U.S. Poverty Campaigns

Weekly Update | October 27, 2015

“The EITC, CTC and SNAP offer a cushion to working families when our economy and life throws our family into unstable situations.”

– RESULTS Albuquerque volunteer Dee Ivy in a October 20 letter to the editor in the Albuquerque Journal

“I urge our legislators (local and national) to step up and take action. I would like to remind them and everyone: These are hard-working families!

– RESULTS Salt Lake City volunteer Michael Brown in an October 22 letter to the editor in the Spectrum newspaper (UT)

In This Week’s Update:

• Got Two Minutes? While Figuring Out Your Fundraising Plans, Donate to RESULTS Yourself
• Got Ten Minutes? Schedule Face-to-Face Meetings with Senators (October Action)
• Got Twenty Minutes? Confirm with Your Group How Calls to Tax Aides Are Going (October Action)
• RESULTS Experts on Poverty Are Making a Difference
• Quick News
• Upcoming Events

Quick Action: Send a Letter to the Editor about Poverty and the EITC/CTC

Got Two Minutes? While Figuring Out Your Fundraising Plans, Donate to RESULTS Yourself

Over the last few weeks, we’ve been talking about RESULTS/RESULTS Educational Fund’s big fundraising push this fall. We have a goal of raising $100,000 from our grassroots (not including previously scheduled events) by the end of the year. We urge all of you to consider doing an online Friends & Family Campaign or event in your area to help us raise the resources we need to maintain our high standard of grassroots advocacy and volunteer support. While you are deciding and coordinating your local fundraising efforts, you can get started by donating to RESULTS or RESULTS Educational Fund yourself. The funds we raise from the grassroots is unrestricted money (unlike grants which have conditions). This is very important because it allows us to allocate that money to the areas that will best accomplish our mission to create the political will end poverty. Your donation is an investment in this important work. In fact, RESULTS Ed Fund has a 95.74 score on Charity Navigator (out of 100), which shows that 90 percent of our financial resources go to programming, i.e. our mission.

TAKE ACTION: To two minutes to donate to RESULTS or RESULTS Educational Fund today. You can donate directly through our website at: https://results.org/support_results/. Any amount donated will help us get closer to our goal and help us continue to be a leading voice for the end of poverty. Thank you in advance for your support!

Also, if you want to hold your own fundraiser (online or otherwise), please contact Jen DeFranco ([email protected]) for assistance in getting started.

Got Ten Minutes? Schedule Face-to-Face Meetings with Senators (October Action)

Finally, we are getting some positive news out of Washington, DC. As is being reported this morning, Congress and President Obama have seemingly closed a deal that would avert potential budget standoffs in the coming weeks and months. Most notably, the deal would raise the debt ceiling through March 2017, thus avoiding the threat of a U.S. default on our debt until well after the next President takes office. It would also provide $80 billion in sequester relief for the next two years, to be divided evenly between defense and non-defense programs. Sequestration is automatic across the board budget cuts that went into effect in 2012. This kind of “chainsaw” approach to budgeting has drawn scorn from Democrats and Republicans alike. While this deal does not remove the spending caps set in place by sequestration, it does raise those caps, reducing the likelihood of deep cuts to programs such as Head Start, Early Head Start, and child care assistance. To learn more about the budget deal, see this analysis from the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities.

But there are still things unresolved. This deal only provides overall spending levels; Congress must still finalize the specific spending for federal discretionary programs by December 11 (probably in one big “omnibus” spending bill). Congress must also deal with the tax extenders. They’ll likely deal with the spending issues first and then tackle taxes in December or early January. This means we need to keep the pressure on Congress to ensure that in the tax bill, no business tax credits are made permanent without also making the 2009 Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) and Child Tax Credit (CTC) provisions permanent. Meeting with them face-to-face is the best way to do that.

TAKE ACTION: Take ten minutes to contact your Senate schedulers to set up face-to-face meetings in November. As noted last week, the Senate is key in making sure any tax deal includes the EITC and CTC provisions. Senators will be on recess November 21-29. Use our RESULTS Elected Officials page to contact schedulers to see if you can get a meeting that week to talk about the EITC and CTC (see our sample meeting request as well). The October Action has information to help you prepare. Once you get a meeting scheduled, please contact Meredith Dodson ([email protected]) to set up a lobby prep call; she can provide insights and coaching for your particular senators. Good luck! 

Got Twenty Minutes? Confirm with Your Group How Calls to Tax Aides Are Going (October Action)

As you work to get meetings with senators next month, it is still important that you talk to Senate and House tax aides about saving the EITC and Child Tax Credit provisions in any new tax legislation. Hopefully most of you have contacted your tax aides to remind them that it is imperative they save the EITC and CTC provisions in any bill extending business tax credits.

Part of being in a RESULTS group is supporting your fellow group members in taking action. This month, that means checking in with them to see if they need support making calls to aides or following up to see how they went. Sometimes we get distracted or hesitant or flummoxed on how to make these calls and a supportive, encouraging call from a friend can be of tremendous help. You do RESULTS because you want to make a difference and that happens when you take action. By helping others do the same, you’re helping not only hasten the end of poverty, you’re helping them be full participants in democracy. That’s worth a call right there.

TAKE ACTION: Take twenty minutes to support your fellow group members to call tax aides about saving the EITC and CTC provisions. If you’re tasked with making one or more of the calls, make your calls now. The October Action has talking points to help you (see also the other resources that can help in last week’s Update). If you’re not tasked with making one of the calls for the group, or you’ve already made your call, contact other members of your group to see how their calls are going. Offer to help them be in action (Jos Linn of RESULTS staff can help with coaching as well ([email protected])).

Also, once you have made a call to the tax aide, please let your group – especially your group leader – know how it went. Group leaders can then let staff know what happened on their weekly group leader calls. The information you get from the aides is very important in determining how we move forward, as well as keeping our coalition allies up-to-date on your amazing work. 

RESULTS Experts on Poverty Are Making a Difference

October has been a productive and exciting month for our Experts on Poverty. This cohort has been working hard to speak up and speak out on our issues, sharing their own critically important perspectives on poverty in America. Here are some of the highlights:  

• Tamara Bates of RESULTS Little Rock shared her story and inspires us to “be willing to take risks, and have an open mind” on the RESULTS Blog. 
• Maxine Thomas of RESULTS Indianapolis met with Rep. Andre Carson (D-IN-7) to share her story and urge him to protect families like hers who receive the EITC and CTC. Maxine will be appearing on the Tony Trupiano Show with RESULTS founder Sam Daley-Harris to tell her story and experience with RESULTS this Friday, October 30 at 10:00 am ET.
• Kimberly Trigg of RESULTS Salina (KS) attended a town hall meeting on her birthday to talk to Rep. Tim Huelskamp (R-KS-1) about poverty.
• Yolanda Gordon of RESULTS in South Carolina had a meeting with her Senator’s staff this month. 
• Jamy Rentschler of RESULTS Des Moines spoke powerfully about her personal experience with hunger at the launch of Vote to End Hunger campaign at the Iowa Hunger Summit, asking folks to get involved and engage with candidates. 
• Ruth Innocent of the brand new RESULTS Raleigh group got a commanding op-ed published in Raleigh’s News and Observer, urging Congress to preserve tax credits so working families can do more than just survive. 
• Angela “Nike” Sutton of RESULTS in Philadelphia was on the radio and in the news, talking what happens in real life with people facing hunger and poverty, even sharing her own masterful way of "getting $.50 out of a nickel.”

Congrats to all of our experts –  keep talking and keep fighting for what’s right!

Quick News

Keep Up your Fantastic Media Work. RESULTS volunteers are rockin’ the U.S. poverty media this year. To date, you’ve gotten 156 media pieces on U.S. poverty published in 2015 – a RESULTS record! Thank you for such amazing work. It makes a huge difference in educating your members of Congress and your community about these important issues. Let’s keep it going. Generate media in your area to tell members of Congress to save the 2009 provisions of the EITC and CTC. Use our online letter to the editor alert to send your letter today. If you’d like to up your game with an op-ed or editorial, see the September Action and contact Jos Linn for coaching and assistance ([email protected]).  

November Outreach Postponed. On this month’s National Webinar, we announced that we’d be doing an outreach push in November. Because we want you to focus on meeting our fundraising goal and the need to give you more time to prepare for a good outreach event, we’re postponing the outreach push to 2016. When we have a definite date and plan in place, we’ll provide you resources and plenty of notice to prepare.

Upcoming Events

Go to the RESULTS Events Calendar to see a full list of RESULTS events. Also, find a list of the RESULTS U.S. Poverty staff with contact information on the RESULTS website.

Congressional Recesses: House: November 6-15; Senate: November 21-29. Request face-to-face meetings.

RESULTS Introductory Call, October 30, at 1:00 pm ET. If you want to learn more about RESULTS, register for an upcoming Intro Call on the RESULTS website.

RESULTS Kansas State Group Start, November 2 at 5:30 pm CT. Room 113, Leadership Studies Bldg, 1300 Mid-Campus Dr N, Manhattan, KS. Contact Jos Linn ([email protected]) for more information.

RESULTS Kansas City Group Start, November 3 at 7:00 pm CT. First Baptist Church of North Kansas City, 2205 Iron St, North Kansas City, MO. Contact Jos Linn ([email protected]) for more information.

RESULTS Chicago Group Start, November 12 at 7:00 pm CT. 33 W. Monroe, Ste 2400, Chicago, IL. RSVP via Facebook here. Contact Jos Linn ([email protected]) for more information.

RESULTS U.S. Poverty National Webinar, November 14 at 12:30 pm ET. Join the meeting online at http://fuze.me/28130766 or dial in by phone at (201) 479-4595, meeting ID: 28130766#. Listen to previous conference calls and meetings on our National Webinars page.

RESULTS U.S. Poverty Free Agents Calls, November 17 at 1:00 pm and 8:00 pm ET. Join online at: http://fuze.me/27491886; or by phone at (201) 479-4595 and enter Meeting ID: 27491886. For more information, contact Jos Linn ([email protected]).

Thanksgiving Holiday, November 26. All RESULTS offices closed November 26 and 27.

2016 RESULTS International Conference, June 25-28, 2016 in Washington, DC. Save the dates!

If you have a question, comment or suggestion for the RESULTS/RESULTS Educational Fund Board, please e-mail them to RESULTS Grassroots Board Member Lydia Pendley at [email protected]. You can download RESULTS’ most recent Annual Report at: https://results.org/about/annual_report/.