Thanks to over 10 organizations, foundations, & community members participating in our COMMUNITY MATCH PROGRAM!!! They are:

The Schuft Family Trust • Emily Joffrion • The Biscuit & Louie Charitable Fund • Sarah Rogers & Bob Hillman • Emma Peck • Diane Cheng • The Mayerson Foundation • Nathan & Megan Walsh • Carol Dabrowiak • Sarina & Owen Kennerly • Dave Klaus • Adina Rose • Multiple Anonymous Donors

THANK YOU! WE LOVE YOU!

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If you made it to this fundraiser and are reading this, you have some sense for, compulsion towards, or likely a belief in, what our creatively conscious mortality nonprofit is up to in the world. So first of all, THANK YOU for taking the time to see what this fundraiser is all about. It's over a decade-long story in the making, but I think we can keep it to an effectively informative three minutes of reading time!

You’re Going to Die (YG2D) is a nonprofit bringing diverse communities creatively into the conversation of death and dying, inspiring life by unabashedly sourcing our shared mortality. This mission has brought us to communities all over the world. Bolstered by your generous support, we’ve been able to help create spaces for creative catharsis and healing connection with communities inside multiple prisons, with groups of exonerated and freed people in California and Ohio, with cancer patients at UCSF, at the bedside of the dying through our hospice partnerships, with the public through our grief & gratitude open mics in San Francisco, Los Angeles, Portland, and Seattle, and with community globally through our online writing workshops and our free Podcast.

This year we are focusing on sustaining this work by asking you to consider giving monthly and supporting us year round! We have a generous group of donors who have offered to give $50k when we reach our goal of 200 monthly donors! One-time donations of any amount are a great way to support us as well.

Keep reading to learn more about our growing programming and find out why we need more support from YOU, our community, than ever before!

And all the way at the end we have little more information about giving options like DAFpay and Employer match funds.

ALIVE INSIDE PRISON PROGRAM

“It always provides a space for listening and sharing without being judged”

“Openness and honesty of just being seen as human beings is transformational”

“Feeling powerless in my grief and regrets today and past week and being able to share it creatively was needed.”

“I showed up to read the letter I wrote 3 years ago to my beloved sis, this is the first time here on open mic and first I shared her letter”

“The music was amazing. I got to rap and feel seen and heard. Keep coming back. Never stop”

-Just a few of the notes incarcerated folks at San Quentin have written to us after Alive Inside Events.

In addition to our ongoing work at San Quentin, facilitating weekly training for the Light Keepers, a peer support suicide prevention program, and our monthly open mic programming, this year we were able to expand and continue our work at CMC in San Luis Obispo and RJD in San Diego, thanks to our 2nd year of partnership with Arts in Corrections, a California Arts Council program.

Our Alive inside team has also partnered with After Innocence, an organization serving wrongfully convicted individuals after they are released, offering a series of weekly writing workshops to freed and exonerated folks in California.

CANCER PATIENT FACILIATION

We continue our work facilitating creative space for cancer patients, with workshops online and at the hospital bedside, offering a chance for healing in community through creative self-expression.

SONGS FOR LIFE HOSPICE PROGRAM - NOW IN SF & LA AREAS!!!

Our Songs for Life hospice program serves hospice and other end-of-life communities, wherein musicians meet with participants to play and create music inspired by their lives and experiences. The program is designed to help create meaning, connection, and offer a musical holding that has the power to remind us we are not alone. This past year we expanded the program to the Los Angeles area, training a new cohort of musicians in partnership with a local hospice organization. In total our musicians made 70+ visits throughout the year, serving over 15 individuals in hospice care.

PODCAST

We have just recently returned to a new season of our creatively conscious mortality podcast, kicking it off with an incredibly moving conversation with Ada Limón released just a few weeks ago. In past seasons we had the great honor of interviewing Naomi Shihab Nye, Ani DiFranco, Prentis Hemphill, and Andrea Gibson.

GRIEF RELEASE

We provide a FREE Monthly online Grief support group every 1st Wednesday at 5pm Pacific time. This is a drop in space for folks to share about their grief and connect with others, supported by music and facilitated by experienced professionals.

ALL THE SHOWS AND WORKSHOPS

Our monthly Grief and Gratitude open mic in SF continues to be a staple of our nonprofit. We love the magic that is created at the Lost Church in North Beach in this reliable and connective gathering that has been at the heart of what we’ve been doing since 2009. We expanded to Los Angeles 2 years ago and we are becoming a more consistent presence in Portland as well! These open mic offerings have kept us extremely busy this past year but sometimes we also do really big shows like hosting The Bengsons and Sonya Renee Taylor at the Freight and Salvage!

We continue to offer writing workshops both online and in person. Some of our themes this past year have been Family Estrangement, Death of a Parent, and Writing about grief with Literary Craft.

IN CONCLUSION! (WHY WE NEED YOUR HELP)

As you can see, we are doing A LOT. And we have invitations from more communities, prisons, and organizations who want to work with us. We need to sustain and grow our team to continue making all of this work possible. As our programs expand and our leadership team grows, we need more support from our community than ever before. We need your help raising at least $100k this year! A group of six generous anonymous donors have already committed $50k to this fundraiser, with a goal of helping us reach sustainability through monthly contributions. Once we hit 200 monthly donors (at any dollar amount) we will unlock that $50k! We absolutely welcome one-time gifts as always, but we would love for you to consider a monthly donation if it's feasible for you this year!

If you aren't in a position to contribute this year, firstly THANK YOU for reading all of this. and Secondly, please consider supporting us by sharing on social media and sharing directly with folks you think would want to support. We have found that personal stories about what You're Going to Die has meant for you are very effective in helping people understand what their contributions are making possible!

PLEASE CONTRIBUTE TODAY TO HELP US REACH OUR GOAL!

And thank you - we couldn't do this work without your support.

With So Much Love & Gratitude,

Ned Buskirk, Executive Director

Chelsea Coleman, Creative Director & Songs for Life SF

Jordan Edelheit, Director of ALIVE INSIDE prison program

Caitlin Jemma, Director of LA Programming and Songs for Life LA

Nick Jaina, Podcast producer and designer

Charlotte Johnson, Volunteer Coordinator

& the ever-growing team of dedicated musicians and volunteers who make this work possible

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OTHER WAYS TO GIVE

Although the Givebutter platform should have all the payment options you need, you can always contribute directly through Paypal (monthly giving option available and it will be counted toward the 200 monthly donor match goal), Venmo, or you can send us a check**, and we will manually add it to our fundraiser total. Just let us know whether you’d like to stay anonymous.

DAF (Donor Advised Funds) - we have a convenient DAFpay option, but for Donor-Advised Fund gifts over $5,000, please contact our team directly at connect@yg2d.com to arrange a direct check or wire transfer so 100% of your impact goes directly to our programs.

Checks can be made out to YG2D and mailed to YG2D, PO Box 720040, San Francisco CA 94172

Employer Match - Please consider checking with your employer to see if they match charitable contributions! Many employers match donations dollar for dollar (Google, Apple, Salesforce, Netflix and many more!). Check with your HR department or wrokplace giving portal (Often Benevity or Yourcause).

You're Going to Die's 2026 Annual Community Fundraiser

Help sustain our work!