Global Weekly Update March 5, 2012

Rep. Barbara Lee, Special Guest for the National Grassroots Conference Call This Saturday!

We are very pleased that Representative Barbara Lee (D-CA), founding co-chair of the Congressional HIV/AIDS Caucus, will be joining us for this month’s conference call! Rep. Lee’s incredible commitment to the end of AIDS includes working on legislation that created PEPFAR and the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria; and countless other pieces of AIDS-related legislation. She will also be leading a Global Fund appropriations sign-on letter to assure the U.S. keeps its $4 billion, three-year pledge. It will be exciting to have her with us at such an important time while we are in the middle of making our appropriations requests (including requests to fund the fight against tuberculosis and to fund the Global Fund).

You’ll hear the latest on our Friends & Family Fundraising Campaign that is in full swing. You’ll be informed and inspired by our Grassroots Cafe. You’ll take away one or two new tools you can use in your advocacy. Invite people from your network to join in. Let’s make it a big call.

Call (888) 409-6709 a few minutes before 2 pm ET to get connected and join us!

We Are Making A Difference: Contact Congress With Poverty-Fighting Appropriations Requests

1. Got 5 minutes? We have a new online action you can take. Write a quick letter to your legislators about a smart, poverty-alleviating appropriations request about which you are particularly passionate, then share the link to the online action with a couple of your friends.

2. Got 15 minutes? Take a look at our handy appropriations request chart, individual fact sheets for each appropriations request, and the February action sheet. (Our March action sheet on TB appropriations is forthcoming.) Together, these resources will give you what you need to write a letter that you can send through the websites of your members of Congress about powerful FY13 global program funding, or appropriations decisions.

3. Got 20 minutes?  Request a face-to-face meeting with your Representative or Senators so that you can make our FY13 appropriations requests in person. You all have already been hard at work on this; face-to-face meetings have been planned and/or have happened for activists in Omaha, Seattle, San Jose, Coastal Connecticut/Fairfield University, Asheville, Redmond (WA), and Central New Jersey. Way to go! The timing for your meetings couldn’t be better, as the House has an early March recess slated while the Senate has an Easter recess schedule; legislators will find themselves with time in their home districts/states. Why not pick up the phone today and book a meeting? For just the right words to say, take a glance at our February laser talk and learn the March laser talk on this Saturday’s conference call. Want a dose of inspiration before you make that call to the scheduler? Hear the powerful words of Dr. Jeffrey Sachs from January and of health advocate Jigna Rao from a couple Saturdays ago; both have been guests on our national grassroots conference calls this year.

4. Still want to do more? Invite your senators to a March 21 World TB Day Briefing, “Tuberculosis: We Can Beat This Global Killer.” News on a briefing for representatives is forthcoming.

Spring Is Almost Here . . . Just Like the 2012 International Conference Earlybird Deadline!

If you register by April 16, you only pay $150 to experience inspiring, high-level speakers; educational workshops on effective poverty solutions; advocacy skills trainings; and the experience of lobbying on Capitol Hill from July 21-24, 2012 at the DoubleTree Hotel in Crystal City.

By the way, your passion for the conference and your explanation of how it has impacted your life are really the best advertisements for the power of the conference. Don’t believe us? Check out these video testimonials and share them with your friends. And young adults (18-25) should check out our REAL Change scholarships, available to make the conference very affordable!

Check out info about the International Conference on our website and register today!

Follow Up with your Friends & Family

We’re off to a terrific start with our Friends & Family Campaign! Thank you to all our Friends & Family participants, whether using online webpages or postal mail, for all your great energy and enthusiasm. We’ve raised over $9000 and are almost one-third of the way to our $30,000 goal. Kudos to our top-earning online individuals: Phyllis Behen, Sandra Eagle, Margaret Smith, John Hosek, and Nancy Gardiner! Phyllis and Sandra are part of the Coastal Connecticut team that is currently our top-earning volunteer team, followed by Kitsap County, Dallas and Omaha. 

We want to help you keep up the great momentum. The key is all in the follow-up! Steve Arnold has shared that his follow-up calls he’s making after mailing letters are much easier than he anticipated; he is finding many of his donors are willing and happy to donate. 

If you have a fundraising webpage, check out this blog post with tips to promote your fundraising webpage as well as detailed instructions on how to use three online tools: e-mail, Facebook and e-mail signatures. 

We also have two call scripts to help you make those critical follow-up calls. Use our first script to follow up on your mailed letter appeal, and use our second this script to follow up after promoting your webpage on email or social media.

As always, you can find complete instructions and help with any aspect of Friends & Family in our toolkit. Please contact Cindy Levin right away if you have questions about your webpage or any other part of your campaign!

Each time a [person] stands for an ideal, or acts to improve the lot of others, or strikes out against injustice, [he/she] sends a tiny ripple of hope, and crossing each other from a million different centers of energy and daring, those ripples build a current which can sweep down the mightiest walls of oppression and resistance.

                                                                                                                                                            – Robert Kennedy

March-May: Global Poverty Project 1.4 Billion Reasons presentations

March 7: RESULTS Introductory Call. 9:00 pm ET. Contact us with any questions and RSVP for the call. 

March 8: Researching Your Member of Congress training call. (Note: You will want to be in front of a computer with internet access for this call.) 9:00 pm ET. (712) 432-3100, passcode 761262.

March 10: RESULTS National Conference Call for Global Campaigns. 2:00 pm ET. Dial (888) 409-6709 a few minutes before the call.

March 16: RESULTS Introductory Call. 1:00 pm ET. Contact us with any questions and RSVP for the call. 

March 24: World TB Day

March 31: RESULTS Texas Regional Conference. Contact Anne Child for more information.

March 31: Friends & Family Fundraising Campaign ends.

April 14: Joint national conference call with domestic grassroots highlighting education! 2:00 pm ET. Dial (888) 409-6709 a few minutes before the call.

April 22-28: Global Action Week for Education for All

July 21–24: RESULTS International Conference in Washington, DC