Important note: We've recently emailed or written to individuals who've donated to GMWatch in the past, asking them to support us financially once again. To those who've just generously dipped into their pockets and donated, a big thank you. In including you in this mail, we are definitely not asking you to give again not for a while, anyway!
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Please support GMWatch
Dear friends:
As you probably know, almost exactly 2 years ago a devastating series of attacks drove the GMWatch website and all our listservs offline. In the aftermath, our readers responded incredibly generously so generously that it's been possible for our attention to be almost exclusively fixed on rebuilding and diversifying our campaign so that our impact is greater than ever.
Because we've focused on campaign building rather than fundraising (apart from one brief appeal last summer), we've now run into the buffers and urgently need to ask you to support our work.
The biotech industry, their US Administration allies and their many Big Science and Big Business supporters, including the mega-wealthy Gates Foundation, have been continuing to do everything in their power to drive the world down the GM road. This means the need to get the truth out on the severe limitations and risks of GM crops, the viability of the many positive alternatives, and the strength of global resistance, has become greater than ever.
Below we describe in detail some of what we've been up to in order to get the truth out more widely and effectively - through ways old and new.
Here's how you can help us keep going!
Suggested donation
People have asked us many times to suggest a minimum donation so this time we have. If all our regular readers donated 22 USD per year, this would cover our basic running costs.
As a rough guide 22 USD /
= 15 GBP
= 18 Euros
= 26 Australian dollars
= 23 Canadian dollars
= 2,000 Japanese Yen
= 1,000 Indian Rupees
= 170 South African Rand
Some people are able to give more sometimes a lot more, and we are hugely grateful for that generosity. If you can't afford to give at all this time, we totally understand that not everyone's in a position to donate and that some people support us in other non-financial ways.
How to donate to GMWatch
You can donate by PayPal or by using your debit or credit card at http://www.gmwatch.org/donations Alternatively, you can send a cheque or money order made out to "NGIN" to: GMWatch, 26 Pottergate, Norwich, NR2 1DX, UK. Just to emphasise the point, our account is in the name "NGIN".
What GMWatch has been getting up to
Our aim as always is to deliver a vibrant and effective campaigning news and information service. Keisuke Amagasa of 'NO! GMO Campaign' in Japan perfectly captures what we try to do: "GMWatch serves a critical role in countering the power and propaganda of the biotech industry. It is part of the life blood of our global alliance to protect our food and agriculture - communicating our successes, identifying emerging issues and catalysing resistance."
Over the last year we've continued to pump out our daily, weekly and monthly e-mail bulletins. In addition, thanks to a wonderful team of translators, we send out German, Dutch, and Portuguese translations of our wide-ranging Monthly Reviews. Our material is re-sent to various email listservs and re-posted on websites all over the world. It often features high in Google searches.
We've continued to develop the material available on our new website at www.gmwatch.org. The improved security on this site means it is unlikely to fall victim to the persistent cyber-attacks that shut down our old site. We update our new site with the latest news on an almost daily basis.
We've also continued to contribute to and refine the database of people and groups behind the global push for GM crops on SpinProfiles: www.spinprofiles.org/index.php/GM_Watch:_Portal
We've also maintained the Ban GM Food campaign: http://www.bangmfood.org/
and our LobbyWatch site:
http://www.lobbywatch.org/
We continue to support the fight to increase transparency in government and lobbying. And we've put out regular action alerts to ask people to write to their elected representatives and to pressurise the food industry to maintain the integrity of the food supply in a time of increasing GM contamination.
Campaigning via social media
We've made a number of completely novel departures in the past year that have helped to spread the word still more widely.
We've added a Twitter newsfeed to the site. We know Twitter isn't everyone's cup of tea, but we can't deny its popularity and effectiveness which is no doubt why the GM lobby seem so keen on it! We currently have over 1400 followers from many different parts of the world, including countries where GMWatch was previously little known, and we've had a lot of compliments for the work we do there.
http://twitter.com/GMWatch
We're now also on Facebook (thanks Annie!), where we already have over 1,000 fans who can post comments, alert each other to news and events, and otherwise interact.
http://www.facebook.com/pages/GMWatch/276951472985?v=wall
We've also added a hugely popular new video section to our website, providing a wonderful selection of over a hundred videos from around the world on GM-related issues. As the recent documentary, The World According to Monsanto, showed, a few minutes of film can often have more impact than thousands of printed words. People continue to send us their favourites!
http://bit.ly/aenQWf
Use of such social media has helped create new campaigning synergies, sending the number of visitors to our site soaring. And in the space of just a few months since we set up our Twitter account, GMWatch 'tweets' have also caused a surge of over 50% in subscribers to our electronic newsletters.
Through ways old and new, we're getting the word out on GM, and we hope you'll agree that GMWatch is worthy of your support.
As it's our goal to continue to run GMWatch primarily through contributions from individual supporters, we very much appreciate your help.
With all good wishes
Jonathan Matthews and Claire Robinson
GMWatch
www.gmwatch.org