WOLA: Advocacy for Human Rights in the Americas

Why WOLA Needs Your Support


Why WOLA Needs Your Support

Support from committed individual donors like you is absolutely critical to WOLA’s sustained effectiveness for three principal reasons:

 

  • Individual donors provide a significant component of WOLA’s overall budget.

 

WOLA and our work for human, political, and economic rights in the Hemisphere simply cannot grow without increased participation from individuals like you—who also ensure that WOLA will be here today, tomorrow, and long into the future.

 

  • Foundations tend to fund specific projects on particular issues, and their agendas change over time. 

 

We are grateful for their support, but individual donations give us the flexibility to move quickly when new needs arise and to seize unforeseen opportunities. Our response to Evo Morales’ historic victory in Bolivia is a good example: In short order, we were able to scale up our work on drug policy in the Andes to help provide a balanced view of his government’s policies and actions.  Individual support also can allow us to do urgent work that Foundations may shy away from: monitoring and pushing for responsible US policies toward Venezuela and Bolivia based on the realities on the ground; or leading efforts to document and address the human rights violations related to the demobilized paramilitary soldiers in Colombia integrating themselves into criminal networks there.

 

  • Finally, our individual donors like you make it possible for us to develop whole new lines of work for which we can then secure foundation funding. 

 

Individual support made it possible to launch our important program on youth gang violence in Central America – a critical issue of security and human rights in that region.  Individual contributors like you made it possible to follow our early hunch about the importance of this issue, [MJF1] bring together relevant actors in a groundbreaking conference to put the issues on the table, [MJF2] and follow up in the region. As a result, the W.K. Kellogg and Ford Foundations recognized the significance of this initiative and now provide major funding.

 

We want to hear from you!

 WOLA’s ability to help shape a new foreign policy for the region after recent elections and in anticipation of the 2008 presidential elections will turn largely on your generosity, and that of others you suggest we contact. Please make as generous a contribution as you can at this time! And please take a few moments to let us know what you think about our current programmatic and fundraising efforts, lpiccolo@wola.org. We are interested in your suggestions on both.