The 99Rise Movement Launches: Mass Civil Disobedience to End Dark Money

99Rise is building a nationwide nonviolent movement  to free our democracy from the domination of Big Money and win a government that truly serves the People. The first step in launching this nonviolent revolution to save our democracy is a campaign of mass civil disobedience that begins in Los Angeles and New York City on September 28th. 

We will march on the Wall Street banks and shadowy non-profits like Karl Rove's Crossroads GPS and the US Chamber of Commerce that are flooding the election with "dark money" - the post-Citizens United secret, anonymous, unlimited political donations that are taking the corruption of our democracy by Big Money to a whole new level. There will we demand that they disclose to the American people the truth about their secret political donations - and bring dark money into the light of public awareness. They will have to make a choice: come clean or have us all arrested and show how far they will go to keep their corrupting money secret.

A huge majority of the public opposes dark money but our bought Congress has failed to reign it in. If enough of us are willing to put our bodies and freedom on the line to defend our democracy we can dramatize and elevate the issue of Big Money's corruption of our democracy like never before. If hundreds and even thousands will risk arrest - in what would be the largest American civil disobedience campaign of the century - we can make this issue a major part of the media's narrative of the election and an issue that every candidate will have to take a public stand on. Turning this election into a mandate for getting money out of politics is just the beginning of our strategy - but it's the key first step... 

We are currently organizing in Los Angeles and New York to launch civil disobedience on 9/28 - but to ensure that we break though into the national media we'll need to continue the actions, increase their size, and expand them to cities throughout America. To do that, we need money to keep our small organizing team going through October, hire more organizers, and pay travel expenses to get them from city to city in their regions. 

The 99Rise team is a very lean operation. Our 5 full-time organizers work like crazy to lead trainings, do presentations, run meetings, plan actions, run our website and social media program, create all kinds of content, handle media relations, everything. And they work day and night for modest stipends of up to only $1600 a month. 

Our start-up budget of small donations and the proceeds of community fund-raisers from LA's Center for the Working Poor will  sustain our entire operation through September and some of it through October. In order to succeed in this first phase of our strategy and support everyone around the country who wants to participate in this civil disobedience campaign, we need to raise enough money to cover the gaps in our budget in October and - beyond that- expand our team to bring on additional organizers and fund travel to meet the growing demand for our trainings and organizing support. (Our unique, intensive 3 day trainings can only be done in person, so it's necessary for members of our small training team to travel to lead them.)

If we reach our tipping point of $2200 it will enable us to sustain our team through the month of October and fund travel to expand our campaign to 2-4 additional cities.

If we reach our goal of $6800 it will enable us to not only sustain our current team but bring on two additional organizers and fund travel to expand our campaign to 6-10 additional cities. 

Our organizer-trainers use car, bus, or train transportation options when feasible to travel from city to city at a lower cost and only fly when necessary. The cities that we expand to depends primarily on relative local demand for trainings and action support, so the travel costs vary widely depending on proximity to our home bases in LA and New York.