When a non-profit organization such as The University of Iowa Center for Human Rights (UICHR) wins substantial contracts and grants to fund major projects, it is not inappropriate to wonder why it seeks charitable gifts from individual contributors. The reasons are several, clear, and compelling. First, individual contributions are necessary to fund the indispensable work that is required to secure the contracts and grants that make it possible for us to research, teach, and publish about worker and other socioeconomic rights. This includes not only new initiatives, but, as well, renewal contracts and grants that enable us to build on what we have accomplished to date, thus to see our substantial work bear long-term fruit. Second, individual contributions make possible the many projects the UICHR undertakes in support of its contact- and grant-funded initiatives. The UICHR's International Child Labor Research Colloquium hosted in July 2003 and a Child Labor and Human Rights essay collection to be published in 2005 are examples of tasks commissioned by our principal contracts and grants that evolved—for the better—beyond their initial design through the contributions and encouragement of our supporters. Our ability to enhance the value of major investments in this way makes the UICHR a more attractive recipient for major donors. Individual contributions are the seed from which all of our efforts grow. Finally, project-based funding is restrictive and cannot be used for activities outside the scope of the project. Therefore, at a time when higher education is being financially squeezed as never before, other projects through which the UICHR seeks to broaden understanding and resolve relative to abusive and exploitative child labor and related worker rights issues require individual contributions. The UICHR's annual student writing competitions and prizes; the development of freely-circulated curricula; our plans for innovative research fellowship programs; our broad array of "outreach" activities that highlight human rights issues generally: conferences, lectures, and workshops; publication of a tri-annual "Human Rights Index"; county-wide community reading projects; and the wide dissemination of human rights news and views—each is an example of important support work underwritten, of necessity, by the contributions of individual donors. In a few short years, the UICHR has grown on-going contributions numbering in the thousands of dollars into more than a million dollars in contract- and grant-funded work. In these difficult times, however, even successful nonprofits such as the UICHR struggle with financial survival. Please help to ensure that we can continue to shed light on the issues that affect each of us profoundly. Please consider a gift via our online donation system or our printable mail-in forms. Please give generously. Please don't let the flame go out.
[an error occurred while processing this directive]

[an error occurred while processing this directive]