RESULTS activists were honored to have Dr Jeffery Sachs address us on a national conference call earlier this month. He gave us some great material to work with and things to chew on. Here's a taste....
"So we have a president who wants to lead, a secretary of state who wants to lead, a budget deficit of enormous proportions where, by the way, they could have said, "OK, instead of $1.4 trillion, we'll have $1.4 trillion plus $10 billion to make sure that the poor don't die from all of this." But they haven't done that yet. And we need to make sure that we do not cause the poor to bear the brunt of this right now and to suffer as all of a sudden, after the trillions, we are told there is not another penny to spend. "
- Dr. Jeffrey Sachs on the RESULTS Global National Conference Call, February 14, 2009.
Listen to and read all of his encouraging words
Thursday, February 26, 2009
Monday, February 23, 2009
If You Take a Mouse to DC
For any activist parents out there, a friend and I were joking about how- if you are successful- every step of lobbying seems to lead to more craziness and work. Like the Laura Numeroff "If you give a mouse a cookie" books:
If you take a mouse to a congressional face-to-face meeting, you're going to have to create a presentation and good leave-behind docs.
If your U.S. Representative likes your message and leave-behinds, you'll have to follow up with her staff.
If her staff completes your requests, you should generate media in her district.
If your media gets published, you'll have send it to all related MOC's with handwritten letters, email it to their aides, distribute it to your activist partners and you'll want to invite your local friends to respond to it with letters to the editor.
If they get published, they'll probably get excited and want to go to your rep's town hall meeting with you to ask a question.
If the question gets run on TV with her response, your rep might want to capitalize on the publicity and take action quickly with her colleagues, which means you should get your activist partners in their districts to call on their reps, too.
If enough reps and senators back the issue, you may get your resolution or funding passed.
If your legislation gets passed, you may get invited to the White House to meet the President at a Rose Garden ceremony with Bono and Jeffery Sachs for your part in fighting extreme poverty.
If you get friendly with Bono and Sachs, they'll probably take you to Africa to teach you more about the crushing need for advocacy in eradicating extreme poverty.
If you meet a lot of people living on less than $1 a day and take the time to understand their struggles, then you'll want to help them by taking their stories to people with the power to change things...
....which means you should probably set up a congressional face-to-face meeting! :)
If you take a mouse to a congressional face-to-face meeting, you're going to have to create a presentation and good leave-behind docs.
If your U.S. Representative likes your message and leave-behinds, you'll have to follow up with her staff.
If her staff completes your requests, you should generate media in her district.
If your media gets published, you'll have send it to all related MOC's with handwritten letters, email it to their aides, distribute it to your activist partners and you'll want to invite your local friends to respond to it with letters to the editor.
If they get published, they'll probably get excited and want to go to your rep's town hall meeting with you to ask a question.
If the question gets run on TV with her response, your rep might want to capitalize on the publicity and take action quickly with her colleagues, which means you should get your activist partners in their districts to call on their reps, too.
If enough reps and senators back the issue, you may get your resolution or funding passed.
If your legislation gets passed, you may get invited to the White House to meet the President at a Rose Garden ceremony with Bono and Jeffery Sachs for your part in fighting extreme poverty.
If you get friendly with Bono and Sachs, they'll probably take you to Africa to teach you more about the crushing need for advocacy in eradicating extreme poverty.
If you meet a lot of people living on less than $1 a day and take the time to understand their struggles, then you'll want to help them by taking their stories to people with the power to change things...
....which means you should probably set up a congressional face-to-face meeting! :)
Saturday, February 21, 2009
Social Justice for Social Moms: LTE workshop
I had the most wonderful experience with my neighborhood letter-writing group today. Five women- all moms- gathered together to take on a new challenge. Instead of our usual formula of discussing a topic for an hour before writing to our members of Congress about it, the group took the first step toward becoming media advocates by writing letters to the editor. It was incredible!
I had written an op-ed about the $5 billion shortfall the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, TB, and Malaria will soon be facing because donor nations - including the U.S.- are backing out of their commitments. Our group seized upon the topic with great enthusiasm. Handwritten letters to our reps and senators were cranked out quickly and then the real work began. It was like the workshop I never had when I was struggling to learn to write LTE’s by myself at home alone in the middle of the night! The thing that really amazed me was the way 3 different people (one had to leave and will write later) took the same information, talking points, and coaching to apply it in completely different ways.
Julie was filled with the moral aspects of the issue. Her tone is strong, American, and proud in a way that mine never is. She taps into her passions very easily. I’ve appreciated that about her personality and now I appreciate it in her writing. She placed her personal commitment firmly in her call-to-action line by saying, “I have written my members of Congress” before urging everyone to do the same. Why didn’t I ever think of that? I’m always so worried about word count that I probably would have chickened out of saying it anyway for fear of losing space for sometimes not-so-inspiring facts.
Kate attacked the exercise like her son playing a video game. As a teacher, she has a great appreciation of language and communicating well. She immediately knocked out 192 words using an a statistic comparing the needed funding ($1 billion in 2009) to the Christmas bonuses given to Meryll Lynch execs after the bailout (3.6 billion) that is intellectual, shocking and timely. The constraint of staying under 150 words was a great challenge that she relished.
Sondra, ever practical and ever giving, saw the brilliant and simple opportunity to offer readers different ways to help. She invited them to do anything to help the Global Fund from writing members of Congress to making direct individual contributions – she even provided the website – to using a Starbucks (RED) card. I loved watching her satisfaction as she hit her word count exactly.
I’m so happy we took this step together as a group. It was eye-opening for me and I feel more energetic about my own writing…seeing more possibilities as I learn from the energy and experiences of my friends.
I had written an op-ed about the $5 billion shortfall the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, TB, and Malaria will soon be facing because donor nations - including the U.S.- are backing out of their commitments. Our group seized upon the topic with great enthusiasm. Handwritten letters to our reps and senators were cranked out quickly and then the real work began. It was like the workshop I never had when I was struggling to learn to write LTE’s by myself at home alone in the middle of the night! The thing that really amazed me was the way 3 different people (one had to leave and will write later) took the same information, talking points, and coaching to apply it in completely different ways.
Julie was filled with the moral aspects of the issue. Her tone is strong, American, and proud in a way that mine never is. She taps into her passions very easily. I’ve appreciated that about her personality and now I appreciate it in her writing. She placed her personal commitment firmly in her call-to-action line by saying, “I have written my members of Congress” before urging everyone to do the same. Why didn’t I ever think of that? I’m always so worried about word count that I probably would have chickened out of saying it anyway for fear of losing space for sometimes not-so-inspiring facts.
Kate attacked the exercise like her son playing a video game. As a teacher, she has a great appreciation of language and communicating well. She immediately knocked out 192 words using an a statistic comparing the needed funding ($1 billion in 2009) to the Christmas bonuses given to Meryll Lynch execs after the bailout (3.6 billion) that is intellectual, shocking and timely. The constraint of staying under 150 words was a great challenge that she relished.
Sondra, ever practical and ever giving, saw the brilliant and simple opportunity to offer readers different ways to help. She invited them to do anything to help the Global Fund from writing members of Congress to making direct individual contributions – she even provided the website – to using a Starbucks (RED) card. I loved watching her satisfaction as she hit her word count exactly.
I’m so happy we took this step together as a group. It was eye-opening for me and I feel more energetic about my own writing…seeing more possibilities as I learn from the energy and experiences of my friends.
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