Community Shares organization member application, Mountain Justice promotional video

Today I began working on the lengthy application that is required for UMD to become a member of Community Shares here in Knoxville, TN. Community Shares is a workplace giving program where they solicit payroll deductions from various businesses around Knoxville to give to local non profits. UMD would be required to pay a membership fee and give a portion of funds raised back to Community Shares but UMD stands to raise at least a couple thousand dollars by joining Community Shares. UMD volunteers will have to put in at least 80 hours of direct volunteer work a year with Community Shares in order to remain in good standing. I have signed myself up to help recruit other UMD volunteers to fill some of these hours but imagine that I will be filling a good portion of them as well. I think that the first step though is that UMD will have to apply for a solicitation permit from the city of Knoxville which is some different paperwork to fill out. I am going to set up a meeting with UMD's non profit manager so that we can figure out a fundraising strategy so that we can begin applying for grants in a strategic and timely fashion. I also began working on a promotional video for Mountain Justice, one of our partner organizations. The video is about the 6th annual Mountain Justice Training Camp that just occurred in Kentucky but will be a promotional video about the work of the Mountain Justice organization of which UMD is a part of here in TN.
I also worked to set up a permit review meeting with the Tennessee Department of Environment and Conservation and UMD's law intern to review some permits of concern the UMD is currently pursuing including Davis Creek Energy Mine #4 and Kopper Glo Straight Creek Surface Mine, both of which have blackside dace fish living below them.
I also worked with UMD's other interns today by helping spread the word about Sara's songbook project through the UMD and Mountain Justice email listserve. She has already gotten numerous responses from people interested in helping on her project.