<Begin Segment 8>

TI: So they asked you to be a fundraiser. And why don't you talk a little bit more about your strategy or tactics to raise money for the JACL at that point.

HK: First of all, you have to recognize the donors. And you have to, well, what I did was I held monthly meetings. And one of the things I think, since I was commuting from Oxnard, I think it kind of -- and the meeting was in Los Angeles I should say, which is anywhere from an hour and a half to two hours' ride, depending on traffic sometimes it's three hours one way -- and so I think that was one of the things that I did this fairly conscientiously. And so that helped me, I guess, to progress up the ladder. But, regular meetings. And then one of the things I did was, it was a pledge -- chapter pledge chart. Which I not only, I put in the Pacific Citizen. And some people called it the 'shame chart,' but what that showed was it showed... it's just like the United Way, where they show the thermometer, well, this was a chart with the chapters in and you had goals, 25 percent, 50 percent, and darkened if you met. And so when I became chair at the Pacific Southwest District, our pledge was $37,500. I raised it the first year, raised it the second year and actually the person who donated... one family donated $7,500. That's why it kind of helped 'cause it was still difficult to get money. And then the third year was when somebody else took over. I then became the national LEC fundraising chair.

TI: It sounds like a real success.

HK: But based on that, I think that they, Min Yasui said, "You know, were gonna need somebody." And there wasn't anybody that... well, I guess there wasn't anybody -- I think I just did it. I said, "Okay Min, I'm gonna be the LEC fundraising chair and formulate from scratch and set up a structure," you know, where you raise the money.

TI: Before we get to that part, I want to just follow up on a question. You mentioned earlier that some people called the fact that you sort of publicized the goals and what people were raising as sort of the 'shame chart,' I'm curious about that term and how that came about.

HK: Well, because if you see your chart and some people have made -- some chapters, I should say, raised a hundred percent already early on -- and here you're a great big chapter and maybe you met ten percent of your pledge. So there was a competition, a forced competition. So 'shame chart,' because shame if you didn't, you know, do your share. And, of course, we had regular meetings. And the chapter representatives -- mostly we had about sixteen chapters coming regularly because like Arizona, the chapter of the Pacific Southwest and they couldn't come and Las Vegas was one also -- but consistent meetings, you know. And what they did was they shared ideas on how they, their strategies for raising money and everybody shared that. And, of course, I passed on information on what they were doing at the national level, and so I think that helped. It created a desire to, you know, "Let's get this thing done." And, you know, money is crucial, 'cause there's no other thing... you know, a project could be a wonderful project, but if you don't have money you're not going to make it.

<End Segment 8> - Copyright © 1997 Densho. All Rights Reserved.