Hi everyone, I have been wanting to help raise money for the appeals process for inmates. I know my ex's lawyer is a charity lawyer and has limited resources....I have done a lot of thinking and i honestly think i came up with a good idea..it may take a couple months to get it rolling but here is my idea

i had a vision which i am really hoping to put into play soon...i have decided i will want to host a charity website to help prisoners on death row in funding the appeals process....i have the idea to make shirts (i have a friend who does shirt screening) and sell them and let the proceeds go to the charity, and also give free shirts to people who let's say donate $50 or more or something...i could have pins and stickers too....i figured i would have a featured inmate each month...and not just random inmates but like one's that are submitted to me...OR the ones donating could designate their own inmate for it to go to....i want this website to have statistics on death row information..like the fact that it costs more to house a DR inmate then a general population inmate, etc.....i have the name picked out for my charity it will be "Give them life" or i can even go "Give 'em life" and have the acronym "GEL" and then the back of the shirts can say something like "advocates against the death penalty".....

i am going to be looking into the legal things with charity work like getting a tax ID number and stuff like that....hopefully this can really kick off and get at least a little help for these guys....even if people dont want to donate they can buy shirts and those will have proceeds go to the inmates...(not to the inmates, but it woudl go to their lawyers) like my ex for example, i know his lawyer, so i would send her a check to help in his case)

what do you guys think of this idea?

i think this is a great idea and great to see you want to do so much. Maybe if there are artistic prisoners could you liase with prisons to se if you can sell on their behalf too? Good luck with your efforts

Hi there I can see that you've put a lot of thought into this idea but please be very careful. Some years ago I had a similar kind of idea which was called 'Unity Day' and the idea was to link up the whole world on one special day to call for the abolishment of the death penalty. I spent 2 years gathering support of all the main established groups around the world, gathering contacts for help from stars such as Phil Collins and U2 -business people infact anyone who I could think of who might help. I knew I couldn't run it on my own and had to build up a committee, we went into the legal side of things because all money made from merchandise etc would be going towards helping death row prisoners obtain the legal help they need.
Prisoners designed T.shirts, postcards, caps, badges and other stuff. It was also agreed that a small membership fee would be charged with this also going into the legal fund kitty. Cutting a long story very short one woman I trused to work along side me managed to sabotage the gathering in London and cut me out totally of something that I had worked so hard to put together. She had no way of bringing me down as such because I had been working with the major abolishment groups as well as Amnesty from the time I first got the idea. BUT my point in telling you is this - money was raised but nothing went to any of the prisoners, what cash there was went to this woman and her son (he had made some video's of the small gathering in London)
Please be very careful with your plans because where ever there is cash being raised for whatever reason you will find someone hanging about hoping to be able to take a cut of it. I hope this hasn't put you off because that was not my intention I just wanted to show you how these things can happen. Good luck

thank you mystic for your experience. i completely see your concern and you have every reason to have it...i wish you couldnt have experienced such a horrible ordeal..i intend on this to be basically just my husband and i running it. it will be so far as i can see it a website fundraiser. for example, my ex who is on DR has a lawyer that i am constantly in touch with, so i would call her and i would say "hey what do you need and where should i send it?" and so on and so forth, i would be getting names addresses and phone numbers of the lawyers and investigaters so that the money will channel directly to them and not through other people. i will also be looking into getting a tax id number so that i can give tax deductable receipts to people who donate..i know myself that our family is not money hungry or greedy, unless this thing gets huge and out of our hands, it should just be my husband and i holding it together