Here is a sample letter for soliciting contributions to Sustaining All Life:
Dear friend and supporter of the environment,
I’m writing to you because I know that you care about the environment and I want you to have the opportunity to participate in an important program that could have a widespread impact.
Sustaining All Life is the environmental program of Re-evaluation Counseling, an organization I have been part of for many years. In Sustaining All Life we work to end climate change within the context of ending all divisions among people. Using the tools of Re-evaluation Counseling,* we provide people with the ongoing mutual support they need to free themselves from the discouragement, isolation, and other struggles— many of which are caused by societal oppression—that separate them from one another and from the world around them.
Our goals include the following:
- Increasing people’s awareness of climate change and the damage it causes
- Freeing people from the oppression and other hurts that turn them against one another and make them compete for resources
- Supporting people to organize effectively to preserve and restore the environment
The United Nations has accredited Sustaining All Life as a non-governmental organization (NGO).
Sustaining All Life at the UN Climate Conferences
Last year we participated in the Civil Society events, and events held by climate-activist groups, at COP21 (the twenty-first Session of the Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change) in Paris, France. This year we plan to participate in COP22, in Marrakech, Morocco.
COP21 was a crucial conference. It sought a binding international agreement to keep global warming below 2.0 (preferably 1.5) degrees centigrade. Sustaining All Life held daily workshops, caucuses, forums, support groups, listening projects, and introductory classes and shared a booth with the Cameroun NGO Carre Geo and Environnement. We also held two workshops and a forum at the People’s Climate Summit in Montrieul, a working-class neighborhood in east Paris.
We focused on the following ideas:
- Climate change cannot be addressed effectively without looking at the impact of racism and other oppressions.
- Because of historical racism, the parts of the world being hit first and hardest by climate change have the least resource with which to address it.
- People working on climate change need to heal from feelings of discouragement and powerlessness and build a united movement.
Our delegates and volunteers pushed themselves to make many contacts with climate activists from around the world. Our events were well received. People appreciated the unique perspectives and tools we offered. Three hundred and fifty people wanted more information about or ongoing contact with Sustaining All Life. We have written to these people and sent them a PDF of the pamphlet we took to Paris (which was translated into ten languages).
COP22 will be in Marrakech, Morocco, from November 7 to 18, 2016. It will work on the mandates that came out of COP21 and attempt to strengthen the “voluntary” provisions. Climate finance will also be on the agenda.
Sustaining All Life is sending a delegation of twenty-five leaders to COP22. We plan to hold many workshops, forums, and other groups, as we did in Paris, along with daily “brainstorming sessions” in which people with similar interests can come together and share their ideas.
Because I know that you share my commitment to ending climate change and making this world a place in which all people can thrive, I am asking for your help in sending the Sustaining All Life delegates to COP22 and supporting our follow-up work after the conference. COP22 presents yet another opportunity for us to share the work we are doing with organizations from all over the world that are working toward similar goals.
Please contribute $200, $100, $50, or whatever you can. You will be investing not only in the program of Sustaining All Life but also in all the lives we touch and the policies we are able to influence. Contributions are tax-deductible in the United States.
If you have family, friends, or colleagues who you think might be interested in supporting our work, please feel free to invite them to contribute.
If you have questions, please feel free to call or e-mail me. I will be calling you in the coming week to discuss the program.
Please make checks payable to The Re-evaluation Foundation, mark them “Sustaining All Life,” and mail them to
The Re-evaluation Foundation
19370 Firlands Way North
Shoreline, Washington 98133 USA
Or go to our Donation page or you can use PayPal to make your donation here: rc.org/saldonate.
With appreciation for your generous consideration,
[your name, phone number, and e-mail address]
Sustaining All Life
A Project of the Re-evaluation Foundation and the International Re-evaluation Counseling Communities
* Re-evaluation Counseling (or Co-Counseling) is a form of peer counseling that has been developing over the last sixty-plus years and is being used by people in over ninety countries around the world. The premise is simple: by using the natural gifts of healing with which we all were born (crying, laughing, trembling), while another person actively listens with kindness and awareness, people can heal from past painful experiences (including of racism) and flourish in their present lives. I have seen people use this process to emerge from difficult struggles into thinking well and taking charge of their lives, their families, and their communities.
People learn to Co-Counsel in small classes and groups, where they also give and receive ongoing emotional support. Many Co-Counselors have taken the tools of Re-evaluation Counseling into schools, police departments, state offices, advocacy organizations, and churches—places where people are eager to get help with the hurts of oppression that slow their efforts toward common goals.
