RESULTS Campaigns Weekly Update May 18, 2021

Quote of the Week

“COVID-19 related school closures disrupted learning for nearly all children, but those in low-income countries have greater barriers to accessing quality education.”

– RESULTS South Kitsap, WA volunteers Leslie and Michael Boyer in a May 4 letter to the editor in the Kitsap Sun

Table of Contents

• Global Poverty Campaigns Update
• U.S. Poverty Campaigns Update
• RESULTS Announcements
• Upcoming Events
• Grassroots Resources

Global Poverty Campaigns Update

QUICK ACTION Write a letter to the editor on the Global Partnership for Education

Got Twenty Minutes? Submit our Senate sign-on letters and appropriations requests

We continue to work on Senate sign-on letters and appropriations requests for our global health and education priorities, and you’ve been doing a great job. Keep it up, as we know that our sign-on letters will close over the course of the next weeks.

Just a reminder that we have two Senate appropriations sign-on letters that are open for signatures with end-of-May deadlines. One letter is on maternal/child health and nutrition and the second is on the Global Partnership for Education/basic education. Find all the letters – and check for signatures – on our regularly updated fiscal year 2022 (FY22) appropriations sign-on letter blogpost.

While you’re working on sign-on letters, don’t let up on Senate appropriations requests, as we now have a deadline! The Senate State and Foreign Operations Subcommittee of Appropriations (SFOPS) leadership needs to hear from other senators about their development assistance spending priorities for FY22 by June 29. Here are some tips for making your requests:

• Go to your senator’s website and search for “appropriations.” Many offices have forms and deadlines on their websites. If you find forms, send them to Dorothy Monza ([email protected]) and Crickett Nicovich ([email protected]) along with the deadline for having them filled out. They will fill them out and return them to you to send to the foreign policy aide along with our appropriations request sheets.
• If you don’t find forms on the website, call the foreign policy aide for your senator and ask what the deadline is for submitting SFOPS appropriations requests to their office. Also, ask if they have forms to fill out or if you can just submit our request sheets. If you don’t know who the foreign policy aide is, call the office and ask, or contact the Grassroots Impact staff.
• Follow your call with an e-mail to the foreign policy aide, including any unanswered questions about deadlines and forms, along with our appropriations requests. Explain why these funding levels are important (drawing on the request sheets or laser talks for your explanation).
• Alternate calling and e-mailing until you get a clear response on the procedure for submitting the appropriations requests and find out whether your senator will include our requests in their submission. Remember, if they have forms to fill out, we can help. Send them to Dorothy Monza ([email protected]) and Crickett Nicovich ([email protected]) along with the deadline for having them filled out.
• Please let Lisa Marchal ([email protected]) or Ken Patterson ([email protected]) know if you have questions.

Got Another Fifteen Minutes? Get media on the Global Partnership for Education

Jump into getting published on the Global Partnership for Education (GPE) and help us get to our goal of 100 global education media hits by the end of June. Write your local paper about the need to support GPE’s remarkable work in the lives of young people. It’s graduation time for so many students; what better season for highlighting how education shapes and transforms lives? In your local media, you are bound to find many education-related hooks for your letter. Play off the emphasis on education in your local media outlets and use it as inspiration to write and submit today.

TAKE ACTION: Get published on the Global Partnership for Education! Can we get 100 media hits on GPE between now the end of June? Use our action sheet and companion action alert on this topic to help you along.

QUICK NEWS ON GLOBAL POVERTY

House Resolution 225 on GPE. Has your representative cosponsored H.Res.225 in support of the Global Partnership for Education? This is a great request for a representative who signed onto the House global education letter. Check out the cosponsor list and consider contacting your House member if they are not yet on the resolution. So far, we have 26 cosponsors. Let’s help those numbers climb!

The Reach Every Mother and Child Act. Sens. Collins (R-ME) and Coons (D-DE) have introduced the Reach Every Mother and Child Act. Read more about this exciting development via the recently issued press release which discusses the legislation and its intention to end preventable mother and child deaths.

U.S. Poverty Campaigns Update

Got Ten Minutes? Use media to tout new CTC option for families

On Tax Day 2021 (yesterday), we got some great news from the IRS – beginning July 15, families can start receiving the new Child Tax Credit (CTC) as a monthly installment. Families will receive half their CTC via monthly payment this year (July through December) and the rest as a lump sum when they file their 2021 taxes next spring.  For the first time, families struggling to make ends meet will be able to receive $250-$300 each month when they need it, not just once a year at tax time. According to the Washington Post, approximately 39 million families will start receiving the monthly payments in July, benefitting 88 percent of children in the U.S. The new CTC is expected to cut child poverty by 45 percent over the next year.

But the new CTC provisions, along with the expansion of the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) for young workers and other workers not raising children, are set to expire after a year. We cannot let massive gains in poverty reduction just be erased after a year. Congress must make these provisions permanent.

TAKE ACTION: Take ten minutes to submit your own letter to the editor telling Congress to make the 2021 EITC and CTC improvements permanent in recovery legislation this year. Help us push Congress to act by generating 100 media pieces on the EITC/CTC (or housing, see below) by July 1. The May U.S. Poverty Action has a template letter on the EITC/CTC and other resources to help you. You can also send a tax credit letter directly from our website. Find data on the CTC impact by congressional district here and state data on the CTC and EITC here. Once published, leverage your media by forwarding it to your members of Congress and let us know about your success.

Got Ten Minutes? Use media to build support for universal rental assistance

Expanding rental assistance must be a part of recovery legislation this year. According to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities (CBPP), expanding housing vouchers is the most important step to help more people afford stable homes, reducing homelessness and housing instability, and improving child outcomes. Their research shows that people of color bear a disproportionate share of housing instability in the U.S. and that expanding housing vouchers would cut poverty and reduce racial disparities.

The U.S. Census recently reported that 7 million people were behind on rent. The emergency rental assistance passed by Congress in December and March will go a long way in helping these and other renters. However, that money is temporary. America’s housing crisis will outlive this pandemic, but it doesn’t have to. Let’s make sure it doesn’t.

TAKE ACTION: Take ten minutes to submit your own letter to the editor telling Congress to make expand rental assistance to all eligible renters in recovery legislation this year. Help us push Congress to act by generating 100 media pieces on the housing (or EITC/CTC, see above) by July 1. The May U.S. Poverty Action has a template letter on housing and other resources to help you. You can also send a housing letter directly from our website. Find state data on housing needs across the country here. Once published, leverage your media by forwarding it to your members of Congress and let us know about your success.

QUICK NEWS ON U.S. POVERTY

Emergency rental assistance. The Treasury Department has issued new rules to make it easier for tenants to access recently enacted emergency rental assistance. The rules simplify applications, expand list of covered costs like moving expenses and hotel stays, and require programs to help tenants even if their landlords refuse to participate. These rules are meant to keep households stably housed, particularly at a time when roughly 7 million U.S. renters have fallen behind on rent, with debts averaging $5,400 per household. In addition, one-third of small landlords are at risk of bankruptcy or foreclosure as tenants struggle to pay rent. The National Low Income Housing Coalition has a searchable database  and a dashboard tracking all open Emergency Rental Assistance programs to help programs implement practices for an equitable distribution of assistance to those most in need.

HUD Secretary speaking in Senate this week. This Thursday, May 20 at 10:00 am ET, the Senate Banking Committee will hold a hearing called “21st Century Communities: Expanding Opportunity Through Infrastructure Investments”. Secretary of Housing and Urban Development Marcia Fudge will be testifying. You can watch the live stream at www.banking.senate.gov.

RESULTS Announcements

Join op-ed training tonight. Want to up your media game? Join us for the RESULTS Op-eds 101 training webinar. Special guest Gerry Fairbrother, RESULTS volunteer and op-ed columnist at the Santa Fe New Mexican will share her insights for drafting and publishing your own op-ed on the issues you care about. This is a great opportunity to learn from an advocate with experience writing op-eds about poverty. The webinar is tonight, May 18 at 9:00 pm ET. Register for the webinar today.

Do lobby prep for the RESULTS Conference. The 2021 RESULTS International Conference is less than a month away, June 12-13. Along with a fabulous agenda with amazing speakers, we are actively getting you ready for lobby meetings during our Conference Advocacy Week (June 14-18). That starts with lobby prep calls between RESULTS staff and people from your state to walk through the issues and requests for your specific members of Congress. If you registered for the Conference prior to May 11, you should have received an e-mail asking you to schedule a time for lobby prep. Please read the instructions and plan to attend the prep call once a date and time are confirmed. Also, visit our Conference Resources page for information and tools to help, including our new 2021 IC Checklist; come back frequently as we update it. And remember, it’s not too late to register for the Conference! But don’t wait; registration closes June 10.

Spring peer-to-peer fundraising extended. The Spring Peer-to-Peer Online Fundraising Campaign is happening now through May 31. Join with other advocates across the country to raise critical funds for the next phase of our work. Create your own fundraising page or donate to support this campaign  In recognition of RESULTS and RESULTS volunteers’ work around tuberculosis, a generous donor has offered to match the first $5,000 raised during the campaign! For more information or any questions, contact Mea Geizhals at [email protected] or (202) 783-4800 x131.

Join Motivational Interviewing training next week. Are you struggling to move your Member of Congress into action? Do they sometimes say one thing, but do another? Do you often find yourself butting heads with them or feeling frustrated by their inaction or resistance? Then join our “Motivational Interviewing” training, a collaborative communication style intended to help people build motivation for change and take action. Learn what drives motivation and basic motivational interviewing skills, and then practice using those skills through roleplays. This will be the first workshop in a series meant to help you build your skills over time. The webinar is next Wednesday, May 26 at 8:00 pm ET and will go 90 minutes. Register for this important webinar today.

Nominate someone for Cameron Duncan Award. Each year, RESULTS recognizes a journalist or editor for outstanding work on issues related to poverty with the Cameron Duncan Media Award. And this year, we have a special treat. We will also accept nominations of RESULTS volunteers who have shown excellence in advocating on poverty issues in the media. To nominate someone, please send a short e-mail to Jos Linn with your reasons for nominating them and links to recent media pieces demonstrating the nominee’s dedication to poverty issues. The deadline to submit is June 10. We will announce the winner this summer.

Thank you for survey responses. Thank you to everyone who took our Anti-Oppression and Equity survey and to those who reached out to others urging them to take it. As a result of your efforts, we’ve secured over 300 responses to the survey, enough to get an accurate sample. Our anti-oppression auditors are now combing through the data. We look forward to sharing the findings later this summer.

Upcoming Events

Congressional schedule. The House and Senate are in DC this week. Submit your remote meeting requests today.

Tuesday, May 18: RESULTS U.S. Poverty Free Agents Webinar, 1:00 pm or 8:00 pm ET. Contact Jos Linn at [email protected] for information on how to join.

Tuesday, May 18: RESULTS Op-ed 101 training, 9:00 pm ET. Guest speaker: Gerry Fairbrother of RESULTS Santa Fe. Register today. Registration ends one hour prior to the webinar.

Wednesday, May 19: Action Network Monthly Webinar, 8:30 pm ET. Register today. Registration ends one hour prior to the webinar.

Thursday, May 20. U.S. Poverty Monthly Policy Forum, 8:00 pm ET. Focus: answering your questions on our housing and tax campaigns. Register today. Registration ends one hour prior to the webinar.

Thursday, May 20. Global Poverty Monthly Policy Forum, 9:00 pm ET. Focus: answering your questions on our global education and nutrition campaigns. Register today. Registration ends one hour prior to the webinar.

Monday, May 24: RESULTS Global Poverty Free Agent Webinar, 7:00 pm ET. Contact Lisa Marchal at [email protected] for information on how to join.

Wednesday, May 26: Motivational Interviewing Skills for Policy Advocacy, 8:00 pm ET. Webinar will run 90 minutes. Register today. Registration ends one hour prior to the webinar.

Saturday, June 5: RESULTS National Webinar, 1:00 pm ET. Register today.  Registration ends one hour prior to the webinar.

Monday, June 7: Pre-International Conference/Advocacy Week Office Hour, 4:00 pm ET. Join at https://tinyurl.com/ICAdvocacyWeekPrep, passcode 2030.

Saturday June 12 and Sunday, June 13: 2021 RESULTS International Conference. Registration is open and will close June 10. Advocacy Week will be June 14-18 following the conference.

Grassroots Resources

Learn about the RESULTS Experts on Poverty.

To update volunteer info (e.g., subscribe to the Weekly Update or action alerts, add new advocate information, update an existing advocate’s information or preferences), use our Volunteer Information Form.

Find actions and volunteer resources on our Current Volunteers page, including our anti-oppression resources.

Remember to please report your recent advocacy successes in lobby meetings, media, and outreach activities.

To join the RESULTS listserv for more RESULTS conversation, send an email to [email protected]

If you have a question, comment, or suggestion for the RESULTS/REF Board, please e-mail Lindsay Saunders at [email protected]. View Board minutes and Annual Reports.

RESULTS Staff directory and job postings.