As RAN’s development director I’m responsible for ensuring that we do everything possible to enable RAN to continue on a daily basis, doing the thing we do best – transforming corporations from earth destroyers into earth savers, and then pulling their industries along with them.
And one of the greatest things about my particular role at RAN is that I’m responsible for acknowledging the support that we receive from you and thousands of others in order to carry out the important work of this organization. The New Year is an appropriate place to stop and do just that. So I thank you.
Thank you everyone taking the time to read this post.
Thank you everyone who gets RAN emails.
Thank you everyone who forwards emails from RAN to their friends.
Thank you everyone who’s takes action with RAN online.
Thank you everyone who’s ever taken part in a RAN action offline.
Thank you everyone who’s been to a RAN event.
Thank you everyone who’s part of a RAN chapter.
Thank you to everyone who’s part of RAN’s network of allies.
Thank you kids, students, and teachers who bring RAN into your schools.
And, of course, thank you especially to everyone who helped make RAN’s work possible by contributing financially. Your dollars make a remarkable difference.
You are making it possible for RAN to stop the Coal Rush, to tame Agribusiness and protect the world’s remaining rainforests and the peoples who depend upon them for their survival, to protect ancient forests and to force auto makers to curb their emissions and use available technology to dramatically improve the efficiency of their products. You put RAN in countless classrooms and at major environmental and social justice gatherings around the country, around the globe. You support indigenous peoples and communities all over the Earth through our Protect-an-Acre program.
You who contribute your dollars make this possible. Thank you.
RAN is indeed something special. I’m so proud to work for an organization that takes on the biggest, most destructive, corporations in the world and demands change. I’m so proud of our remarkable record of success in transforming business-as-usual and promoting a greener future for everyone. And I am so very proud to do it along side tens of thousands of RAN supporters, members, donors, allies and friends.
But I’m not just proud – I’m inspired.
You’re not just making RAN’s work possible, you’re doing something profoundly courageous and that inspires me.
We are all constantly bombarded with messages in the media that suggest we should feel ashamed, fearful and wanting, and that we are powerless to make BIG change – no matter how scary not making those changes may seem. I believe it takes a deep personal courage to resist the power of those messages and to do what every RAN member, activist, and supporter has chosen to do: act with pride, confidence, generosity and optimism.
Together, supporting one another in the ways we are able, we are making a tremendous, remarkable difference.
So I want to acknowledge and thank you for your courage. And I want you to know that your courage gives all of us at RAN the strength we need to make change. We really are in this together.
And especially I want to thank you for making RAN possible on a daily basis. 22 years and counting in defense of the forests, the climate, the future – I promise you – as do the rest of the RAN staff – that we will do the most that we can possible do to get the most out of every dollar given in support of this work. And we will continue to do so, to make profound change, because of you and with you.
So here’s to another great year of solid work for the planet. Here’s to a great 2008 for the Earth!
Thank you.
Branden and everyone else at RAN