Looking Back at my RESULTS Conferences

Photo Credit: RESULTS Educational Fund

Greetings from the RESULTS International Conference in sunny (for now) Washington D.C.! We are celebrating the 35th Anniversary of this stellar organization, which has played such a pivotal role in the steady march to end poverty. We've been sharing a lot of memories and retrospectives here at the conference and it made me want to post a few of my own memories here on my Anti-Poverty Mom blog. Makes sense because this is the organization that MADE me the Anti-Poverty Mom. 

Getting our pic with my Senator Obama's foreign policy
aide at my 1st RESULTS conference

2008: The year I took a leap of faith. 
I wanted to learn to lobby in person and heard from people in the know that RESULTS teaches face-to-face lobbying better than any other organization. Wow. That's huge considering the people that told me also belonged to other advocacy organizations. So, I left my babies with my husband and went all by myself to the RESULTS International Conference where I knew exactly ZERO people. During that week, I met people I now call dearest friends and role models. I lobbied my senator's office never knowing that Senator Obama would soon become President Obama.

Standing with lobbying giants Sarah Beardmore and RESULTS
legend Bob Dickerson

2009: The year of the green suit. 
(Who wears a green suit?) By this time, I had been bitten by the lobbying bug hard and was on my way to becoming a regularly published letter-to-the-editor writer. I loved RESULTS so much, I ran for the national board by making a speech in front of the whole conference...and won! Wait, what?! Yep, I became the Evanston group leader and a board member the same year. With pre-schoolers. See what a good green suit can do for you?

A photo op with Senator Dick Durbin of Illinois

2010: The year I met Senator Dick Durbin. 
By this time, my U.S. Representative Jan Schakowsky knew my name and even mentioned me in a speech. More importantly, I'm feeling super empowered because I walked into their offices, asked them to do things, and they said "Yes!" You're looking at a mommy drunk with power!!! Fortunately, when I came home, my kids wasted no time dumping food on the floor, which I had to clean. Humility restored. 

2011: The year of the D.C. family vacation.
By this time, my family was wondering what the heck I do with myself at the RESULTS International Conference of mystery. The girls were still too little to come with me, but we decided they are old enough to enjoy some museums and, I guess, an open-bar reception in the Capitol. I greeted them with "Future Member of Congress" T-shirts and we ushered them in to meet all my friends, colleagues, and celebrity activist Valerie Harper. Then, later, even after the conference was over, we had a double senator meeting at the IL constituent breakfast with senators Durbin and Kirk. Um...yes...somtimes our family lobbies on vacation on our free time. We're a bundle of fun!

Pre-Lobby Day shenanigans at a podium

2012: The year I was elected to Senate.
No, no. Just kidding. But I did quit my board term early and start working as RESULTS staff part-time on the fundraising team. I got paid for talking on the phone and emailing the most wonderful people every day! I loved being so involved with our volunteer activists and getting to know the staff I admired so much as friends and colleagues. I no longer had any free time and learned that everyone who works at a non-profit does about 30% more things that I thought they did.

My daughter & I become a DC lobbying team

2013: Take your daughter to work year.
Finally deciding my oldest daughter had enough patience to sit through conference sessions (even if she reads books while we meet), I brought her out to DC with me. After all, she'd already attended more in-district lobby meetings than most adults by this point in her short life. Turned out she was great at filing things and sorting nametages, so "take your daughter to work day" became "put your daughter to work" day as well.

Bringing the little sister to join the team

2014: The year BOTH daughters attended.
By this time, I had decided to leave my part-time job because of my decision to become a writer. Yet it was far from a slow paced conference. That year I brought both girls, ran for board again (and won), met the president of the World Bank Dr. Jim Kim for the price of writing a thoughtful blog piece about his speech, coached a team full of brand new poverty advocates on my team, and even helped acclimate movie star Sean Astin to our happy family traditions. Honestly, I'm kind of tired even thinking of last year!

2015: ??????

What will this year hold? I don't know, but I'm here with my two seasoned lobbyist kids and heading to offices who darn well know who we are now. All I can say, is that I'm excited for the future days and future years with all my RESULTS family.


And now, here's a retrospective of my dear friendship with Jen Paprotna who has now left the RESULTS staff for another organization. Here are all our pictures together in one place from Lobby Days past. (Honestly, 2012 was a rough year on that open bar.) Enjoy, Jen!

2009

2012

2013

2014

Senate Praises Bread for the World's Advocacy Work

Usually, advocacy organizations are recognizing members of Congress for their work. Last week, it was the other way around! Thank you, Senator Durbin!

"Sen. Richard Lugar (R-IN) introduced a resolution recognizing Bread for the World’s 35 years of work on hunger and poverty. Sens. Blanche Lincoln (D-AR) and Richard Durbin (D-IL) were original cosponsors of the resolution. S. Res. 157 passed the Senate by unanimous consent on June 2."

Global health is a local issue

Here is an op-ed I wrote about the Global Fund running into funding shortages due to donor nations backing out. Usually, it's enough just to post the piece here, but I want to use it as an example of how media advocacy can work together with face-to-face advocacy.

Two weeks ago, my RESULTS group had an amazing face-to-face meeting with Jan Schakowsky asking her to champion full funding of our fair share. She agreed to look into it and work more with the RESULTS staff in DC on it, so I am helping her out and hoping to inspire her further by linking the issue to our local interests in local media. This ran in her district and in at least one paper in a neighboring district.

My RESULTS group will try to get even more mileage out of it by having others write letters to the editor about it and post comments on the on-line versions of the paper. All of the media we generate will be sent to the Congresswoman and her aides, so they can see that we are her partners in this endeavor and we are actively working on promoting the issue to her constituents. Since we also are lucky enough to have a Senator strong on global health, I also mentioned him and will send copies to Senator Durbin's office as well.

Please read on! -ccyl
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Global health is a local issue
February 19, 2009

Times are hard. Regular folks are cutting back on charitable donations and they're not alone. Countries are doing it, too. Donor nations backing out of established commitments to the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria are projected to cause a $5 billion shortage in 2010. The U.S. is falling short by $1 billion for 2009.

Many Americans react to such news by thinking, "That's unfortunate, but things are tough all over. We need to keep our money at home." One billion dollars seems like a lot to send overseas when families right here are making routine trips to the food pantry.

The problem with this view is a matter of scale. When considered out of context, a billion dollars sounds deceptively large. Despite misconceptions that five, 10 or even 20 percent of our national budget is given away to help developing nations, only a 0.16 percent sliver of last year's $13 trillion pie went to development assistance.

What would our fair share contribution do? First and foremost, it would save lives. It would put the U.S. in a leadership position to leverage contributions from other nations so the Global Fund can continue its groundbreaking programs. Last year alone, the Global Fund distributed 70 million anti-malaria bed nets, provided antiretroviral drugs to 2 million people living with HIV, and treated 4.6 million cases of tuberculosis. Other activities included helping children orphaned by disease, sheltering women disowned by husbands who infected them with AIDS, teaching remote villagers to detect and treat malaria locally, and even protecting Cook County residents from the global rise of drug-resistant TB.

It's a mistake to assume that the problems of global poverty are full of exotic diseases and have no impact on Americans. Failure to control TB in concentrated areas anywhere in the world can give rise to a more dangerous strain of drug-resistant TB that's just a plane ride away from infecting our country. Diseases of poverty also affect national security. Our friends and relatives in the armed forces risk their lives in countries where poverty has created conditions ripe for violence and instability.

Many of us fall into the trap of thinking widespread global disease and poverty are unsolvable problems. Don't believe that for a second. Since 1980, the percentage of people in the developing world living in extreme poverty has fallen from 50 percent to 25 percent.

The choice does not have to be whether we use our resources to take care of us or "them." The choice can be both. Though foreign aid funding is an easy target in a recession, it uses a very small portion of our resources.

The decision whether or not to honor our pledge to the Global Fund will be greatly influenced by the actions of U.S. representatives, senators and a president from Illinois. There is a saying that "all politics are local." The old adage is particularly true for us in Illinois. Our leaders like Rep. Jan Schakowsky, D-9th, and Sen. Richard Durbin, D-Ill., have strong records of supporting global health programs.

All politics may be local, but when we consider the tremendous impact of reducing HIV/AIDS, TB and malaria in the world today -- our local politics are global.

Global Food Security Act

Some quick notes about the Global Food Security Act introduced last week. The news has an IL aspect as Sen Durbin is now an original sponsor!

-Sens. Richard Lugar (R-IN) and Bob Casey (D-PA) introduced their Global Food Security Act (S. 384) last week, joined by Senator Richard Durbin (D-IL) as an original sponsor.

-The bill seeks to improve coordination of programs that support global food security; increase the resources available for agriculture, rural development, and nutrition programs; and create a fund for immediate food emergency response.

- A similar bill is expected to be introduced in the House.

Visit to Durbin's Office: July 15, 2008

I suppose this is second in a series...a write-up my RESULTS lobby visits to my members of Congress...

After Obama's office we trotted over to Senator Richard Durbin's office to meet with 2 of his aides. His office is much different than Obama's. A little fancier in the furnishings...a flat screen TV showing CSPAN-2 in the lobby which houses two receptionists instead of one. When we walked in, Senator Demint was speaking against the existing Lantos-Hyde global health bill and in support of one of the amendments...I forget which. The three of us gathered around the TV making various grumbling noises. One receptionist politely offered us seats and we all said "NO!.....um, we mean, we're fine...we're good...umm...that's our bill they're talking about...sorry..."

We were admitted in to speak with two foreign policy aides who work together. Very nice and warm people. We gave our thank you's for Durbin: Global Poverty Act support, general support for fighting against TB, and I couldn't resist throwing in a Farm Bill thank you as well since I had written an LTE in the Wash Times about that. We gave him the same requests about Lantos-Hyde and appropriations (see yesterday's post) and asked him to speak to his colleagues in support of the GPA. The conversation with these aides was much more back-and-forth than with Obama's aide. They asked about what requests we would make of the representatives we'd be seeing later, so we told them about a micro-finance letter to the World Bank that would be circulating for the reps to sign. We'd be asking for them to sign onto that and to co-sponsor a Congressional Medal for Mohammed Yunus for his micro-finance work. This was my favorite part of the meeting. One of the aides asked for our help on that Medal ask since it was his job to contact all the IL reps office's on behalf of Durbin to convince them to sign on. It felt really good to be able to do that aide a favor...like a real working relationship. Perhaps a small thing, but I like to think we are working with them in partnership!

Anyway, we hustled out of there right after the meeting ended and got up to the top of the Senate as quickly as we could. I feel so lucky that we got there in time to see Durbin giving his closing remarks on a speech in support of Lantos-Hyde and specifically in support of fighting HIV/AIDS in Africa. It was a mere hours before the vote. He was speaking to a largely empty room on the floor unfortunately, but anyone watching CSPAN-2 was getting it! We couldn't say anything of course, but had he looked up into the gallery, he would have seen our silent applause and fist pumping at the end. I feel so lucky to have Durbin as my senator!

Senator Durbin on the Food Crisis

This is Durbin's response to my letter to him about the food crisis. My apologies for typos as I typed this in from a hard copy!
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Thank you for contacting me about the importance of addressing the global food crisis. I appreciate haring from you and share your concerns.

More than 800 million people around the world do not have enough food to eat. Many of them have resorted to extreme measures in an attempt to combat their hunger. Many Haitians, for instance, are forced to eat cakes made of mud mixed with a little bit of oil and flour. The lack of access to food has already led to riots in more than 30 countries, including Bangladesh, Egypt and Haiti.

Over the last few years, prices for staples such as wheat, corn, and rice have doubled or tripled. The largest increases have taken place in the last few months. Rising food prices have cause the World Food Program to announce that without emergency funding it will be forced to reduce the amount of food it provides an also end some of its programs.

There is an urgent need for action. On April 15, 2008, I wrote a letter to President Bush which was cosigned by Senators Joe Biden of Delaware and John Kerry of Massachusetts urging the President to request additional funds to address the looming international food crisis. In May 2008, I supported a Senate measure to increase our nation's food assistance funding to a total of $1.245 billion, which is $500 million more than the President requested.

I will continue to work to address the dramatically escalating food prices that threaten to cause widespread hunger and social unrest around the world. I appreciate your support in this effort.

Thank you for contacting me. Please feel free to stay in touch.

Sincerely,
Richard J. Durbin
United States Senator