The Loud Hands Project

(Woooooah, livin’ on a prayer……) (etc.)

In the past four days, the following things have happened:

-The Loud Hands Project has launched.
-55 people have sent us a vote of confidence by funding us.
-We’ve reached our halfway goal of $5000.
-We’ve become a featured campaign on the indiegogo home page.

This project is advancing beyond our wildest dreams. We are humbled and in awe of the enthusiastic support we’ve received. PLEASE keep sharing the project around so we can stay a featured campaign on indiegogo and keep generating awareness and momentum. As a reminder, we have a facebook page as well as a twitter account (right now we’re asking people to tweet us reasons why the project matters to them under the hashtag #loudhandsproject.) “Like” us, follow us, and keep spreading the word and sharing the link to this campaign around. We have scripts for that!

Excitedly,

Julia Bascom, project organizer

littlemissmutant:

allies-person:

And also a comment inspired by discussion of autistic relationships.

I love the entire video, but my favorite part is of the two autistic people who were stimming together.  !  Neil and I do that all the time, and for me it was powerful to see that on screen, just as it was powerful to see one-person stims that strongly resemble my own.

The experts say that we need to stop stimming “for our own good,” that stimming prevents us from having social relationships, etc.

Well, what if stimming is part of the way we interact with the people we love?

That’s me and my very good friend K. We were actually doing that as Julia and my girlfriend were filming a different part, and then Julia saw us and was like, “wait, film them doing that!”

Anyway, glad you like it!

We’re received multiple requests from various people for scripts they might use when sharing the project around. Since this project is by and for Autistic people, we totally understand—the amount of scripting that’s gone into the project itself already is pretty revealing.

The only way the fundraising for this project can really succeed is via social media and word-of-mouth. This means emailing the indiegogo link around to all your various contacts and asking them to take a look and consider making a small donation. Most people won’t, but a few might, and that adds up. 

Of course, these emails and conversations can be tricky, especially with people who don’t spend a lot of time thinking about autism or disability in their daily lives. This can cause a lot of anxiety. 

For general audiences, the following script can work. Obviously, feel free to tweak it, ignore it, and mess around with it as you please. In fact, if you find another revision or script works for you, please let us know, and we’ll share it here. The more minds, the better!

Hi. I wanted to show you this project. It’s a group of Autistic people speaking for themselves and working on creating an anthology and website for future projects so that more people can hear them. They’ve already made a video, which is pretty cool and which you can see at the link. A lot of people are supporting this project, and are really excited about it. They’re trying to raise $10,000 dollars to cover their starting costs, and they made $3000 in their first day. I think it would be really cool if we could help. Donations start at $10 and are tax-deductible; will you join me?

For audiences already involved in disability rights, autism, or special ed, but not necessarily Autistic community/culture or neurodiversity, the above script might work, or you could try this one:

Hi. Have you heard about The Loud Hands Project yet? It’s a transmedia publishing effort by the Autistic Self Advocacy Network dedicated to amplifying the voices of Autistic people speaking, however they do, as they make the world one we all can share. They’ve already made a video, and right now they’re raising money for their first anthology and the creation of a website for future projects. A lot of people are supporting this project, and the Autistic community is really excited about it. They’re trying to raise $10,000 dollars to cover their starting costs, and they made $3000 in their first day. I think it would be really cool if we could help. Donations start at $10 and are tax-deductible; will you join me?

Or you could switch them around. Or write your own and show it to us, and we’ll put it up! 

• We have an FAQ page now!
• We also have an Askbox and a Submissions page. Hit us up with any questions, concerns, support/fundraising/publicity opportunities, and suggestions you might have!
• So far, we’ve raised $3712 out of our $10,000 goal. 
• Most of that was raised on our first day. Today we’ve only raised about $400. It’s really important that we keep up the momentum!
• We’ll be fundraising through February and into March.
• A number of events, promotions, and project-related announcements are forthcoming starting January (next week,) so stay tuned! 
• Following this tumblr is an easy way to stay up-to-date on the project. We also have a Facebook page and a Twitter, and indiegogo allows us to send announcements out to donors.
• indiegogo takes donations starting at ten dollars, and all donations are tax-deductible.
• Here are five different ways to raise $10,000: 500 donations of $20; 200 donations of $50; 100 donations of $100; 1000 donations of $10; 286 donations of $35.
• In order for this project to succeed, people outside of Autistic advocacy and the larger autism community are going to need to hear about it. 
• Consider spreading the word about us to people you wouldn’t normally expect to be interested—you might be pleasantly surprised, and even a small success rate will have a big impact. 
• Success builds off of success—the more effective this initial campaign is, the bigger, more diverse, and more tailored subsequent ones will be!