1. What is CRY America?

2. Does CRY America have a mission?

3. What are CRY America’s beliefs?

4. What is CRY America’s role?

5. CRY America’s values?

6. What does CRY America do to make these happen?

7. How does CRY America reach out to children?

8. What is Child Rights?

9. How does CRY America select the organizations it supports?

10. Will volunteers have access to information about these projects?

11. Who is a typical CRY America volunteer?

12. What is the Role of a Volunteer?

13. What is the Role of an Action Center

14. How many Action Centers are part of CRY America as of March 2004? Who are the Action Center Leaders?

15. Action Centre Leaders Collective?

16. How do we raise money in the US?

17. Event Ideas for Action Centres?

18. National Events for 2004

19. What is the Structure of CRY America?

20. CRY America Board & Role?

21. CRY America Executive Committee (Exec Comm) & Role?

22. CRY America Corporate office plans?

23. CRY America Accounting/banking?

24. CRY America Insurance arrangements?

25. CRY Products?

26. CRY America Communication material available for all Action Centers?

27. CRY America Web site & IT requirements?

28. List of all official crymail public web based addresses?

29. How long has CRY America been around? What is the status of tax exemption?

30. Relationship between CRY (India) & CRY America?

31. Relationship between CRY America and the erstwhile CRY Inc.?

32. 2003 CRY America National Review at a glance

33. 2004 CRY America National Plans at a glance

CRY America is CRY, Child Relief and You America Inc. is a non profit organization registered in the USA in November 2002 that works towards restoring basic rights to underprivileged children, especially Indian. At CRY America we believe that each of us as individuals can make a difference. All it takes is the belief that "Change is possible, because I’ll make it possible". We believe that together, we can create a movement that can steadily, magically gather momentum and irrevocably change children’s lives.
For more details please refer to the CRY America general presentation document (i) – this is a must read document for all action centre leaders and is meant for dissemination to all CRY America volunteers.

To enable people to take responsibility for the situation of the underprivileged children, specially Indian, and so motivate them to confront the situation through collective action thereby giving the child and themselves an opportunity to realize their full potential.
CRY America’s focus is on child rights. CRY America works for the realization of the rights of underprivileged children- street children, the girl child, children bonded in labor, children of commercial sex workers, physically and mentally challenged children and children in juvenile institutions.

Education First! At CRY America we believe that the only way to make a sustainable difference in the lives of underprivileged children is through education. Who else appreciates this better than us …each one of us has reached so far because of the education we received in our formative years.
The power of collective action! At CRY America we believe that if each one of us does something, there is no task which is too big or difficult. We know that when ordinary people, people like you and me join hands we can achieve what mighty governments cannot.
CRY America will ensure complete legal compliance and financial probity and this will not be compromised for any reason whatsoever. CRY America will not, as some other non-profit organisations do, have loose financial systems that permit donor funds and event proceeds to be banked in volunteer’s personal bank accounts prior to transfer to the non-profit accounts for example. It will also report with complete transparency the source and use of every dollar it receives and disburses. All revenues and expenses will be reported fully, not just net incomes or broad revenue heads. This will entail seeking professional assistance in setting up and implementing rigorous financial systems. While every effort will be exercised to keep these costs as low as possible, there will be no compromise made in the interests of economy or expediency.
CRY America will be a transparent organization. CRY America will share its progress regularly with its volunteers, donors and supporters through newsletters, annual reports etc. All-important information will be available on the CRY America web site.

CRY America’s role is to enable people to take responsibility for the situation of the child by creating an awareness on children’s issues, contributing money, time, professional expertise, energy, materials or simply moral support and channeling this support towards the benefit of underprivileged children in India and the USA.

CRY America operates on the values of

For every underprivileged child, there are at least a handful of people who want to help. CRY America is the LINK between the child in need and you…wherever you are.
The core of CRY America is volunteer action. CRY America runs on the strength of her volunteers. Volunteers are a team of dedicated people willing to give their time and skills to promote and build CRY America and to raise resources for underprivileged children.

CRY America reaches out to underprivileged children by:

In 1989, the UN defined its Charter of Child Rights. India is a signatory to this convention, as are 191 other countries. This is an international human rights treaty built on the premise that children are born with fundamental freedoms and the inherent rights of all human beings. India signed this treaty in 1992. It mentions the 4 basic rights that every child in the world should enjoy, without any discrimination.

The organizations that CRY America supports will be selected for their track record, the issues they work with and the impact on the community they work with. We also realize the criticality of ensuring that the resources are used by these organizations optimally and effectively.
To ensure this CRY America works with CRY, an Indian NGO, to ensure the quality of each of these interventions. CRY, an organization with impeccable standards of accountability and transparency, has over the past 24 years, developed highly effective selection, planning, monitoring and evaluation systems for this purpose.
CRY America will also support initiatives for children in the USA, specifically in the cities where action centers are located. This will be done with the help of US based Consultants.
For more details please refer to the CRY America Disbursal Policy Framework document (ii)

CRY America will report on the progress of each of these initiatives periodically to all its supporters – donors and volunteers. One can go to the website: http:\\www.america.cry.org for more details about CRY America and the projects.

Anyone who is willing to give his/her time and skills for joining in the fight for restoring child rights to each and every child in India and in the US.
In the first phase we have focused on people of Indian origin, but each action centre is welcome to expand the volunteer base beyond that.

Each volunteer is a child advocate. He / She is also a brand ambassador of CRY America. He / she works among his/ her colleagues, friends, family and local community to raise awareness for the status of children in India and helps harness resources …both financial and non financial, through CRY America. Each effort of the volunteer is a building block to achieve the ultimate goal of CRY America - ensuring a secure future for children!
A CRY America volunteer would participate in the following way….

Each action centre gives us an opportunity to harness the resources available within America and direct it towards something meaningful for children. It also allows us an opportunity to contribute towards India’s future by being a part of a global movement for Indian children.
Volunteers in each action centre have the following principal tasks -

All action centre leaders are part of the Action Centre Leaders collective. The purpose of this group is to share ideas and learn from each other, thereby strengthening action centers individually and collectively. This group is also responsible for planning and review of action centre activities and plans and is led by Rajesh Munshi. This collective has it’s own yahoo group and meets once a month via telecon. All action centre leaders are requested to join the monthly telecons as they are very useful to understand what’s happening at the other action centers and for others to understand your action centre.
The first Annual Volunteer Conference was held on June 1&2, 2003 in New Hampshire. It has been agreed that this is an important meeting to build synergies at the national level and needs to be held every year.
This is the only time we meet face to face and requires the participation of all action centre leaders. The 2004 Volunteer Conference is being planned for July 24 & 25, 2004 …pls block these dates in your diary!!
Contact Rajesh Munshi for all support in the area of Volunteer Mobilization and starting/strengthening action centers. His email id is rajeshm@windows.microsoft.com

By using the following tools:

Some ideas are:

The following two events have been agreed upon as the national events for 2004:

CRY America Walk 2004 is being planned for September 2004. The following 8 action centres will be participating in this Event. Sarika Aggarwal (Boston AC leader) is the national lead for this event, if your action centre would like to participate…pls contact Sarika.
• Bay Area – August 22, 2004
• Boston – September 12, 2004
• Davis
• Utah
• New York – New Jersey
• Raleigh- Durham
• Richmond – September 18, 2004
• Seatlle – September 12, 2004

The Hari Prasad Chaurasia Concert series is being planned by 8 action centres for October 2004. Saravanan Arunachalam is the national lead for this event. The following action centres will be hosting the event.
• Seattle – October 2, 2004
• Bay Area – October 9, 2004
• Detroit – October 22, 2004
• Boston – October 23, 2004
• New York – New jersey – October 24, 2004
• Pittsburgh – October 29, 2004
• Raleigh – Durham – October 30, 2004
• Washington DC (by Richmond) – October 31, 2004

CRY America Board (including CEO)
CRY America Executive Committee (including CEO & Resource Generation Manager)
Action Center Leaders
Volunteer Core Groups across Action Centers
Volunteers

The trustees are responsible for the overall governance of CRY America as specified in the Bylaws and specifically, in the areas of CRY America policy, statutory & legal compliance, overall financial management and approval of business plans towards building a strong and relevant organization. The Board comprises of the following persons:

The executive committee as a collective leadership body at the national level will provide leadership, direction, guidance to CRY America; uphold & enable internalization of CRY America’s mission, values and objectives; develop strategies and plans to achieve CRY America’s goals and be accountable for CRY America’s operations and resources, towards enabling the growth of an efficient and effective organization. This group also has it’s own yahoogroup and meets twice in a month via telecon. The first face to face Exec Com meeting was held in New Hampshire on June 1, 2003.

Volunteer Mobilisation	Rajesh Munshi	Rajeshm@windows.microsoft.com	425-882-9446 (r)
Disbursals	Samir Panchal	Samirpanchal@yahoo.com	256-759-0123 (m)
Products	Sanjay Nanda	Sanjay@nandamail.com	617-293-4333 (m)
Communications & Fund raising	Indira Vaidy Aziz Boxwala	Ivaidy@aol.com Boxwala@yahoo.com	804-271-2377 617-953-0116 (m)
IT	Taruna Tayal	tarunatayal@hotmail.com	919-474-8886 (r)
CEO	Shefali Sunderlal	Shefali.sunderlal@crymail.org	011-91- 98450-17435 (m)

For more details on the structure and roles, refer to the Note on the Management of CRY America (iv)

Plans to set up a small corporate office in Boston have been firmed up. This office will be the central coordinating office for all CRY America activities and will comprise 2 full time employees, the CEO and the Resource Generation Manager. The Corporate office is likely to start functioning in October/November 2004.
Meanwhile, Vinod George has allowed us to use his address for all official and legal correspondence. The following details must be used as our corporate contacts at the moment:
CRY, Child Relief and You America Inc,
19 University Avenue,
Medford, MA 02155.
Email:cryamerica@crymail.org
Website: www.america.cry.org

We presently have a central bank account in Fleet bank, Boston which is being used for action centre accounts and general donations.
We have also finalized national banking & payment gateway facilities with Citibank in New York. This bank account is being kept open for testing website online donations for a couple of months after the website is launched in May 2004. A lock box for check receipts will also be set up in the second half of the year.
Action Centers are to follow guidelines to start local bank accounts and authorisation is required for starting of local bank accounts. Opening of local bank accounts needs to be sanctioned by the Board.
We have subcontracted our accounting requirements such as state registrations/filings, book keeping & accounting advice to Vaugh & Associates based in Boston. All action centers are requested to read through and follow the accounting guidelines that have been developed for CRY America. Copies of bills/vouchers for all expenses needs to be retained. CRY America’s accounts will be audited annually and it is necessary for the Action centre accounts and the cental book keeping to tally completely. Each action centre needs to have a dedicated person to handle the accounts and this person should be in regular touch with the accountants.
CRY America’s 2003 accounts have been closed. In our first year of operations we raised a total revenue of $ 87,709 and a net revenue of $ 59,200 primarily through volunteer fund raising efforts. Please go through the 2003 CRY America review document for more details on our achievements for 2003.
All action centres need to send in their account statements (in the available format) along with the cheques/monies to David Guido at the following address and tel number. It is recommended that accounts are sent by all action centres within 10-15 days of closing each of the Events:
Vaughn & Associates PC
639 Granite Executive Park, Suite 408,
Braintree, MA 02184
Tel #: 781-356-1603
Accounting guidelines (v) have been developed which need to be read and followed by all Action Centres.
Contact David Guido for all queries/matters related to Accounting/banking. His email id is dguido@vaughnassociatespc.com

Robertson Taylor Inc are our Insurance agents and they are based in New York. General Liability Insurance for CRY America is in place. Action Centre leaders are to contact Maria Demonte for specific event insurance certificates at least a week in advance of the event with information as specified in the Insurance guidelines document(vi).
Contact Aziz Boxwala for any queries/help on the Insurance front. His email id is boxwala@yahoo.com and mobile number is 617-953-0116.

Greeting Cards and other products are available for sale by all action centers.
Contact Sanjay Nanda for all information/help in this regard. His email id is sanjay@nandamail.com and his mobile number is 617-293-4333.

All action centre leaders must read the following material and use the communication material as widely as possible. You are also requested to contact Yogita Verma/Shefali Sunderlal for material for your specific action centre Events also. CRY America branding must be consistent across all action centers.

The CRY America website www.america.cry.org provides all necessary information about the organization, including information on the Action Centers. The site is being revamped and will be ready by the end of April 2004. This website will also have an online payment facility for web based donations through credit card deductions. Include the CRY America website info on all your action centre material
Start an internal yahoogroup for your action centre which will keep all your volunteers connected and updated…start this yourself. Include Rajesh & Shefali on this yahoogroup, so they can help you from time to time
External/public crymail addresses (refer point 26) for all action centers have been set up where donors, supporters and potential volunteers can reach you …contact Taruna to get this going
Get onto the action centre leaders national yahoo group … contact Rajesh.
E- letterheads and visiting cards are available for all action centers …contact Taruna.
Contact Taruna Tayal for all queries/help in relation to the website and other IT requirements. Her email id is tarunatayal@hotmail.com

	Action Center	Coordinator	Official CRY mail Address
1.	Corporate	Shefali Sunderlal	cryamerica@crymail.org
2.	Cincinnati	Ashima Gupta	Cryamerica.cincinnati@crymail.org
3.	Bay Area	Dilip Khadye	cryamerica.ba@crymail.org
4.	Boston	Sarika Agarwal	cryamerica.boston@crymail.org
5.	Chicago		cryamerica.chicago@crymail.org
6.	College Station	Jayant Anand	cryamerica.cs@crymail.org
7.	Detroit	Samir Singh	cryamerica.detroit@crymail.org
8.	Kansas	Tulika Banafarl	cryamerica.kansas@crymail.org
9.	Lexington	Aditya Nagaraj	cryamerica.lexington@crymail.org
10.	Davis	Taaru Chawla	Cryamerica.davis@crymail.org
11.	New York-New Jersey	Suresh Ediga	cryamerica.nynj@crymail.org
12.	Pittsburgh	Aprajita Rathore	cryamerica.pittsburgh@crymail.org
13.	Raleigh – Durham	Saravanan Arunachalam	cryamerica.rdu@crymail.org
14.	Richmond	Sameet Rajguru	cryamerica.richmond@crymail.org
15.	Seattle	Rajesh Munshi	cryamerica.seattle@crymail.org
16.	Charlottesville(VA)	Swaminathan Senthuraman	cryamerica.charlotteva@crymail.org
17.	Rhode Island	Rahul Sharma	cryamerica.ri@crymail.org
18.	Philadelphia	Kunal Bahl	Cryamerica.philadelphia@crymail.org
19.	Washington DC	Gayathri Ranganathan	Cryamerica.dc@crymail.org
20.	Utah	Ramya Nataraj
21.	Indianapolis	Priya Mohan

CRY America is a non-profit organization, registered in the USA in November 2002. We obtained our 501c3 federal tax exemption clearance in November 2003.
All donations to CRY America are now tax exempt. (Please note that as per US laws, "DONATIONS" DOES NOT INCLUDE monies raised through ticket sales, food sales, product sales and 501c3 tax deduction receipts can’t be issued against these contributions)

CRY is the owner and licensor of the CRY name and trademarks worldwide. For more details on CRY, please visit the website www.cry.org.
CRY America is a US 501c3 non profit organization. CRY America is the sole representative and licensee of the Child Relief & You (CRY) name and trademarks in the USA.
CRY America will also collaborate closely with CRY (India) to ensure that the grants to projects in India are optimally utilized and the quality of each of the supported projects is enhanced. CRY has over the past 25 years developed highly effective planning, evaluation and capacity building systems and processes.

>As you maybe aware CRY (India) and CRY Inc (USA) split up due to irreconcilable differences in mid 2002. CRY Inc has changed its name and now operates as HTG Inc/Vibha in the USA. With this name change, please note that no organization called CRY Inc. exists in the USA anymore.
In order to ensure that there are no misapprehensions on the subject, CRY believes that it is important to clearly state that there is currently no relationship between CRY and HTG/Vibha beyond interactions to ensure that financial, brand and other legal issues are concluded satisfactorily. This settlement involves monies raised in the CRY name prior to June 2002 which are owing to CRY. CRY wishes HTG well in its endeavors.
Please note that donations going to HTG/Vibha post June 2002 have not and will not be received by CRY (India). Donations being made to HTG/Vibha are not and will not be received by CRY America either. We have had to make this clarification to several donors and volunteers in the past year. Many donors and volunteers believe that their money is still going to CRY.
CRY America is a separate US organization and does not have any relationship with HTG Inc/Vibha at present. CRY America wishes HTG well and hopes that HTG/Vibha is able to successfully meet its goals, thereby maximizing the impact on the lives of underprivileged children in India.

Action Centers