Detailed Whirlwinds Balance Sheet
Whirlwinds, Audience and Cost:
Whirlwinds is committed to extensive outreach. The reason for this is simple: we do not want Whirlwinds to reach only those who identify as anarchists, radicals or “activists”. Our target audience includes those involved in anti-capitalist and anarchist projects, but more importantly, Whirlwinds is targeted toward anyone interested in building power capable of transcending current forms of oppression and exploitation. Often, radical projects stay in radical or academic circles, and we want Whirlwinds to have a wider audience.
In our attempt to offer Whirlwinds to those outside of radical circles, we collectively agreed to pay the necessary costs out of pocket, with the hope that those who find the project useful would contribute individually varying amounts. Such amounts could, in summation, help us to recover some of these expenses.
The primary monetary expenses for Whirlwinds fall into two inter-related categories:
Outreach materials:
Poster Printing (2000) $175.00
Postcard Printing (10,000) $479.00
1” Buttons (500) $99.00
=Total Outreach Materials: $753.00
Postage:
Site-to-Site $137.99
Materials Distro. (estimated) (440 x $4.80) $2112.00
Postcard Mailing (300 x $.27) $81.00
Total Postage: $2339.99
Total Expenses: $3092.99
Specific Expenses Narrative
Outreach Materials:
Our outreach process, while undertaken entirely with volunteer labor, has required serious investment for completion.
Beginning in March we printed and mailed initial announcement posters to worker's centers, cooperatives and cultural spaces. During May we printed 2,000 copies of the Whirlwinds poster by Kristine Visiris. We used a radical printer, Eberhardt Press in Portland, Oregon, for the printing. We are also printing hundreds of copies of Brett Bloom’s “Of Friends and Whirlwinds” poster to advertise the events that we organize and travel to during this summer.
In addition to the posters, we have 10,000 thousand postcards for distribution to upwards of 400 of radical spaces across the country (including infoshops; radical bookstores; zine libraries; food, housing & workers cooperatives; workers centers; community centers; environmental justice projects; diy record and craft stores; performance spaces & art galleries; and many others).
Additionally, Whirlwinds outreach materials are given away free of charge; but we are asking for a small donation for copies mailed to individuals or obtained at “Of Friends & Whirlwinds” events. 500 1” buttons were made for Whirlwinds by RokLok Records of Long Island, NY and will be distributed at events.
For all of these materials the total cost is: $753.00
Postage:
Postage prices are on the rise, and we are mailing posters and postcards to hundreds of spaces and to Whirlwinds contributors. Additionally, Postcards will be sent to 300 targeted radical media and community organizations around the country. Finally, simply shipping the materials from the printer to Team Color was quite expensive, as reflected in the site-to-site mailing costs.
Estimate cost of postage is $2339.99.
Contact Whirlwinds coordinators Team Colors with any questions related to this balance sheet:
whirlwinds (at) inthemiddleofawhirlwind.info (journal)
teamcolors@warmachines.info (collective).