Members’ voices are crucial to making an impact on policies that have an impact on healthcare. Here, we’d like to thank members who have invested in the first half of this year, yielding $16,000 more than was raised over the same time period last year.
In response to an in-depth examination of RheumPAC in 2016, we have increased the amount of information we share with the membership by:
- Creating educational documents and posting them online;
- Implementing quarterly fundraising campaigns to maintain an optimal awareness level; and
- Increasing transparency by posting our supported-candidates list online.
All of this information is available on the RheumPAC website. And if our 2017 numbers are any indication, we are responding better to members’ needs.
Voices Needed
Our second-quarter campaign theme this year was Peer to Peer. A member of the ACR or ARHP is most likely to invest in RheumPAC when the value is conveyed by, and the request comes from, a colleague. In the second quarter of 2017, members of the RheumPAC committee sent out messages and made phone calls to educate their peers on RheumPAC and its crucial role in our advocacy efforts. RheumPAC is not just money, it is voices, and we need as many voices as possible to advocate for our policy priorities in this political environment.
A Note of Thanks
In the first half of this year, 153 ACR and ARHP members have invested more than $66,000 in RheumPAC, and we have 27 major investors ($1,000+), topping the 13 in the first quarter with 14 in the second. At the same point in 2016, we had raised only $48,000 from 113 investors. We had only 16 major investors at this point last year. Thank you to those who have given big in 2017:
Leadership Circle ($2,000+)
Jody Hargrove, MD (Edina, Minn.)
William Harvey, MD (Boston, Mass.)
Edward Herzig, MD (Cincinnati)
Kent Kwas Huston, MD (Kansas City, Mo.)
Charles King II, MD (Belden, Miss.)
Karen Kolba, MD (Pismo Beach, Calif.)
Sharad Lakhanpal, MD (Dallas)
Jeffrey Lawson, MD (Greenville, S.C.)
Gwenesta Melton, MD (Fayetteville, N.C.)
Meera Oza, MD (Orange Park, Fla.)
Thalia Ramanujam, MD (Santa Cruz, Calif.)
Ellison Smith, MD (Asheville, N.C.)
Angus Worthing, MD (Washington, D.C.)
Grace Wright, MD (New York)
Platinum ($1,000–2,000)
Herb Baraf, MD (Wheaton, Md.)
Michael Brooks, MD (Cedar Rapids, Iowa)
Gary Bryant, MD (Minnetonka, Minn.)
Gerald Eisenberg, MD (Highland Park, Ill.)
Lee Graham, MD (Chicago)
Joseph Huffstutter, MD (Signal Mountain, Tenn.)
