[mit-habitat-exec] FW: Fundraising message for MIT habitat

[Radhika Jagannathan]

It seems a little sketchy at first glance, but maybe it's legit. 

It's your call, but I'd get more information from the guy. What kinds of books
are we talking about? Are there copyright issues associated with selling
promotional products for profit? Who are the target consumers? What would we
have to do? Is there a catch? What's in it for him?

If we had a 100K dollars, we could talk to Lawrence and sponsor our own house.
The second MIT House - that would be some kind of collegiate record. 

-Radhika



Quoting Jeff Borowitz <borowitz at MIT.EDU>:

> What do you guys think about this? It was sent to me and Anjuli.  It seems
> sketchy.  I don't know what we could do if we had 100s of k's of dollars. 
> 
> -----Original Message-----
> From: oren weinrib [mailto:oren at riseup.net] 
> Sent: Thursday, April 21, 2005 10:55 PM
> To: borowitz at mit.edu; anjuliw at mit.edu
> Subject: Fundraising message for MIT habitat
> 
> Hello,
> 
>     I saw you listed as the VPs for fundraising with MIT Habitat.  Since 
> I wasn't sure if the website was current for this year, I sent the 
> following message to the exec list.  I see, however, that it needs to 
> be approved by the moderator.  So I'm also sending it directly to you, 
> in the hopes that you are either still the VPs for fundraising, or can 
> forward it to them.
> 
> Thanks so much!
> Oren Weinrib
> --------------
> 
> Hi,
> 
> I had the good fortune to have one of your chocolate-chip cookies in 
> the infinite corridor a couple days ago.  After talking to one of your 
> people, I learned that you are doing fundraising for a MIT Habitat 
> house.  That's a great project, and I may be able to help!
> 
> After a few years of involvement with activism and art in Boston, I am 
> creating an organization that will help make more resources available 
> for those communities.  Specifically, we will help progressive groups 
> on college campuses do fundraising for both local and international 
> needs.  The fundraising project involves the resource of promotional 
> textbooks, which faculty receive from publishers and occasionally sell 
> off to freelance textbook buyers.  A rough estimate of the opportunity 
> at MIT is around $100-200 thousand.  My mission is threefold: first, 
> empowering progressives on campus to take advantage of an existing 
> resource and marshall it for progressive ends; second, creating an 
> organization that provides progressive employment to Boston-area 
> artists and activists, and third, using the campus resource as a way to 
> bridge campus and community activists.
> 
> I would like to collaborate with you on a project that fits your needs. 
>   We would solicit faculty donations of textbooks for the MIT Habitat 
> house.  For instance, one department could be targeted with a limited 
> investment of time and yield around $5-10 thousand.  This could be 
> scaled up as appropriate to your resources.
> 
> Please contact me with any ideas and questions.  I look forward to 
> speaking with you further.
> 
> Happy spring,
> Oren Weinrib
> 617-359-4742
> oren at post.harvard.edu
> 
> 
> _______________________________________________
> mit-habitat-exec mailing list
> mit-habitat-exec at mit.edu
> http://mailman.mit.edu/mailman/listinfo/mit-habitat-exec
>