We have received this urgent call to action from CHAMPS that we wanted to pass along. Many of the local organizations that add tremendous value to our community are in jeopardy of losing funding due to proposed budget cuts. CHAMPS asks community members to consider writing a letter to the DC Council in support of your favorite nonprofits.
A full list of affected organizations can be found in this Revised Budget (PDF) document, starting on page 247. Additionally, The Washington Post ran an article on the 21st that explains a bit more about the the budget cuts and how it will affect many of the city’s nonprofits.
Here is CHAMPS message:
By now you’ve heard that the Mayor has proposed cutting millions of dollars worth of one-time earmark grants to city organizations. CHAMPS is one of those organizations. We told you earlier this year that we’d received a $50,000 grant from the city that we’d be using to deliver increased technical assistance and education to business owners and to launch a comprehensive “buy local” campaign.
On Monday morning, we learned that Mayor Fenty’s budget modification include a decrease of $30,000 to our $50,000 grant. We’ve also been told that there’s actually a chance that our funding will be cut all together. We need your help and we need it now.
Many of you have already graciously submitted your own letters of support to the city, but we can’t have enough of them. Tomorrow, Council will begin deliberations on these budget modifications, and the Vice President of the CHAMPS Board of Directors will be testifying on our behalf.
Our testimony will be much stronger if it’s preceded by letters of support from our community members – business owners and residents alike. Please take a moment to submit a letter. This can all be done by email. We’ve drafted a sample letter that you can use as-is, or modify as you see fit. Letters should be sent to Council Chairman Vincent Gray, with all of the other Councilmembers CC’d. We’ve included all of the email addresses you need at the top of the sample letter.
If you have any specific questions about any of this, feel free to contact me directly at champs@capitolhill.org.
For community,
Julia Christian
Executive Director