go ahead, send out a signal.

an update on paying the rent and some thoughts on harnessing visibility.

On Monday morning I sent a newsletter encouraging readers to help me pay the rent for families in Minneapolis. Following the lead of Garrett Bucks, I pledged to send a $500 donation to a Minneapolis church that’s collecting emergency funds for some of the thousands of families there who can’t leave their homes to work right now, to say nothing of going to school, or going to the grocery store. I asked you to join me, by way of an old-fashioned matching campaign. I’ll give $500, I said, if you do too.

It took about 15 minutes for you all to send snapshots of $500 in donation receipts, and of course you didn’t stop there. In the hours and days that have followed, I’ve received dozens and dozens of pictures of receipts, some for donations of $500 and a great many more for donations of $5 or $10 or $25.

All told, I’ve tallied more than $9,000 in donations. Garrett has tallied more than $11,000.

Friends, together we’ve collectively sent more than $20,000 to help pay the rent.

Sorry to be insufferable, but I don’t think we should stop. I have every reason to believe that we can send another $5,000 by the end of the week. So, tell your friends, tell your neighbors, have them make a donation and then send over the receipts to me or to Garrett so we can tally them up and keep us all motivated!

Okay! That was the update. These are some of the thoughts that have been swimming in my brain this week: All the while that Garrett and I have been diligently entering these donations into a little spreadsheet and sending each other virtual high-fives, I’ve noticed a small but swelling number of social media posts hand-wringing about performative activism and virtue signaling online. There are certainly some totally valid critiques of both to be made, but I’m too bored of hearing them to repeat them here.

Because movements grow thanks to visibility.

Movements need signals and symbols and performance as much as they need on-the-ground commitment.

Protest marches and rallies and strikes and daily calls to elected officials send signals and generate performance and create points of entry that lead to action. A signal from one person becomes action in another. Signals, virtuous or otherwise, help to rally people around a collective cause. So, let your signal be virtuous! Let it inspire! Voicing individual support or disapproval for something you care about creates a ripple effect that begins to change public sentiment, shift culture, alter voting choices, and rejigger patterns of patronage and consumption.

What I want to say to all of the folks with platforms, or without them, wondering if it makes a difference to say anything is, of course it does you giant ding dongs! You can toil away on your virtuous work in obscurity, of course. No doubt people are not obligated to report on our every move. I know first-hand that there are some causes and work that require real discretion and privacy. But staying quiet for fear of virtue signaling? That’s just a squandered opportunity to scale your impact. Together Garrett and I could have sent $1,000. Instead, all of us sent $20,000.

For the folks who fear that speaking up too loud, or too late, is merely performance, go ahead and marry that performance to action. Garrett and I sent out our signals and it meant being able to pay real rent to real families who can now live another month in their houses without fear of eviction. It was our earnest, heart-on-sleeve, maybe even cringey signals that made it happen.

Now: Do you think we can get to $25,000 by the end of the week?

I do.

PS. If you’re tapped out on funds, but are able to join the General Strike on Friday, by all appearances, it’s happening. Pledge your support, send your signals, et cetera.