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The BAUDL 500

Help young people build strong voices through debate. UPDATE: Our matching donor will now match $20 for every gift. So far, we have raised a >$7,000 match!

Education – Bay Area - Oakland, San Francisc, California, United States

We are BAUDL. The Bay Area Urban Debate League.  debaters

We partner with schools throughout the San Francisco Bay Area to found debate teams and transform the lives of students that traditional classrooms fail to engage. Over the past three years, we have doubled in size, touching hundreds of students across the Bay Area and have helped helped countless individuals reverse their trajectory from low expectations to high performance.  The young people we serve are more than 95% students of color, and the great majority live in poverty. Nationally, less than half of low-income high school seniors make it to college, and rates are even worse in the under-resourced public schools we serve. In contrast, 96% of BAUDL seniors graduate high school and fully 86% go on to college. 

What is the BAUDL 500?

The BAUDL 500 is our campaign to reach 500 donors by January 1, 2012.  Over the past couple years, we have learned to maximize the leverage of every private dollar we receive and the BAUDL 500 is no exception.  We have a donor ready to match your money with $10,000 if we can find 500 people to give at least $20 this calendar year - we are already at 210, and need your help to get the rest of the way.

To be completely honest, $20,000 would be life-changing for our program and the students it reaches.  And $20?  Probably not too much to sacrifice to give these amazing young people a leg up.

The Impact

The opportunities are endless if we are able to achieve this goal.   What does your donation do and what happens if we achieve our targeted goal?  

Your small donation counts:

  • A gift of $20 makes a Supply Pack. It gives a single student the tools they need to compete - files, timers, tubs to store the evidence they research by hand, and more.
  • A gift of $50 funds a Mega Novice Workshop. Here, we roll onto campus with pizza, evidence packs, and enthusiasm to get new recruits pumped about the life of the mind.
  • A gift of $100 enables Tournament Travel. This gets a team of students out to a tournament who otherwise couldn't make it, helping them their skills against some of the brightest minds in the Bay Area. 
  • A gift of $200 provides a Summer Lab Pack, equipping 20 young people with all the gear they need to begin their lives as debaters at our annual Summer Institute.

But let's be real, big donations count even more:

Jazmin

  • A gift of $500 funds a Youth Debater for an entire year, opening up an intellectual world for them, making it possible for them to practice, attend workshops, roll out to tournaments, and build strong voices through debate. 
  • A gift of $1,000 is a Weekend Workshop. Your gift would make it possible for dozens of students gather to research and discuss the most important issues of the day.
  • A gift of $2,500 supports a Debate Coach. The heart and soul of this movement lies in its teachers, who give so much to their students.
  • A gift of $5,000 is a BAUDL Tournament. This is our signature event, bringing more than a hundred people together to support the voices and brilliance of underserved young people. 

If we reach 500 donors, we'll do all of the above AND earn the $10K match.  Then we can:

  • Finance our BAUDL Traveling Team.  Every Friday debaters stream from all our campuses to the BAUDL office to talk high-level strategy and research. Their dream is to compete at the highest level nationally - and we want to help make that dream real. Leveling the playing field for our students to compete with some of the most prestigious private schools around the country is an eye-opening opportunity that makes anything possible in the eyes of the student.  When students are able to surround themselves with this level of talent and competition they realize that anything is possible.

Spread the word

Rashid

The BAUDL wasn't built off of limitless cash, rather the hard work and passion of it's volunteers, advocates and staff. We need your time, energy and interest in helping as much as anything else. Below are three things you can do even if you are unable to donate:

  1. Like Us On Facebook:  Surprisingly, we've been connected with numerous former debaters who have something great to offer through your social networks.   Help us spread the word by "Liking" us on Facebook.  (http://www.facebook.com/BayDebate)
  2. Email 5 Friends:  That's right...Good Ole Word of Mouth!   We'd love to have you as an advocate.  If you can't donate, but feel like the BAUDL is a worthy cause, please pass of the good word on and let your friends know for us. 
  3. Donate Your Time:  We're always looking for individuals in the surrounding Bay Area to get involved in our tournaments and our programming.   We'd love to have you as a judge, where you can experience the impact this program has on the students most directly by evaluating their performance.   We'll teach you everything you need to know and I promise, it will be one of the most rewarding experience you could imagine.   Email us at: info@baudl.org if you're interested. 


Thanks For Your Support!

Team on This Campaign: