| Dear SMART Community,
This is an update about our Recovery Month Facebook & Donation campaign. We are thankful for the positive results we’re already seeing and appreciate the early response to get the Facebook campaigns started. We’ve decided to respond to numerous requests and extend the campaign through the first week of October. This gives more volunteers time to join the effort.
If you’d like to create your own Facebook campaign pages, there is an easy How To template available with helpful instructions. For those without Facebook accounts, you can still participate in the Recovery Month event by donating to SMART Recovery on our website.
This early volunteer support reminds me of an observation I made when I attended my first National Conference in September 2018. There were so many friendly, committed, passionate, and grateful individuals I met who shared their lived experience with SMART’s programs, tools, and social network. Based on this experience, I coined the phrase SMART Heart to refer to these wonderful individuals.
In order to continue growing our community of SMART Hearts, I’d like to tell you some of the reasons why we need your help. Like many other organizations, we continue to be impacted by COVID-19, and have had to focus on multiple fundraising efforts this year in order to underwrite extra expenses, sustain our current operations, and support our investment in training and online support platforms.
The Facebook Campaign itself can add $25,000—$50,000 if just 100 volunteers raise $250-500 each from their efforts to reach out to their family and friend networks. For non-Facebook volunteers, reaching out to individuals via email or phone calls also generates donations to help offset various operational and administrative expenses. A single pledge of $18 per month for a year purchases one Zoom license to support 52 weekly meetings that provide multiple benefit to many individuals. These online meetings provide access for those who can no longer attend face-to-face meetings for various reasons, including:- COVID canceling in-person meetings
- Lack of transportation
- Inability to afford private counseling
- Family care responsibilities that keep them at home
In addition to our online Zoom meetings, our message board and chat room (currently being updated) offer support for individuals at all times. Your support of this campaign is a game-changer for many who need access to our SMART online support offerings. We need your help now more than ever to continue our aggressive growth to help others. In fact, one of our core strategic initiatives is: creating a financial sustainability model to increase our worldwide impact (details of our new strategic plan will be shared in coming months). We know you have choices on how and where you give. And we have always appreciated your volunteer support of SMART Recovery. For more information, or to get started, click the Recovery Month Facebook link or this donation link.
If you have any questions, please contact information@smartrecovery.org. Thank you so much for considering a gift. Together we can make a difference!
Sincerely, |
