What Is Nothing but Nets?

What is Nothing But Nets?

Nothing But Nets is a global, grassroots campaign to save lives by preventing malaria, a leading killer of children in Africa. A $10 donation to Nothing But Netsgoes directly toward the purchase and distribution of an insecticide-treated bed net that will protect a family against malaria. The campaign also provides the opportunity to capture your unique and powerful voice to advocate for malaria prevention programs like the President’s Malaria Initiative (PMI) and the Global Fund to Fight HIV/AIDS, TB and Malaria (Global Fund).

The Union for Reform Judaism (URJ) and the Religious Action Center (RAC)have been critical partners of Nothing But Netssince 2007, signifying their commitment to sending nets and saving lives from malaria. In fact, in 2009, URJ congregations wildly surpassed their initial goal of raising $750,000 for Nothing But Nets. By contributing to the campaign and its advocacy efforts, URJ and the RAC will assist Nothing But Nets in providing bed nets to vulnerable children, families and refugees in Africa, helping to end malaria deaths in this generation. To learn more about Nothing But Nets, check out:

Malaria: The Problem

Malaria, which is transmitted from the bite of a mosquito, causes 200 million illnesses per year and kills 600,000 people- mostly children under the age of five. .Ninety percent of deaths caused by malaria occur in Africa where the disease is a leading killer of children. Every 60 seconds a child dies from malaria. Children who are able to survive the disease are faced with physical and mental impairments, such as poor growth and development.

Moreover, every day 25 million pregnant African women risk severe illness and harm to their unborn children from a malaria infection. Malaria incapacitates people and keeps them from working while they recover or take care of sick children. Malaria keeps countries poor, costing Africa approximately $12 billion a year in lost productivity and using up to 40 percent of all public health care resources.

Malaria: The Progress

The good news is that malaria is both preventable and treatable and we’re marking real progress against this deadly disease. Malaria can be prevented by spraying insecticides indoors or by sleeping under insecticide-treated bed nets. Additionally, anti-malaria drugs can be used to treat malaria once it’s contracted. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), malaria prevention efforts have helped reduce malaria rates in Africa by more than a third in the past decade. Now, a child dies every 60 seconds rather than every 30 seconds, which was the case just X years ago.

How YOU Can Help Save Lives

With your help, we can stop this deadly disease in its tracks and end malaria deaths in Africa in this generation. Across North America, congregations are working with Nothing But Netsto raise awareness and funds, and to advocate for combating the spread of malaria.This toolkit provides information on how you can get involved.From basketball tournaments to religious school lessons, from meeting with your member of Congress to signing a petition, from B’nai Mitzvah projects to t-shirt sales, check out the inventive, imaginative ways that congregations are involving their community in this important initiative! Visit .

Why Should Your Synagogue Get Involved?

The moral test of any society is how it treats the most vulnerable of God’s children: the elderly and the ill, the widow and the orphan, and above all, the children. Global efforts call upon us to end extreme poverty. Taking action through Nothing But Nets allows us to follow our tradition that states that saving a single life is the equivalent of saving the entire world.

Why Raise Money for Nets?

Right now, the best preventative measure against malaria is sleeping under insecticide-treated bed nets. Bed nets work in two ways. They stop mosquitoes from biting during the night and spreading the disease, and the insecticide on the nets kills the mosquitoes when they land on them, stopping them from flying on to find their next victim. Bed nets can prevent malaria transmission by 90 percent in high-coverage areas.

It only costs $10 to purchase a net, deliver it to a family and provide education about its importance and use. Although $10 may not sound like much, the cost makes them out of reach for many people at risk of malaria in Africa, where many people survive on less than $1 per day. Nets are a simple, life-saving, cost-effective solution and we need your help to provide them to those in need.

It’s easy to help. Send a net. Save a life.

Why Advocate?

Nothing But Nets works to advocate for U.S. funding of malaria prevention, through the President’s Malaria Initiative (PMI) and the Global Fund to Fight HIV/AIDS, TB and Malaria (Global Fund). A strong URJ voice in the movement to continue U.S. interest in malaria prevention is crucial. There are many ways in which people of all ages, especially youth, can get involved with advocacy. This toolkit provides the groundwork to make advocacy accessible to all URJ congregations!

FUNDRAISE FOR NOTHING BUT NETS

Since its launch in 2006, Nothing But Netshas raised over $40 million to distribute more than six million bed nets to protect children, pregnant women, refugees and families from malaria. We’ve made significant progress but there’s still much to be done and we need your help to continue to send nets and save lives. There are many ways that you can raise funds and contribute to the Nothing But Nets campaign.

Start a Congregational NETraiserTeam

To run a successful campaign, bring together a group of congregants from all subsets of your congregation. The committee can include clergy as well as representatives from the board, Social Action committee, temple youth group, and religious school.

Learn more about the campaign by visiting
Set a goal. Challenge your congregation to provide one net per family or ten nets per religious school class.
Start a NETraiserteam online. Design your team page and send emails to friends and family. Check out to get your team started.

Create a Display

Want a big buzz surrounding your campaign? Create a display in your congregation’s lobby, outside the sanctuary, in the religious school or any other high-traffic location.

Hang a mosquito net over your display table to attract attention. Nets can be purchased on our online store at
Provide handouts, background materials, and more! All-in-one information sheets, brochures, and articles about the campaign are available at
Display your goal! Boost your campaign by displaying your goal and showing everyone how far you’ve come (we love those cardboard thermometers!).
Get the kids involved by soliciting their help in creating handmade posters. You could also create a banner congregants can sign to pledge their support.

Program and Fundraising Ideas

Bring your campaign to life through some of these innovative program ideas:

Sports Tournaments are a great way to fundraise and advocate—especially during a Mitzvah Day. Try hosting your own tournament or get involved with Nothing But Nets’ Buzzkill Tournaments Set a specific goal for fundraising and/or number of letters written to members of Congress, letting them know that you care about malaria. Offer prizes for the teams that raise the most funds, send the most letters and make the biggest impact!
Religious School Lessons are available online for kindergarten through ninth grade.
Holiday Programming is a great time to bring the Nothing But Nets campaign into the folds of congregational life from Chanukah gift-giving to the Passover story of liberation.

Examples of past fundraising and advocacy efforts by URJ congregations:

Temple Beth-El is a small, 260-family congregation in South Bend, Indiana. Recently, the eighth grade Religious School students (6 in the class) completed a ten-week Social Action curriculum which included learning about the war in Sudan, the plight of Darfur refugees, and how malaria is the leading killer of children in Africa. To culminate their learning, the students held a Nothing But Nets fundraiser. Students made flyers and posters and went to the religious school classes to talk to the students about Darfur. The class assembled 2 mini-basketball hoops and sold chances to throw baskets and enter a drawing to win a donated Ipod. The entire Religious School came down to the lobby area to shoot baskets, andparents and a number of other adults present also contributed cash and checks. At the end of the morning, the students had collected nearly $1000. Additional contributions pushed the total closer to $1200, all starting with six students!

At the Stephen Wise Free Synagogue in New York City, the Social Action Committee kicked off a year-long campaign at the synagogue's Mitzvah Day in February. The Religious School later hosted a Basketball FUNdraising Tournament. The Youth Group served as coaches for the 4 teams and they held a bake sale during the tournament. They even raffled off merchandise donated by the NBA, which raised over $550 that resulted in providing 375 nets to families in Africa!

Visit for additional program ideas, handouts and materials.

Engage the North American Federation of Temple Youth (NFTY)

Currently, over 750 reform congregations have temple youth groups (TYGs) that connect over 10,000 Jewish youth to NFTY. As a program that emphasizes community building, service, and social action, temple youth groups can help fundraising and advocacy efforts for Nothing But Nets. There are many ways to do so:

TYGs can organize local Nothing But Nets campaigns to educate their congregations and Hebrew Schools about malaria, the problem it poses, and how to prevent it.
Get your Rabbi to help! Ask them to write a sermon in support of Nothing But Nets, or a series of sermons about the importance of advocacy against global health problems.
TYGs can reach out to other faith based organizations in their community and establish a unified Nothing But Nets campaign.
Encourage others in your TYG to volunteer. A step-by-step process, provided by NFTY, can be found at
Organize TYG teams for Nothing But Nets Buzzkill Tournaments
Support the elimination of malaria as a NFTY action item here:
Help add Nothing But Nets as a partner to NFTY’s Mitzvah Corp, or set up a separate program for it within the Mitzvah Corp.
Organize Kutz camp events supporting Nothing But Nets with counselors.

ADVOCATE WITH NOTHING BUT NETS

“If I am not for myself, who will be for me? If I am only for myself, what am I? If not now, when?” – Pirkei Avot 1:14

What Is Advocacy?

Public actions – letter writing campaigns, public meetings or information sessions with elected officials, and more – that encourage individuals and policymakersto support a particular cause.

Advocacy can be done from your kitchen table, your congregation – or even your room! Educating friends and family over dinner, speaking out in support of an issue, and wearing a t-shirt that makes a statement are all advocacy actions.

Advocacy with Nothing But Netsprovides an opportunity for you to use your voice as a member of the Union for Reform Judaism and as a young person to support efforts to end malaria

Nothing But Nets Advocacy

Nothing But Nets supporters send nets and save lives every day. The U.S. Government plays a critical leadership role in preventing malaria. We need to let our policymakers know that we support this work and encourage them to robustly fund and invest in life-saving programs like the President’s Malaria Initiative (PMI) and the Global Fund to Fight HIV/AIDS, TB and Malaria (Global Fund). By participating in advocacy, you are joining an energized network of individuals around the United States who are working to ensure that our leaders protect children, pregnant women, refugees and families from malaria.

The Jewish People recognize the importance of helping those in need. Nothing But Nets builds on this support in the fight against malaria. At key moments during the year, Nothing But Nets may call on you to ask the US Government to continue its vital support for malaria prevention by backing funding of the President’s Malaria Initiative or the Global Fund to fight HIV/AIDS, TB and Malaria.

President’s Malaria Initiative

Former President George W. Bush started the President’s Malaria Initiative in 2005 to protect women and children in Africa from malaria. The initiative supports proven and cost-effective prevention and treatment interventions, including insecticide-treated bed nets. In the last five years, with the support of national and international partners—including UNICEF, the Global Fund, and faith-based organizations similar to the Union for Reform Judaism—the President’s Malaria Initiative has distributed more than 30 million insecticide=treated bed nets in sub-Saharan Africa.

The Global Fund to Fight HIV/AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria

The Global Fund to Fight HIV/AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria raises money from world governments and international organizations to stop the spread of AIDS, tuberculosis, and malaria and distributes life-saving funds where they are most needed. The fund provides 60 percent of the world’s funding to end malaria death and since its creation in 2002, it has distributed more than 190 million insecticide-treated nets to protect families from malaria.

We will regularly update our advocacy information at

How to Engage Members Of Congress

Your representatives in Washington tackle a variety of issues every day, pursuing their duty of public service to address the problems Americans like you care about. While you might be disappointed not to have immediate access to them, it’s important to remember that members of Congress often rely on staff to advise them on policy decisions. Talking with Congressional office staff can have as large an impact as if you were talking to the member directly.

There are many ways for you to engage your members of Congress and their staff on the issue of preventing malaria:

Call a member of Congress
Schedule and hold a meeting with a member of Congress
Write to your member of Congress
Fill out an Nothing But Nets advocacy card (available at ) to send to a member of Congress

Calling a Member of Congress

Calling your Congressional office is an effective and quick way to ensure that your representatives learn what issues matter to you. The offices have staff dedicated to answering constituent phone calls, letters and emails.

Why are you calling?

It’s important for you to vocalize your support for malaria prevention to help save the lives of those vulnerable to the disease.
The purpose of the call is to tell your representative that you are passionate about preventing the spread of malaria by sending life-saving bed nets to sub-Saharan Africa.
It’s also important that you, as a constituent, voice your support for these issues to your representatives in Washington, so that they feel supported in their decisions to aid malaria prevention efforts.

When you call:

Tell the office you are a constituent. Mention the city or area you live in and tell them how long you have lived there.

Help your member of Congress understand why you are passionate about the issue.

To see more detail on how to call your representatives in Washington, see the Appendix.

For a recommended outline of key advocacy talking points you can use when calling Congressional offices go to

Scheduling a Meeting With a Member of Congress

Meeting with your representatives in Washington is your right as a citizen and also one of the best ways to educate them about the importance of sending insecticide coated bed nets to prevent malaria. Your voice as a constituent is critical, regardless of your representatives’ stance on the issue.

Even if your member of Congress has been critical of foreign aid in the past, YOU have the power to change their opinion.
If your member has always been supportive of global health programs, then they need to hear and understand that their constituency is behind them on this issue and that they should both continue their support and be vocal in favor of sending life-saving bed nets to combat malaria.

The first step to holding a meeting isscheduling it. It’s important to reach out to your Congressional office several weeks ahead of your ideal date. If you aim to schedule your meeting during a time when Congress is in recess, there is a chance the member might be in town and able to meet with you.