Well we’ve had a fantastic year so far here at the LGC, with our membership base expanding and our visibility with the press, public, and lawmakers growing by leaps and bounds! And with our annual meeting just a month or so away (Make sure to register here!) we’re working on our planning for 2019. We are also STOKED to do our first pledge drive, and in addition to the thank you gifts below, we are, if we hit our stretch target of $6000 in the 4th quarter, taking two lucky members who participate in the drive by upgrading their membership, with us to SHOT 2019!
We intend to use these funds to pay for SHOT attendance, work towards an additional training class offering, and technology upgrades. Any monies not spent on these activities will go to the general operating fund.
First though, let’s take a look at what we’ve accomplished so far in 2018:
Outreach/PR:
At SHOT show in January, Lara had the chance to meet and talk with several industry giants and to participate in numerous women’s events and meetings. These have lead to the NSSF including the Liberal Gun Club as a recognized industry group in one of its member surveys this year; several chances to speak on nationally syndicated podcasts and continued requests for press interviews; and the chance to speak at this year’s Gun Rights Policy Conference.
Gun Rights Policy Conference is considered to be the main meeting of 2nd Amendment advocates, policy wonks , and press each year. Lara was asked to speak on a panel about how culture affects the industry and how the industry can expand its influence in less traditional ways. The conference made it clear that the Liberal Gun Club is considered to be the preeminent group representing liberal gun owners by the gun industry. Lara was honored to receive a Defender of Liberty Award from the Second Amendment Foundation for her work through the LGC in defending our Second Amendment rights. While all Defender of Liberty awards are personal, they also honor the organizations the recipients work for – in this case, the LGC.
Attending these conferences is one of the primary ways The Liberal Gun Club can expand its both its outreach and influence. It is critical that we continue to be a respected voice in Gun Culture 2.0.
Original Content
In 2018, we have authored 12 articles for our blog. Our approach to writing articles is simple- engage when there is a unique perspective on an issue that the LGC can provide. Due to that, there are many issues that are well covered by others that we choose to pass on from a blog perspective. That said, our goals for 2019 are to increase the number of articles that we publish and to continue to do interviews with the press. Visibility and commentary from our unique perspective is still sorely missing from the national conversation. Thanks to the hard work by Lara, we are seeing some of that change, as we noted about the GRPC above. You can always check out our original content (and syndicated authors) by going here: https://theliberalgunclub.com/lgc-original-content/
Training
Part of our core mission has always been the introduction of new shooters to firearms, and providing high quality training in an open and respectful manner. In 2016 we launched our Intro to Defensive Pistol course, with enormous help from Grant Cunningham who both authored the training and certified our first two batches of trainers. In 2017 we revamped our Intro to Firearms course and introduced the “Intro to Range Safety” course, which has proven to be our most popular course for beginners.
We’ve also asked, and you have stepped up, to get more trainers on board. Our lead for instructor certification, Daniel, has been busting his tail to get new folks certified to help the influx of new students who have been reaching out all across the country.
In 2018, we now have 32 instructors in 20 states, and we’ve certified 13 new instructors this year alone, with have more in the pipeline. We’ve added a page to our website to make it easier for the public to find local instructors here: https://theliberalgunclub.com/training/instructor-directory/
One of the next steps that we need to tackle in 2019 is to get additional states to recognize our training programs for various purposes- this takes a ton of time, as each state has its own way of handling these things. One of our goals with this fundraiser is to be able to hire a part time person to help out with the training program administration and state outreach so that our training programs can not only teach useful skills, but also help local students with things like permits.
We’re also looking to add a introduction to rifle shooting class, which will take time and money. In addition to our basic pistol class, this has been one of the most requested additions to our training program. We would also like to develop a safety training class for non-shooters to teach the fundamentals of firearms safety to those who may not yet be comfortable using a firearm. This fundraiser will further these development goals.
Technology
You may have noticed, if you’ve been to our website recently, that we went through a major face lift. This was all thanks to the donations from you. We’d limped along with a dated look on our website for several years realizing that we needed to do a refresh, and this year we took the scary plunge and spent countless hours and a good chunk of change to modernize, add relevant sections, and make it more user friendly. We also made a major change to the LGC Online Store.
The new online store is standards based, much easier to use, and allows us to do neat things which we couldn’t before- inventory tracking, sales reporting, and better fulfillment notifications. It also looks a ton better as we’ve standardized things. John, our national merchandise director, has spent many hours researching new products, talking to vendors, evaluating options, and making sure the final designs look fantastic. We’ve rolled out several new products over the last 10 months, and we will continue to roll out new products. We’re also partnering with folks in the industry who have been supportive to the LGC in the last several years who produce high quality, non-biased firearms books and training materials. We may not sell them directly, but we will be linking to them where it makes sense so that you can support those who support our mission.
Chapters
In 2018 we’ve seen 3 new nascent chapters begin, with several others getting the final paperwork to us here at national. We’ve added additional Facebook groups so that these folks can coordinate, meet up, and hang out with like minded folks, and our existing chapters have continued to grow. We are up to 20 chapters as of October 11, 2018.
This has all been made possible with your support! Looking forward to 2019, we are targeting attendance at the same outreach events again, adding more local meet ups and chapters, helping out on specific cases where we have a unique point of view by writing Amicus Briefs, and more, but we can’t do it without you!
So we are doing our first annual LGC fall membership and pledge drive. We’re looking to raise $6000 this quarter to kick off the last fiscal quarter of the year for us, and there’s some good stuff in it for you if you will donate between now and the end of 2018!
For those that are able to help the club on a monthly basis, we have some great gifts for you! In addition to the store credits below, both new and upgraded sustaining memberships will receive a free copy of Grant Cunningham’s e-book, “So You Want to Buy a Gun”, and get a Liberal Gun Club chamber safety flag.
UPGRADE YOUR MEMBERSHIP HERE! (If you are already a sustaining member, you will need to “Stop Automatic Payments” before you can see the upgrade button)
First, at Elite Sustaining Member level at , you will receive the following:
$50 in LGC Store credits. These can be used towards any of the merchandise below.
For our Premium Sustaining Members at $10/month, you will receive the following:
$20 in LGC Store Credits. These can be used towards any of the merchandise below.
For our Sustaining Members at $5/Month:
$10 in LGC Store Credits. These can be used towards any of the merchandise below.
LGC T-Shirt
LGC Rifle Cleaning Mat
LGC Pistol Cleaning Mat
LGC Chamber Flags
Patches
Stickers
If you can make a one time membership upgrade or donation if you are a sustaining member, we have some goodies for you as well!
$50/Year Level/Donation- Receives a free LGC Pistol Mat and an LGC t-shirt
$25/Year Level/Donation- Receives a free LGC Pistol Mat
$10/Year Level/Donation- Receives a free LGC Patch
$5/Year Level/Donation- Receives a free LGC Sticker
In order to receive your gifts, we will be sending out coupon codes for use in the LGC Online Store once every two weeks.