I just attended the Grassroots Media Justice Tour in Denton, Texas, the last stop on this nationwide tour. This exciting event showcased the following speakers:

Eversince I saw "Batman Begins," Batman became my favorite superhero. I was initially drawn to his ability to draw strength from past hurts and persistence in overcoming weaknesses/fears. While I am not one to tolerate violence, I also appreciated Batman's vigilante role as he committed both an exhorbant amount of time and resources to protecting the people of Gotham; a slightly more extreme version of Bill Gates.

So how does Batman relate to the Progressive Movement, or better yet, the Obama's campaign and the current U.S. Presidential Elections?

As I mentioned in parts one and two of this series, there’s power in funding your own movement and in having a broad base of support. When we support our own projects, we get to decide what we work on and our continued existence becomes less dependent on any single source.

As part of walking the walk here, we’re now accepting blogads in the sidebar of the YP4 Blog. We’re screening them for congruence with our values. Nonprofits, progressive blogs and socially responsible businesses? Absolutely. Soulless corporations? Not so much.

We intend blog advertising to become another intentional way to build our network and strengthen our partnerships.

As I mentioned in part 1, providing financial support for our own movements is key to their sustainability. In the words of Andrea del Moral, it can “keep us true to our visions, flexible in our goals, and relevant to the people who yearn and strive for justice.”

Sounds good, right? So how do we do it? Read on, friends, read on.

I recently read The Revolution Will Not Be Funded, published in 2007 by INCITE! Women of Color Against Violence. One of the book’s arguments is that the ubiquity of the 501(c)(3) nonprofit model limits the political left’s imagination and “threatens to permanently eclipse autonomous grassroots-movement building in the arena of social justice.”

Citizens of Colorado have had enough with the broken laws in their state that are set up to deny thousands of Colorado couples basic legal protections like the right to make funeral arrangements for a partner or visit their sick or dying partner in the hospital. Their solution? Referendum I. It's not marriage, but it provides basic legal rights to committed same-sex couples.

Coloradans for Fairness, the statewide organization created to ensure the passage of Referendum I, has challenged its supporters to make the 380-mile trek in support of basic legal rights.

Check out this innovative idea and help iwalk get to it's $1M goal!