Global Weekly Update March 4, 2013
Conference Call This Saturday, March 9, with Rep. Gene Green (TX) and World TB Day Editorial Packet
Join us this Saturday at 2 pm ET for this month’s national conference call with global grassroots advocates. Rep. Green is one of the originators of the TB Elimination Caucus in the House of Representatives, and so he will be able to speak to us about stemming the scourge of this disease as we approach World TB Day, March 24. You’ll also be put into action around the annual appropriations process, a process that is so critical to getting needed funding to the life-saving foreign assistance programs we support. Our work on the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis, and Malaria, and bi-lateral TB programs will be highlighted.
As you prepare for the conference call, read the 2013 World TB Day editorial packet, and plan to make your pitch! Your work to get TB on to the editorial page of your local paper will support or efforts to get programs funded. Multidrug-resistant TB is on the rise and has hit the front page of Time magazine and a discussion of the diagnostic tool GeneXpert was featured in a recent issue of MIT Technology Review. The world is talking about TB; help your newspaper do the same. Read and pitch the editorial packet!
Top Action: Appropriations Determines Where the Money Goes
With all the talk of spending cuts, sequester, austerity, there is great risk to the most vulnerable. Event small cuts to programs that vaccinate, provide life-saving AIDS drugs, get girls into school will have a massive impact on real lives. We are living in an age when ending AIDS is not just dream — we already possess the tools to do it — and so we must keep our foot on the gas.
This is why RESULTS engages our representatives and senators in the appropriations process, the annual cycle when spending decision are made. We ask our members of Congress them to write and speak to key congressional colleagues who will be making these decisions. In the House, Reps. Kay Granger (R-TX) and Nita Lowey (D-NY) head the subcommittee making foreign aid spending decisions. In the Senate, Senators Patrick Leahy (D-VT) and Lindsay Graham (R-SC) head that group.
We need to act now to get our spending preferences to our members of Congress for fiscal year 2014. Though they are dealing with the sequester and the rest of 2013 spending, they will soon start working on 2014 spending and things will move very quickly. If we hesitate, there will be little time for them to hear from us.
Here’s what you can do next:
- Write Your Own Letter. Use our February Action Sheet to write a letter to your representative and senators. Personal letters rank very high in terms of influence. You can hand write and deliver via the mail or dropping it by the local office, or you can type up and submit via their website, or to one of the aides. You can find contact information for your members of Congress here.
- Organize a Fun Letter-writing Meeting! You can organize a short letter writing meeting, complete with videos and great educational materials, to increase the impact. Remember that wo personal letters is better than one, and ten personal letters will really be noticed. You can find sample outlines for a letter-writing meeting here.
- Call and E-mail Capitol Hill: Send our appropriations requests to the foreign policy aides of your representative and senators via e-mail, then follow up with a call. You can find their names here (look under the staff tab once you find your member of Congress). Follow up with them via e-mail and phone each week until you are able to have a conversation with them.
If you want guidance or coaching in making these critical requests, contact Ken Patterson, Global Grassroots Manager, or Lisa Marchal, Senior Global Grassroots Associate.
Grassroots News You Can Use
- 2013 RESULTS International Conference. Registration is open! Join us for a spectacular event in Washington, DC, July 20-23. Join hundreds of your closest friends as we learn, celebrate, and advocate. What could be better?
- Building Bipartisan Champions. This week, we had our first support call for Building Bipartisan Champions. Do you have a member of Congress who seems not to be open to our issues? Feel blocked at every turn? These calls will be designed to help you define the tools you need to plan a way to empower your members of Congress to be a catalyst toward a world where poverty no longer exists. Listen to a recording of the call online, and mark your calendars for the next call on May 6. Stay tuned for more details.
- House Parties Going Strong for RESULTS Fundraising. Thank you and congratulations to our groups in Northern Virginia and PG County, Maryland, for holding fundraiser house parties this past weekend. Both of them hosted our vibrant guest, Luwiza Makukula, to tell her story of recovering from TB and living with HIV/AIDS in Zambia. Her powerful story illustrated to many how the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria helps individuals like her to support their families and thrive. We have heard from both hostesses – Kay Neseem and Pat Behenna – how new people, past RESULTS partners, and dedicated RESULTS advocates came to these two intimate gatherings and donated over $2000! New connections and inspiration are wonderful outcomes of RESULTS fundraising events. For help planning your 2013 event, please contact Cindy Levin, Grassroots Fundraising Associate.
Upcoming fundraisers:
- March 9 in Chicago, House Party with Musician Ella Gill
- March 10 in Salt Lake City, Evening with Muhammad Yunus
I do think it [foreign aid] is threatened and I fully agree with Secretary Kerry. I actually wish we weren’t calling it foreign aid — those two words together. I think it should be called national security support because it is good for America to be able to operate in a world where people are democratic and linking arms as Secretary Kerry said.
— Interview with Madeleine Albright on The Brian Lehrer Show
1. March 9, 2 pm ET. RESULTS National Grassroots Conference Call for Global Poverty Campaigns. This month’s theme will be: Addressing the Scourge of Tuberculosis. Dial (888) 409-6709 to join.
2. March 9. Chicago: Fundraising House Party with Musician Ella Gill.
3. March 10. Salt Lake City: Fundraising Evening with Muhammad Yunus.
4. March 13, 9 pm ET. RESULTS Introductory Call. Heard of RESULTS and want to know more? Join us for this 30-minute introductory call. Contact us with any questions and RSVP for the call. Dial (712) 432-3100, passcode 761262 to join.
5. March 18, 8 pm ET. RESULTS Free Agents call for global poverty advocates. Dial: (218) 486-1611, passcode 7378587 (RESULTS). Are you a RESULTS activist with our global poverty campaigns, living in a town with no RESULTS group? You are alone no more! Contact Lisa Marchal for more information on this monthly group call.
6. March 24. World TB Day. Generate some media with the new 2013 World TB Day editorial packet!
7. April 17. Congressional Gold Medal ceremony for Dr. Muhammad Yunus.
8. July 20–23. RESULTS International Conference in Washington, DC. Dr. Muhammad Yunus and author/speaker Marianne Williamson are already set to join us. Registration is open!