RESULTS Campaigns Weekly Update July 7, 2021
Quote of the Week
“July Fourth is a perfect time realize that our democracy is in trouble and that there are things that each of us can do to fix it. We can engage regularly, directly, deeply and productively with our elected officials, but only if we find an organization committed to dissolving our powerlessness and only if we are serious about answering this question: What do I want my life to be used for?”
– RESULTS founder Sam Daley-Harris in a July 2 op-ed in the Baltimore Sun
Table of Contents
- Global Poverty Campaigns Update
- U.S. Poverty Campaigns Update
- RESULTS Announcements
- Upcoming Events
- Grassroots Resources
Join National Webinar this Saturday at 1:00 pm ET
Please join us for the RESULTS National Webinar this Saturday, July 10, 1:00-2:30 pm ET. We are excited to welcome some honored guests to this month’s webinar. First, Ann Oliva, Senior Fellow at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, will join us to talk about her experience working on Housing Choice Vouchers while at HUD and why it’s important to include expanded rental assistance in recovery legislation this year. We’ll then spend time celebrating successes from last month’s RESULTS International Conference and other milestones you’ve reached in 2021. Finally, our global poverty speaker will discuss RESULTS’ renewed campaign to urgently expand access to the COVID-19 vaccine worldwide. Low-income countries are struggling with COVID-19 outbreaks and have little or no access to vaccinations while other countries have stockpiles of vaccine. We must do better.
If you have not registered for a previous monthly webinar this year, please register today so you don’t miss this important discussion.
Global Poverty Campaigns Update
QUICK ACTION Write and ask your Representative to sign-on to the bipartisan Global Partnership for Education (GPE) letter to the Biden Administration requesting a $1 billion pledge to GPE. The letter closes Friday July 9!
Got Fifteen Minutes? Mobilize to add signatures on the bipartisan House Global Partnership for Education letter to the Biden Administration
Deadline Extended to July 9! The Biden Administration has not prioritized global education in the US response to COVID-19 or in his budget. With the Global Partnership for Education (GPE) replenishment conference coming up on July 28-29 Congress must call on the Administration to help children get back on track with their schooling by supporting GPE. The bipartisan Kilmer/Fitzpatrick sign-on letter calls on the administration for a $1 billion U.S. pledge to GPE spread out over 5 years. It would be a critical signal to other donors to do their part in helping GPE raise $5 billion for their 5-year plan. We will not recover from the pandemic if we leave a generation of children living in low-income countries behind.
TAKE ACTION: Take fifteen minutes to help get at least 100 signers on the letter by this Friday (we have 68 so far). Here are your tools:
- See if your representative is signed on
- Find a copy of the letter
- Find a laser talk to make your request to the foreign policy aide
Contact lawmakers today and urge others you know to take action as well!
Got Another Fifteen Minutes? Write a letter to the editor on global education.
We have a couple of weeks before the Global Partnership for Education (GPE) replenishment conference. Media will make a difference. Help us reach our goal of 100 global education media hits by the replenishment conference. Write your local paper about the need to support GPE’s remarkable work and the need to help young people in poorer countries get back on track with their education.
TAKE ACTION: Use our online media action to help you write and submit a letter to the editor. Don’t forget to report your media when it gets published and then leverage your published media by sending it to your legislators and posting on social media with the hashtag #RaiseYourHands. Need help? Contact Jos Linn.
QUICK NEWS ON GLOBAL POVERTY
Limited Vaccine Access in Africa Will Hold Back Progress. COVID-19 vaccines are not getting to many parts of the world that desperately need them. Check out this BBC piece on vaccine access in Africa. We need to do better.
House and Senate Resolutions on Global Education. Has your representative cosponsored H.Res. 225, and have your senators cosponsored S.Res. 240 in support of the Global Partnership for Education? This is a great request for a member of Congress who signed onto a global education appropriations letter or the GPE letters to the Administration. Check out the resolution cosponsor lists for H.Res.225 and S.Res.240 and contact your members of Congress if they are not yet on the resolutions. Thank them if they have already cosponsored.
U.S. Poverty Campaigns Update
QUICK ACTION Submit letters to the editor today on housing and tax credits
Got Twenty Minutes? Last week to get signers on the housing “Dear Colleague” letter
We continue our push to build support for expanding rental assistance by getting more representatives and senators to sign the “Dear Colleague” letter urging congressional leaders to prioritize access to affordable housing in recovery legislation this year. Negotiations are happening right now so it is vital we get as many signers on this letter before it closes on Tuesday, July 13.
The goal is to secure guaranteed multi-year funding for rental assistance via a large expansion of the Housing Choice Voucher program (HCVs). Right now, only one in four eligible renters can get an HCV, leaving millions living constantly under the threat of homelessness. Furthermore, because of the legacy of segregation, Black households (13 percent of total) make up 26 percent of all extremely low-income renters and 40 percent of people experiencing homelessness. By expanding rental assistance, we can keep families housed and begin to correct the injustice of racial discrimination in housing.
TAKE ACTION: Take twenty minutes to contact congressional offices, urging your representatives and senators to sign onto the “Dear Colleague” housing letter (you can see who has officially signed on online). If you get confirmation that your member of Congress is signing on, please contact Michael Santos at [email protected] with the relevant congressional staffer’s contact information. You can find current request sheets, background info, and other resources on our Conference Resources and Lobbying pages. In addition, ask others in your RESULTS network to bolster your efforts by sending an e-mail urging Congress to support expanded rental assistance in recovery legislation.
For more about our work to expand access to affordable housing., please join the RESULTS National Webinar this Saturday, July 10 at 1:00 pm ET.
Got Fifteen Minutes? Tell people about new CTC monthly payment and how to protect it
This month, tens of millions of American families will start benefitting from the new expansion of the Child Tax Credit (CTC). On July 15, most families will start to receive their CTC in installments, which will go out each month until the end of the year. For many families, this means an extra $250-300 each month to help with rent, food, childcare, or medical costs as they accrue, not waiting until next spring when they file their taxes (but families can opt out of the monthly payments if they prefer to get their CTC all at once at tax time). Families who have filed taxes the last two years will automatically receive the monthly payments. However, if you have not filed federal income taxes recently, you may need to sign up. Go to www.childtaxcredit.gov to see if you qualify and sign up.
This is exciting news, but possible short-lived – the new CTC with the monthly payment option, along with important improvements to the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) for workers, will expire after one year. After that, these provisions disappear and millions of workers, families, and children will be pushed back into poverty. But that doesn’t have to happen. Congress can easily make the CTC and EITC provisions permanent, giving American families the security to know that these financial lifelines won’t be going away.
With Congress on recess this week, submit letters to the editor printed to your local paper urging lawmakers to make the new CTC and EITC provisions permanent now.
TAKE ACTION: Take fifteen minutes to submit a letter to the editor highlighting the new CTC monthly payments and urge your members of Congress to make the new CTC and EITC provisions permanent. Remind people of the benefits and to sign up at www.childtaxcredit.gov. The July 2021 U.S. Poverty Action has template tax credit and housing letters to the editor you can use to get started (you can also use our tax credit and housing online LTE actions to send letters too). If published, please forward the letter to the tax or housing aides for your members of Congress and please let RESULTS know as well. If you need help with your letters, please contact Jos Linn for assistance.
QUICK NEWS ON U.S. POVERTY
Infrastructure update. The bipartisan House “Problem Solvers” Caucus has endorsed the $1.2 bipartisan Infrastructure proposal negotiated by senators in recent weeks. Committees are now drafting legislative language for the bipartisan infrastructure package while Democrats on the Senate Budget Committee continue work on a budget resolution that will include other provisions from President Biden’s American Jobs and American Families plans. The Senate is expected to vote on the bipartisan infrastructure package sometime in July, as well as move forward with a reconciliation process that would include the other provisions mentioned above.
Sign your local RESULTS group on to campaign letters. RESULTS as a national organization has signed on to the following letters: SAVE for All Campaign, NLIHC’s HoUSed campaign, and Americans for Tax Fairness. To show support for anti-poverty policies from stakeholders at the state level, please also sign your local RESULTS group on them as well. A strong showing from state groups is influential when RESULTS policy staff meet with congressional offices.
Announcements
Only 11 days left to vote in RESULTS Board election. The RESULTS 2021 Grassroots Board Election is taking place right now. Visit the RESULTS Blog for candidate bios, statement of intent, videos, and how to vote. Voting is open through July 17 for all active volunteers.
Please fill out lobby report forms. We’ll have some exciting updates on your lobby meeting successes on this weekend’s National Webinar. If you have not fill out a report for meetings you’ve had this year, please complete the RESULTS Lobby Report Form for each meeting at www.tinyurl.com/RESLobbyReport. This tells us what happened and helps us strategize next steps for our campaigns. Please coordinate with your group to determine who will fill out the form for each meeting you have – only one report per meeting is needed.
RESULTS Organizing and Advocacy Fellowship. Applications for the 2021-22 class of the RESULTS Organizing and Advocacy Fellowship are now being accepted. Young adults ages 20-35 are encouraged to apply. The application closes on October 15. If you have any questions, please email [email protected].
Join op-ed writing workshop on July 20. Join us for follow-up to the RESULTS Op-eds 101 training webinar held in May. In this training, we’ll start writing your next op-ed. Special guest Gerry Fairbrother, RESULTS volunteer and op-ed columnist at the Santa Fe New Mexican, will again join us to share her insights as we work to make your op-ed idea into reality. The training is Tuesday, July 20 at 9:00 pm ET; register here. For this training, bring an op-ed idea or a draft first sentence of your op-ed to get started. We also recommend you listen to previous op-ed training at: https://results.org/resources/results-op-ed-101-training/.
Register for July Monthly Policy Forums. Our next U.S. and Global Poverty Monthly Policy Forums will be held on Thursday, July 22. Be sure to join us to learn the latest on our U.S. and global poverty campaigns. Register for the U.S. Forum at 8:00 pm ET and/or the Global Forum at 9:00 pm ET.
Conference materials available. If you need materials from this year’s International Conference, including slides from sessions, visit our Conference Resources page. If you want to listen to the recordings of sessions at the Conference, check out the event schedule for links. Finally, for a dose of nostalgia and solidarity, take a look at this wonderful blogpost and companion video summarizing all that we accomplished together at the International Conference.
Upcoming Events
Congressional schedule. The House and Senate are on recess this week. Submit your remote meeting requests today.
Saturday, July 10: RESULTS National Webinar, 1:00 pm ET. Register today. Registration ends one hour prior to the webinar.
Saturday, July 17: Last day to vote in RESULTS Grassroots Board Election. Read about the candidates and how to vote on the RESULTS Blog.
Tuesday, July 20: Op-ed Writing Workshop, 9:00 pm ET. Register today. Registration ends one hour prior to the webinar.
Wednesday, July 21: Action Network Monthly Webinar, 8:00 pm ET. Register today. Registration ends one hour prior to the webinar.
Thursday, July 22: U.S. Poverty Monthly Policy Forum, 8 pm ET. Register today. Registration ends one hour prior to the webinar.
Thursday, July 22: Global Poverty Monthly Policy Forum, 9 pm ET. Register today. Registration ends one hour prior to the webinar.
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.