Where does your money go? What do we use your money for? Donate is MONEY AND TIME!

LANA Vice-President Dara Stieglitz shares her answers

My first time on the Laotian American National Alliance (LANA) board, I raised the same questions. LANA had been in existence for over 9 years and concrete results and actions were what I was looking for.

I am a coach, all my outcomes have to have some sort of component I can measure and evaluate.

The board members all hold full time jobs, as well as having a family and living life as each of us do, food shopping, caring for young ones or elderly ones, planning birthdays, taking classes. We are busy and volunteering is what we do to help others, in this case LANA.

I came back on the board in October 2008 and since then, we have made the following goals with Sourichanh Sirch Chanthyasack as president:

1. To connect with anyone who came to the US from Laos
2. To connect anything Lao, Laotian.
3. To have an Excutive Director for LANA by December 2009

1. Connecting

Contact LANA to donate with checks: Laotian American National Alliance, Inc. c/o Newcomer Community Service Center 1628 16th Street NW Washington DC 20009 Tel: 202 370 7841 You can also find us on e-mail Sourichanh at LANA-USA.ORG

• We are establishing connection with Laotian American Organizations throughout the United States with the help of strangers with the same roots as us through our website, e-mails, Facebook, phone calls and just showing up.
• We are establishing connection with other Southeast Asian Organizations to support us, to learn from them so we can best advocate for the Laotian American Community.
• We are attending workshops and conferences to learn ways to best communicate with each other, with individuals, with organization, skills that are vital to the success of our children, our teens, our families, our communities.
• We are establsihing partnerships with all Lao ethnic groups, and other Asian groups.
• This is time given from each and everyone we have met.

2. Connecting with all Lao

• Our website has listed as many businesses and resources as possible as a resource and as support for the community. This has only been possible through th generosity and support of individulas who have taken the time to call and e-mail us with the informations.
• This is time people have donated by taking their time to send in information.

3. Executive Director

• This takes money and lots of it. It also will take someone who cares for our community with lots of energy and gumption to speak to a board with diverse backgrounds and strengths.
• 90% of our time is spent on connecting with others. Money is always a sensitive issue so when we read or hear donate: we think money, money, money.

So where has the money gone to so far?

Not far actually.

We have spent out of pocket for filmmaker to go to Phoenix in May 2007. We have spent money out of pocket to make each other business cards. We have spent our own money on website domain, pages and hosting. Webmaster– that would be me myself and I, and all the persons who have taken time to send in information for sharing with the world through this website. We have spent out of pocket to attend cnferences and workshops. There has been money trickling in, that money is being saved. Most of our success is time donated with each of our talents via phone calls, e-mails, researching, coordinating, organizing, inviting, connecting. Your time is priceless.

I personally would love a webmaster and a facebooker and a secretary, a driver and a cook. The cook to cover my household kitchen so my family gets regular meals. The driver to drive me from place to place to meet everyone while I am on the phone paper and pen in hand, the secretary to make sure that everything gets done as the president requests, a facebooker to connect with as many Laotian Americans as possible and a webmaster to post on our website, information that make a difference in each of our lives.

So the money will go into hiring an executive director, translators, website, office space and advocacy, the nebulous act of speaking for persons we might never meet, but whose lives we will affect positively.