Thanks for sending me to Netroots Nation, DFA!

I can't say enough about how great Netroots Nation was last week.

It was an incredible experience for me and an ever better opportunity to network, train, and learn from some of the best in the business. (I also played a lot of poker -- lost, but still had fun!) But I wouldn't have been able to go without a sizable investment in me politically by Democracy for America.

Joining great new media activists like Daily Kos' own slinkerwink, Future Majority's Mike Connery, and our movement's 15 year old wiz kid Karl Singer (populista), I was among some pretty great bloggers and activists. But, more importantly, none of us would have been able to afford it without DFA.

I just finished penning a thank you note to the team over at DFA with a $20 check I hope will go to funding the scholarship program in 2010. I've attached it below and I encourage you to do the same.

Dear DFA,
Thank you for sending me to Netroots Nation this year.

I was truly honored to have been selected by you and for the opportunity I was provided. The program that you all have put together is incredibly important in cultivating progressives across the country. I appreciate your investment in me.

Here is $20. I'd like it to go toward next year's scholarships.

Best wishes,

Mike Nellis

I could go on and on thanking DFA for their hard work, but I have something different in mind.

I've just set up an ActBlue page for DFA to kick off next years program right. These scholarship do not come cheap and it puts a hefty burden on DFA and their donors. That's why I'd like to not only provide some relief but help them expand the program to more progressive activists in 2010.

This is truly a great program that has to be continued next in Vegas at Netroots Nation 2010. Great progressives who don't have the money or the institutional support to attend important conferences like Netroots Nations have to have some mechanism to get there. It's an opportunity lost for them.

That's why DFA's scholarship program is so critical to the progressive movement.

$20 bucks can really make all the difference. That's all the money I could donate right now but it won't be the last. If you can at least match my donation you can help send the next generation of progressives to the most important conference of the year. Or, perhaps even better, you can help worthy activists step it up to the next level by providing them with this opportunity in 2010.`

Thanks again DFA, and thanks to all of you out there who voted for me last May.

Please, make a small donation and help fund this program in 2010.