BAT Sustainability Drive - Fall Fundraiser

Help BATs Sustain Our Work into 2018!

So many times we hear the question “What is my donation paying for?”. Some people do not always see the bigger picture of how the costs and expenditures directly translate into assisting them and advocating for our profession.

BATs work hard nationally to shine a light on issues around education, racial, and social justice. We work on legislative platforms, meet with state and national legislators and policy makers, and attend education and advocacy conferences to learn strategies and best practices that can be implemented in our work. Many of our members join in conferences with other organizations to have conversations that will expose the privatization efforts of those that wish to destroy public education.

We do all of this with our network and our students in mind, all of the time thinking about ways that we can help people in our network join in the work and build a stronger fighting force.

We do not have the overhead costs of renting an office, paying staff or utility bills. Every dime we spend goes towards the benefit of the people in our network, children, our communities, and in support of our mission.

We would not have gotten as far as we have in this war if it had not been for your financial support. It has caused us to grow as an organization tremendously. As we continue to grow, we hope that you can continue to support these efforts. As teachers, we recognize that time can be limited - some of you have families at home, other areas of interest… so the best way that you can show us that you would like us to continue to do the work that we do is to donate financially to our efforts and allow us to continue into the new year. If you are a teacher that is financially strapped but has some time to spare, we encourage you contact us to find out ways that you can join the work at contact.batmanager@gmail.com!

Here are some areas where donations have gone and what we have planned for the future

1. Our annual education event.  This year we held it in Seattle and three years prior to that we were in DC.  In our first event we got inside the USDOE and were able to meet with USDOE Sec. Arne Duncan.
2. We give out student scholarships each year to help education students and student activists.  Award winners have been Chastity Berrios (Fairfield University); Student activists Tanaisa Brown and Nidalis Burgos, and this year to Trinity University education students Melissa Dunn and Elsa Arias.
3. BATs donated $500 to Harvey Relief efforts (targeted Navarro Middle School - school of Houston BAT Daniel Santos); $200 sent to Mexico to help a school impacted by the earthquake; $500 sent to the FMPR (teachers union in Puerto Rico): $200 to DeAndre Harris who was beaten by white nationalists in Charlottesville.
4. We have been able to use your donations to send BAT representatives to The People’s Summit in Chicago, Network for Public Education, Progressive Education Network; Free Minds Free People; #WeChoose  National Coalition events in Chicago and DC, BATs went to DC and met with the education aides of  Senator Sanders and Senator Hassan prior to the DeVos vote, and a BAT representative went to The Facebook Summit.  
5. We donate yearly to the AFT and NEA BAT Caucuses who represent our mission and vision at the AFT and NEA conventions.
6. We also have several toolkits on our website for members in our network to use.  Please go to badassteacher.org and click on the toolkit tab.
7. Naturally we also use your kind donations to pay for office and organizational items (P.O. Box, Stamps, and Postal stuff).
8. To see what we have been up to in the previous years you can go here for 2016 http://badassteachers.blogspot.com/2016/12/bats-were-busy-in-2016-this-bats-meme.html  and here for 2015 http://badassteachers.blogspot.com/2015/12/bats-had-amazing-2015-we-come-2016-bats.html

Here is what we hope to do with donations in the coming year!

We would like to begin a grant program in the coming year where we can pay BATs to produce such things as toolkits, to write articles/op ed/blog entries, to represent BATs at events in their area, or to hold boots on the ground events that support our vision and mission.

For the Fall Fundraiser this year we will be able to send our new recurring donors a thank you gift.

If you make a recurring donation of $10 a month during our Fall Fundraiser we will send you a copy of John Merrow’s new book Addicted to Reform, one of our amazing BAT Meme Team Calendars, and a Bag O’ BAT Swag!  

You can make a recurring donation on our website badassteachers.org using the PayPal monthly donation or you can send a monthly check made out to The Badass Teachers Association, Inc,; P.O. Box 1390, Bellmore, NY 11710.

We will also accept a one time generous donation.  If you make a one time donation of $50 or more we will send you the gift listed above.  

**Donations to BATs are not tax deductible. BATs is a 501c4 but please donate anyway!