 — By Lavender Phoenix

What is an APIENC monthly sustainer? An APIENC monthly sustainer is someone who gives every month to APIENC through a recurring donation – a sustainer joins our work by committing a monthly donation of $10 or more! With our current sustainer base, we are able to strengthen APIENC’s overall impact with the understanding that our members guide our priorities and directions.

One of APIENC’s core values is interdependence, the value that we need each other in order to move towards our full selves and the social change we want to see. This year, APIENC’s Fundraising Committee seeks to deepen our relationships with recurring APIENC sustainers so we can mobilize more individuals to support APIENC’s mission to empower queer and trans API community members.

Starting March 19th, APIENC is launching a monthly sustainer campaign “Sustain Our Work: For The Sake Of…” to ask the question: “What’s at stake for the work we do?” For example, we train leaders to be grounded in our QTAPI histories for the sake of our community’s collective empowerment and future dreams. In one week, our goal is to welcome 20 individuals into our sustainer family! Will you join us?

Check out the following 5 APIENC Actions our sustainers currently support:

  1. For The Sake Of Understanding Our Hxstories: In summer 2018, we debuted our first ever Dragon Fruit Walking Tour through San Francisco’s Tenderloin neighborhood. An all-volunteer working group led 2 walking tours for the National Queer Asian and Pacific Islander Alliance Conference, sharing moments of pivotal queer and trans API hxstory with over 75 tour participants.
  2. For The Sake Of Growing our Ability to be Interdependent: Our volunteer base is over 200 people in total. Through marches, workshops on healthy communication, leadership trainings, potlucks, and more, we challenge our members to identify places of healing, come together in community, and transform our values and political realities.
  3. For The Sake Of Building Trans and Gender Non-Conforming API Power: We’re launching the largest needs assessment of trans and gender nonconforming API people in the Bay Area in order to better understand our community resources and outstanding needs. This critical information will help us develop strategic goals for the years to come.
  4. For The Sake Of Empowering Young QTAPI Leaders: In the summer of 2019, we will be hosting our second People Over Pride (POP!) Camp to train, support, and sustain QTAPI high school youth organizers from across the country.
  5. For The Sake Of Activating A Network of Multi-Issue QTAPI Organizers: This year, we will be hosting our 10th Annual Summer Organizer Program, one of few leadership development programs in the country specifically activating and training QTAPI organizers in values-based organizing skills for intersectional and multi-issue social justice movements.

Join us on Mon. March 25th, 6:30-8PM for a deep discussion about money and making strong asks. We will also be training volunteers on connecting with current and potential sustainers via phonebanking! This event will take place at the APIENC office (17 Walter U Lum Pl, SF, CA 94108). The office is wheelchair accessible, has gender neutral bathrooms, low-scent, and BART accessible (15 minute walk from Montgomery Station). RSVP here to volunteer.

Are you a current sustainer? We want to learn from YOU on how we can improve and grow our sustainer engagement efforts in 2019. Stay tuned for a survey!