Global Weekly Update October 25, 2010

Get Money for Your Events! Apply for a World AIDS Day Mini-Grant!

World AIDS Day (WAD) is December 1. To help highlight the deadly synergy between TB and HIV, RESULTS Educational Fund (REF) is offering grassroots groups the opportunity to organize TB advocacy activities for WAD 2010 that might not be possible without outside funding. Activities could be now until December 31, 2010. The very last day to apply is November 5, and applying even earlier is preferred, so don’t wait!

Visit our 2010 World AIDS Day page for a link to the application.

Ideas Types of Activities — Be Creative!

• Organize a community panel discussion on TB-HIV co-infection and invite the media, community members, and members of Congress.
• Reach out to local HIV/AIDS groups to build coalition support around events that could highlight TB-HIV.
• Organize a conference call for journalists with local or state TB experts (e.g. a state TB controller).
• Hold a screening and discussion of a TB-HIV related film.
• Research the history of TB in your community and do a public art show, display, discussion or other community event to bring attention to it and the current state of affairs of TB in the world.
• Work with your local opera on their production of La Boheme or La Traviata and make the connection to TB.
• Organize a book club around an appropriate TB related book.
• Identify and work with one or more TB patients to help them become advocates. Find opportunities for them to write and be published, speak out publicly, speak anonymously (on a radio program for example).
• Create an event — a rally, a walk, a candlelight vigil — that brings media attention to TB.

Also, as you look to World AIDS Day, be thinking about how you can leverage our incredible media work on the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria. Share our press release summarizing what did and did not happen at the Global Fund replenishment meeting, and use the urgency to create more media as World AIDS Day approaches.

Fall Fundraising Update

Let the letter writing begin! Remember, s peak from the heart about why you support RESULTS. Share what a difference RESULTS has made for you personally. How do you view yourself as a citizen differently now? What have you or your group accomplished with the support of RESULTS? What do you personally value about how RESULTS operates? Share why RESULTS is needed in the world and some of RESULTS’ successes. You can go to “Our Results” in the “About” section on the website to choose your favorites. Read sample letters and quotes to get you inspired.

Please include both the pre-printed remittance envelope and a self-addressed envelope in your mailing to your donor prospects. On the inside of the donor envelope, circle “Friends and Family” on the “For office use” line and include your name and group. Ask your friends and family to fill out the rest of the information on the donor envelopes. That way the correct information will get to RESULTS about your donors. However, so that you and your group can track who has made donations and how much you raise, ask them to mail their gift, with the remittance envelope, back to you in the self-addressed envelope. Once you have noted their donation, you will forward it to RESULTS.

Tip: Include this paragraph in your letter to make this process clearer —“Please fill out the preprinted reply envelope, put it and your donation in the second envelope that is addressed to me, and send to me. I will note our team’s progress and forward to the RESULTS office.“

If your friends give online, remind them to put Friends and Family, your group name, and your name in the comments box.

Mail those letters! Don’t forget to include the donor envelopes, the RESULTS brochures, and monthly sponsor brochures.

Thank you so much supporting RESULTS and RESULTS Educational Fund (REF) during our annual Friends and Family Campaign. Your fundraising is critical to the organization!

Upcoming Fundraising Events

November 7: Columbus

November 20: San Jose

December 5: Chicago

December 9: DC

If you have questions or need more information, contact Donna Howard a 202-783-4800 x124 or online at [email protected].

Currency Transaction Levy: An Innovative Opportunity

The global economic crisis created a $65 billion “fiscal hole” in the budgets of the world’s 56 poorest countries. As the economic crisis persists, we need innovative sources of financing for pressing global development needs. Rep. Pete Stark (D-CA), a senior member of the tax-writing Ways and Means Committee, has introduced legislation that would levy a tiny tax on foreign currency trading by big banks and businesses — a market with $4 trillion in daily activity that is completely untaxed. The revenue would be directed to global health, climate change, and child care for low income families in the U.S. Learn more and ask your representative to cosponsor the Investing in our Future Act of 2010 (H.R.5783). Check out our CTL page on our website as you get acquainted with this new, big idea, and take a look at our action sheet.

Current Cosponsors:

Rep. Filner, Bob (D-CA-51) — 9/14/2010
Rep. Grijalva, Raúl M. (D-AZ-7) — 7/27/2010
Rep. Jackson, Jesse L., Jr. (D-IL-2) — 7/27/2010
Rep. Kucinich, Dennis J. (D-OH-10) — 7/30/2010
Rep. Lee, Barbara (D-CA-9) — 7/27/2010
Rep. Moore, Dennis (D-KS-3) — 9/14/2010
Rep. Schakowsky, Janice D. (D-IL-9) — 9/22/2010

Education For All Act Introduced in the Senate

On September 17, Sen. Gillibrand (D-NY) reintroduced the Education for All Act in the Senate! It is very simliar to the House version, with minor tweaks.

Take Action! Visit our education page to review our action sheet and read the Senate fact sheet. Plan to call in to the national conference call for all global activists on November 13 as we take a closer look at our Education for All campaign and this opportunity.

Read the press releases from Sen. Gillibrand and GCE-US.

The very essence of leadership is that you have to have vision. You can’t blow an uncertain trumpet.

—Theodore M. Hesburgh

October: Congressional recess

October–December: Fall fundraising campaign

October 27 and Nov. 3 (date correction): New Activist Orientation. (712) 432-3100, passcode: 761262. Contact Ken Patterson or Lisa Marchal for more details.November 13: Monthly national conference call for global activists. 2 pm ET. Theme this month is Education for All. Call in to (888) 409-6709.

November 18: Researching Your Member of Congress Training Call. 9 pm ET. Call in to (712) 432-3100, passcode 761262. Have a new representative or senator? Don’t yet know enough about the positions of a continuing legislator? Join Allison Gallaher to learn how to effectively research your own members of Congress for more effective advocacy.

December 1: World AIDS Day. Interested in an event to raise awareness about TB-HIV coinfection? Think of all the possibilities, and then apply for a mini-grant to help your event take off!

Upcoming Fall Fundraisers

• November 7: RESULTS Columbus
• December 5: RESULTS Chicago
• December 9: RESULTS in DC

Other Dates

June 19–21: RESULTS International Conference in Washington, D.C.