Why Monthly Matters
Image description: A photo of three black cards pinned to a string. Each card has one word written in white font. The text reads ”We Need You.” The NAAFA logo is in the bottom left corner.
By Kat Redniss, NAAFA Board Member
I’m a NAAFA Monthly Donor, or part of the NAAFA POD (Passionate Ongoing Donors)! Giving monthly is something I do when I find an organization whose work, mission, activities, and impact deeply resonates with me and my beliefs and values. I love what NAAFA does, and believe NAAFA is central to change-making in society as fierce proponents for fat acceptance, advocates to end size discrimination, and central figures in creating fat community nationwide.
I donate monthly for several reasons I’d love to share with you. And I want to encourage you to consider becoming part of the NAAFA POD yourself!
Here’s why monthly donating feels right to me:
It’s easy!
I sign up, choose a plan that works for me, put in my preferred payment method, and it’s all automated after that! I can go in and change my amount if I need to, and I love that flexibility. At the end of the year, I get my tax documents. It’s so convenient and efficient.
It feels impactful without feeling daunting to my budget.
For me personally, I can’t always write a check for hundreds of dollars, even if I wanted to. But, giving $25 a month, that feels so much more doable for me, and I don’t feel the financial burden in the same way. It helps me include giving in my personal budget, and increases my giving ability. Seeing $25 come out of my account every month is so much more doable and less scary than anticipating and stressing over whether I’ll have $300 extra dollars at a specific time every year.
It helps NAAFA plans more strategically in the short and long term.
Donating monthly helps NAAFA better achieve goals over time because leadership can anticipate when money is coming in and how much money is coming in from donations at different times throughout the year. They can use this knowledge to think strategically about staffing, programming, and new and existing initiatives, helping leadership make informed decisions.
It makes me feel more connected to NAAFA as an organization, and gives me a sense of belonging and connection.
Donating monthly, I feel a part of something, I feel and know that my donation is impactful to the day to day work of the organization and in helping achieve the mission and vision of NAAFA. As a fat person and someone who benefits from the work NAAFA does, my monthly donations represent my gratitude and the sense of belonging and community I feel because NAAFA exists. I feel more connected to their work, more aware of what’s happening and what’s coming up, more inspired to keep learning and growing. It feels like a reciprocal relationship built on respect, trust, and investment.
I know my monthly donation means increased sustainability and consistency for NAAFA.
Monthly donations provide regular, predictable income, which in turn, allows for deeper, more intentional planning and budgeting. This leads to more robust organizational possibilities, which, as someone who deeply cares about what NAAFA does, is very exciting to me! I want NAAFA to be able to focus on change-making, intersectional social justice, fat liberation, and bolstering fat community. The less they have to worry about incoming funds, the more they can focus on celebrating fat joy and working to dismantle systemic anti-fat bias.
I’m really proud to support NAAFA in this way. Monthly giving, being part of the POD, is a simple, easy, impactful way to help NAAFA achieve organizational goals, think and plan strategically, and continue to grow and broaden fat community and acceptance. For less than it costs me to get takeout once a month, I can make a donation that feels sustainable to me and that truly helps NAAFA do their incredible work.
In about two weeks, we’ll be launching a donor drive with the goal to enroll at least 100 new monthly donors. You’ll learn more then about the community member who has committed up to $10,000 if we meet our goal to add 100 new NAAFA supporters to the POD. Get ready to join me in monthly giving starting May 1!
It makes a big, fat, beautiful difference.
Photo of Kat Redniss
About the Author
Kat Redniss or Katniss Everqueer (@katnisseverqueervt) is a performance artist, accessibility advocate, arts educator, and producer of queer, fat art events based out of Burlington, Vermont. She reads books about identity, belonging, body autonomy and liberation, imagination, and glitter for the Vermont Chapter of Drag Story Hour, working to increase queer representation in rural communities. Katniss performs burlesque throughout New England and beyond. Her digital content was featured by the Glasgow Burlesque festival, and her digital duet with creative partner Emoji Nightmare was nominated for Hollywood Burlesque Film Festival’s “Best Ensemble”. Katniss and Emoji produce two annual shows celebrating fat burlesque and drag. Katniss is a proud, fat, queer envelope pusher and fat liberationist. She shares, “As I’ve developed my burlesque identity, I’ve leaned deeply into centering fatness and queerness. Onstage, my body is always going to be perceived differently than someone who exists in a thinner, smaller body. I use my existence in the scene as an imperative: fat performers deserve space, respect, representation. I choose fat characters to lift up, fat cliches to tear down or reclaim. I am committed to presenting art that is unapologetically queer and liberating for folks in fat bodies.” Kat is an arts administrator and educator with experience in community arts programming, grant writing, communications, disability justice, and accessibility. She has her MA in Teaching Educational Theater and English from NYU, her Masters in Library and Information Science from the University of Washington, and a BA in English and Economics from Smith College.