Contribute

*** Please see the fundraising appeal letter posted below the following basic information. ***

Donate

The People over Profits campaign needs to raise money to obtain the following resources to operate a viable campaign organization:

• Website, videography and photography
• Campaign phone lines
• Campaign literature
• Graphic design and printing costs
• Postage and envelopes
• Media advertisements
• Campaign signs
• Event venue costs
• Management and volunteer costs
• Fundraising costs

Competing with and defeating the incumbent

The incumbent is starting this race with much more money than we have, but we don’t need more than him, just enough to purchase the tools our people power needs to win the election.  We need to raise $20,000!

Donation amounts

Please donate as much and as often as you can without exceeding the $500 election year contribution limits.  No amount is too small and any amount is appreciated and beneficial to our People over Profits campaign.

House parties

House parties are a great way to raise money by organizing your network to come together to collectively contribute to our People over Profits campaign.  If you are willing and able to host a house party for our campaign, please contact the campaign and our treasurer will help you plan it.

Payment methods

Cash, checks, money orders and credit/debit card payments are all acceptable.  Please make checks or money orders payable to “Marcus Harcus in the House.”

• Donations can be made online here:
  

OR

• Mail donations to 4830 North Humboldt Avenue, Minneapolis, MN 55430

 

Notes about your donation(s)

If your donation is more than $20 please inform me of your employer.  This is a legal campaign finance reporting requirement.

Thanks for your generous support!  Please consider volunteering during the campaign and please take off Election Day to Get Out The Vote (GOTV)!

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Dear friends, family and neighbors – near and far (citizens of the world),

I’m running for State Representative, and I need your support. 

You probably know that I’ve run for elected office before, but I want you to know my story–the reason I’ve run in the past and am running today.  I’m a two-time candidate for Minneapolis Mayor, and I ran for City Council in 2009.  My mayoral candidacies were not organized as real campaigns to get elected; rather, they were my passionate, positively enraged attempts to publicly address racial profiling, police brutality, and the prison industrial complex.  These are issues most politicians are either ignorant or indifferent about, but these issues have devastated too many lives in poor inner city neighborhoods nationwide, including the Twin Cities.

Ever since I was a very young child, I’ve harbored a sense of moral outrage over social, economic and racial injustices.  In high school I was deeply disturbed by the institutional racism that facilitated systemic disenfranchisement of Black students, and I organized a walk-out.  After high school, I participated in a variety of grassroots community building and organizing activities, including many direct action protest demonstrations.  I’m a natural born activist.

In my teens and early twenties I was pulled over by police more than 40 times, including an incident where I was unjustly brutalized.  I’ll have you know that I have no criminal record and don’t even have an arrest record.  Suffering these injustices at the hands of the law deeply disturbed me and fostered a sense of disillusionment in me about our society.  Being a victim of these systemic governmental injustices without gaining access to redress traumatized me as I felt like a second-class citizen.

Filing as a Mayoral candidate in 2001 and 2005 was my way of constructively channeling my PTSD.
It was a safer, more appropriate response than acting on my anger-fueled visions of violent retribution.
I choose to confront the government through electoral politics to change the campaign season conversations and to propose more just, equitable political leadership and policy changes to redress government injustices, particularly as it related to police-community relations and criminal justice reform.  Naturally, I was compelled to address other critically important equity issues regarding housing, education, economic development, etc.

Becoming a mayoral candidate planted the seeds in my mind and heart for my serious consideration of becoming an elected official to advocate for structural changes in society from a legislative position.  After the first campaign in 2001, I began studying public policy and completed training to become a professional community organizer and political advocate.  For the past 7 years I’ve been studying and working on a variety of issues integral to building an equitable society.  During the past few years I began practicing legislative advocacy.

In 2009, I decided to run for City Council with the intention of actually getting elected.  Although I was a serious candidate that year I lacked the organizational capacity to run a viable campaign.  That means I didn’t have a management team, didn’t mobilize enough volunteers and I didn’t raise enough money to adequately compete with media advertising, campaign literature, campaign infrastructure and other tools.  Obviously, I was not elected, but I did prove to be an outstanding candidate, outperforming the incumbent and two other challengers in many critical ways.  I knocked on 10,000+ doors, met a few thousands residents, and established community name recognition and credibility with politically conscious people throughout the Twin Cities.

Now in 2012, I’ve decided to run again, but this time I’ve got a campaign manager, field director, treasurer, experienced advisors who have managed successful legislative campaigns at the state and federal level, helping me build a winning campaign.  This time I’ve got a strategic campaign plan, experience to inform me, and I completed a Camp Wellstone candidate training to help guide me.

I’m asking everyone to donate $100 or up to $500.  I also need you to volunteer to door knock, phone bank, and/or show up at events, please.

My fundraising goal is to raise $20,000 by June 5, 2012.  I only need 200 supporters to donate an average of $100 to do it.  We only need 2,100 votes to win the August 14, 2012 Primary Election.
Here’s how you can help the People over Profits campaign organize a historic UPSET of the status quo in North Minneapolis:

Volunteer to door knock

Work the phone bank

Organize and host a campaign FUNdraising House Party

Attend campaign events

Give any amount you can up to the Election year contribution limit of $500

Running for office, especially as an underdog, is a daunting and heart-wrenching experience, so please make it worth the effort by campaigning with me!  I plan to win, but can’t do it without an army of my friends running with me!  With your help, we can get the 2,100 votes needed to win the Primary Election on August 14, which will make the General Election victory inevitable.

Thank you for your support!

mh