Indiana 50501 FAQ

How Can I Donate Some Cash to Help You Guys?

You can't. Organizationally the founding team of Indiana 50501 has made the decision to NOT organize traditionally:

  • We will not be a 501(c)(3)
  • We will not be a 501(c)(4)
  • We will not be a political action committee (PAC)

Our thinking is simple: Each of these organization types place limits on our free speech and activities. And, if we are the resistance, which we are, we cannot accept these restrictions.

When the administration, nay, regime comes for us, they will do it one of two ways:

  • Lawyers
  • Police

The administration will start action against us with lawyers. If we simply do not accept cash then we can't be in violation of tax laws (always remember that Al Capone went to jail for tax evasion not the dozens of other crimes he committed).

Our funding model is simple and community driven. We now have a group chat on our Signal called:

_WE NEED

This discussion forum can only be posted in by admins and, in it, you might see something like:

2 cases of water for the 4/8 protest

And, hopefully, someone in our community will step up and make that purchase and then get them to us.

And, before you ask about gift cards, no we aren't taking them:

  • There is potential for abuse of gift cards as we scale the organization. We believe in radical honesty and radical transparency. Money is a corrupting factor so let's eliminate it where we can.
  • Gift cards is a legal technique to avoid donation laws. Anyone want to bet that the Administration's lawyers won't argue in court that gift cards are really money and thus subject to taxes?

So our funding model is simple:

  • We will tell our community publicly what we need
  • Our community may or may not step up and help

How Can I Help?

I'm not into the protest scene. I can't march. But I still know that Trump is not right and I want to help. What can I do?

Welcome. We need you. Whether your march in the street and shout loudly, we need you. Here are some ways you can help:

  • Clerical. We have things to mail. Our initial mailing task is being setup now but there will be others.
  • Accounting. We need someone to coordinate the _WE NEED forum and manage the process.
  • Crafting. An awful lot of running a protest movement is nothing more than old school arts and crafts.

In terms of crafting, we have the following tasks needed:

  • Sign making
  • Button making
  • Sign lanyard making

In terms of creative work, we need:

  • Meme generators
  • Writers
  • Artists (we have a short term need for people with art skills)
  • Photographers
  • Videographers
  • Drone Operators
  • A/V Folks

We believe that every American has skills that we need. Tell us what you are good at and we will figure out how it can be applied to us.

Volunteer efforts are coordinated by making a post in the Signal group chat:

_I ENLIST

Post who you are, what you like to do, your skills and what time you have available and someone will reach out to you.

If you have resources you want to make available to 50501 Indiana, add a description to:

_I HAVE

Example: You might have a Crickut machine which can be used for making buttons. One of the beautiful things about permaculture in a modern, wealthy democracy is that there are so many things out there that a resistance movement needs and that AREN'T BEING USED.

What Leadership Positions Are Available?

We are organizing Indiana 50501 at two levels:

  • Congressional District. Indiana has 9. We have active leaders in two (8 and 7)
  • City Level. We currently have zero city leaders so far but we looking. Do you want to bring Indiana 50501 to your district or city? Talk to us. Get on Signal. Get active by reaching out to our senior leadership.

What criteria are you looking for in a District leader?

Key qualities include:

  • Understanding of the seriousness of the current situation
  • Ability to talk
  • Energy
  • Bias for action
  • Works well with others
  • Lives in the district
  • Willing to rally his friends to the cause
  • Ability to lead
  • Awareness of the news and ability to keep up
  • Is committed to 50501 being 100% non violent

What criteria are you looking for in a City leader?

Please see above. By definition city leaders have the same skills as district leaders but tend to be more junior.

How Can I Show You I'm Serious About Leadership?

There are a few things:

  1. Talk to us face to face. Find us at a protest or rally. Don't just seek us out on online. Show us that you're willing to shout and march with us.
  2. Keep up the dialog. We treat leadership and talent development seriously. We aren't going to just hand you an important role. You're going to be vetted and vetted thoroughly by multiple people in our leadership.
  3. Get on the signal. Signal, the encrypted group chat tool** is were all the magic happens. Ask for an invite, tell us your Signal name and we're going to watch how you interact with the community.
  4. Meet Us Face to Face and Break Bread with Us. Eating food is the oldest of human traditions. If we're going to invite you to really join the cause, you're going to sit down for a meal with us (yes we'll pay) and we're going to see how get along. Ultimately there has to be both a competency and a social fit. All of us are preparing for an intense, long, drawn out movement -- we better like each other and want to spend time together. Trump's regime and all his MAGA minions suck -- let's make sure we like each other.

How Can I Protect Myself?

We have documents about this:

How Can I Spend Less Money Parking?

Use Spot Hero. Hat tip to Alice for finding this for us?

What Companies Shouldn't I Use?

Oh dear heavens, the list is long. These are companies that we have personally researched and know to be bad actors:

  • Target
  • Amazon
  • StickerMule

Got something you want here? Our website is written in Markdown and managed using Github. If you want changes made then get a github account, do some learning / talk to us and I'll add you to the Git repo where our website is maintained. The things you learn about good and bad actors can be published here.

How Do I Know What Changed Here? Can Someone Tell Me?

Since every change gets stored in what is called github -- a tool for literally tracking changes -- you can ALWAYS know what has changed by looking at what is called the "commit history". Every change is tracked atomically and each of those changes is called a commit. Commits can be viewed here.

Yes I get that that feature is a bit technical but learning this feature gives people access to the exact changes that were made and that way, the web people being busy and forgetting to write up a change log, won't be an issue.