RESULTS Campaigns Weekly Update June 16, 2020

Quote of the Week

“It’s clear that a global pandemic requires a global response, so it now falls to the Senate to make sure that happens.”

– RESULTS Iowa City volunteer Rachel Pierce in a June 1 letter to the editor in the Iowa City Press Citizen

Table of Contents

• Global Poverty Campaigns Update
• U.S. Poverty Campaigns Update
• RESULTS Announcements
• Upcoming Events
• Grassroots Resources

Global Poverty Campaigns Update

QUICK ACTION Write a letter to the editor on prioritizing global health and education during the COVID-19 crisis

Got Fifteen Minutes? Register for the RESULTS 2020 International Conference and prepare for the Week of Action.

The RESULTS International Conference (June 20-21) is this weekend! During this virtual event, hear from poverty experts and receive training to be a more powerful advocate. Then be part of our virtual Week of Action (June 22-25). Meeting with offices during the Week of Action, with an emphasis on getting virtual face-to-face meetings with your representatives and senators, will be key. Marginalized communities can’t bear the brunt of the coronavirus pandemic – we must make this clear. Let RESULTS help you prepare beforehand to make sure you have everything you need for a successful week.

TAKE ACTION: Take fifteen minutes to get ready for the virtual RESULTS International Conference (June 20-21) and the advocacy Week of Action (June 22-25). First, please register by Thursday, June 18 at 11:59 pm ET. If you are lobbying during the Week of Action, finalize your face-to-face virtual lobby meetings. Use our virtual lobby meeting request letter as a template for your requests. Please let us know each of the meetings you get scheduled in our conference meeting tracker. Then consult our conference resources for a policy brief, our anti-oppression values, leave-behind materials, an IC prep checklist, and more. Read through the conference agenda to view the speakers and sessions. Note the Zoom numbers for each session. Before the conference, registrants will receive an e-mail with the passcode for each session. Finally, follow the action on Twitter at the hashtag #Voices4RESULTS.

Got Another Five Minutes? Call on Congress to craft a global response to the global COVID-19 pandemic

The impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on a global scale is still unfolding, but it’s poor and middle-income nations that face the greatest risks. A World Bank estimate suggests that COVID-19 could drive 49 million additional people into extreme poverty in 2020. The World Food Program projects global hunger could double. And we are already seeing outbreaks of diphtheria, cholera, and measles due to suspension of vaccination programs. As a leader in global health and development, the United States must urgently respond to contain and mitigate the impact of COVID-19 and protect hard-fought gains in global health in low-income countries. Providing resources to programs that successfully impact poverty and have demonstrable track-records for improving health outcomes will be critical in the fight against COVID-19 and its effect on those most at-risk. As Congress considers emergency COVID-19 funding, we urge them to prioritize the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria; Gavi, The Vaccine Alliance; and funding to stave off hunger and malnutrition.

TAKE ACTION:  Contact your senators and representative. Call on them to speak to Senate and House leadership about ensuring that the U.S. includes a global response to the global pandemic in their next COVID-19 emergency spending bill.

QUICK NEWS ON GLOBAL POVERTY

Stand in solidarity and take action. As Executive Director Joanne Carter has said, RESULTS recognizes the persistent burden of racism and police brutality, especially on Black people, including our grassroots volunteers, partners, staff, and board who are directly impacted when society fails to recognize that Black lives matter. But condolences aren’t enough. As advocates we must confront racism and fight to change the policies that perpetuate it. Follow the expertise, leadership, and guidance of Black-led organizations and community networks focused on racial justice and donate to support their work. As a RESULTS advocate, you know how to write to the media and push your member of Congress into action. Use those skills. At RESULTS we’re not experts on legislative solutions to police violence or criminal justice reform, but we encourage you to lend your support to local, state, and national organizations that are (such as the Movement for Black Lives, the NAACP, and the Equal Justice Initiative). If you have feedback on how else RESULTS should be responding, please let us know.

ACTION applauds Gavi replenishment. Remarkably, the world has committed financial resources that will help deliver more than 3.2 billion doses of life-saving vaccines, reaching 300 million children by 2025. Read more online.

U.S. Poverty Campaigns Update

QUICK ACTION Tell Congress to provide emergency rental assistance

Got Fifteen Minutes? Make your final Conference preparations

It’s finally here! The virtual 2020 RESULTS International Conference begins this weekend and we are excited to see you all there. In this last week, we want to make sure you are as prepared as you can be to have a great experience. To help you, here are some tips for preparing before the big event:

TAKE ACTION: Take fifteen minutes to do the following things to get ready for this weekend’s RESULTS International Conference:

• Read through the View the Conference agenda to see all the amazing sessions and speakers for this weekend. Zoom numbers for each session will be posted in the agenda on Friday and registrants will receive an e-mail with the passcode for each session.
• Read the policy info. Review our U.S. poverty issue brief and video the Conference resources page. Lobby leave-behind materials will be available at the end of this week.
• Confirm your lobbying plans. If you are lobbying next week and have yet to set up lobby meetings, please schedule them now. Make sure you’ve logged all your scheduled meetings and work with your fellow advocates to get ready for each meeting.
• Check out the resources page. The Conference resources page has everything you need to get ready, including the IC Checklist, lobbying materials, recent media, anti-oppression resources, and more.
• Ask for help. If you have questions about the Conference or need last-minute help with your lobby meetings, please let us know.

And remember, you can still register for the Conference through this Thursday, June 18. Go to our Conference page to register today.

Got Five Minutes Next Week? Take action to support low-income renters

Even if you are not participating in lobby meetings next week, you can still play an important role in making sure low-income renters are housed during the COVID-19 pandemic. Experts are seriously worried that America could face mass evictions in the next few months, including millions of households of color, as local eviction moratoria expire for renters still out of work. It is unconscionable that Congress would sit idly by as millions of people are put on the street during a pandemic that is far from over. Congress needs to act now to avoid this looming disaster.

While RESULTS volunteers are lobbying members of Congress next week on this issue, bolster their message by sending your own message to your members of Congress. Tell them to include $100 billion in emergency rental assistance and a national moratorium on evictions in the next COVID-19 bill. The House has already passed these protections. It’s time for the Senate to do the same, and to do it now.

TAKE ACTION: During Advocacy Week next week, please take a few minutes to e-mail or call your members of Congress urging them to immediately pass policies to keep low-income renters housed during the current economic crisis. Watch for action alerts from RESULTS prompting you to take action. Please also forward these alerts to your local action networks urging them to take action too.

QUICK NEWS ON U.S. POVERTY

Use Household Pulse Survey in your advocacy. The Household Pulse Survey is “designed to deploy quickly and efficiently, collecting data on a range of ways in which people’s lives have been impacted by the pandemic.” See charts on housing insecurity, food scarcity, delayed medical care, and other factors by state. You can also download data showing breakdowns of employment, food sufficiency, and housing status by race, age, and other factors. This is a great tool as you prepare to lobby members of Congress next week.

Building support for emergency rental assistance. Last week, Rep. Denny Heck (D-WA-10) introduced into the congressional record a letter signed by more than 600 organizations urging Congress to enact the Emergency Rental Assistance and Rental Market Stabilization Act. The bill would provide short-term assistance to people struggling to pay rent. The bill was discussed at the House Financial Services Subcommittee on Housing, Community Development and Insurance virtual hearing on June 10. If you haven’t signed your local RESULTS group on yet, you still can here.

New data highlights growing racial wealth inequality for families with children. In the new paper, “A Penny on the Dollar: Racial Inequalities in Wealth among Households with Children”, researchers show that racial wealth inequality is growing faster for households with children. Their data shows that for every dollar of wealth held by white households with children held in 2016, Black households with children had just one cent and Latinx households with children had eight cents.

RESULTS Announcements

Celebrate Juneteenth this Friday. Juneteenth, otherwise known as Freedom Day or Jubilee Day, is an American holiday commemorating June 19, 1865, the day Union forces arrived in Galveston, TX to ensure freedom for the last remaining slaves of the former Confederacy. Despite the end of the Civil War two months earlier, enforcement of emancipation had come slowly to Texas, thus Juneteenth is celebrated as the day when slavery ended. This year’s 155th Juneteenth celebration comes amidst on-going protests against racism in America and gives all of us the chance to reflect and celebrate the importance of this moment in American history. It also reminds of the work we still must do to enact policies that live up to the ideal that Juneteenth represents – freedom and equity for all Americans. Look for local events in your area and plan to participate, if you are able.

No Weekly Update next week. Instead, stay tuned for action alerts that will help you amplify our impact during the Week of Action (June 22-25) following the International Conference.

Grassroots board elections. RESULTS and RESULTS Educational Fund are looking to fill two of the four grassroots board positions to serve a term of three years beginning in August 2020. Grassroots Board Members represent the volunteer body on the Board of Directors and on the Executive Committee of the Board. For information on candidates and how to vote, check out the RESULTS Blog. Voting ends July 18.

Join RESULTS Grassroots Anti-Oppression Group. Consider joining our group of volunteers and staff working to implement our anti-oppression values personally and collectively. We meet monthly to plan trainings, discussions, and other activities to designed to educate our grassroots about these issues. If you are interested in joining, please contact Jos Linn for more information.

Listen to the June National Webinar recording. If you were unable to participate in June’s RESULTS National Webinar, please take time to listen to it. We heard powerful stories from RESULTS volunteers about their experiences of racism. You can access the recording and slides on our National Webinars page.

Join book discussion on racism in July. In our ongoing effort to address racism and other forms of oppression, the RESULTS Anti-Oppression Grassroots Group is hosting its next book discussion on So You Want to Talk About Race by Ijeoma Oluo. With many Americans looking to deepen their knowledge of how racism impacts our lives, our communities, and our policies, join us for this conversation on how to better recognize, understand, and dismantle racism in America. The discussion begins Tuesday, July 21 at 9:00 pm ET. Join by logging in at: https://results.zoom.us/j/390106571 or dialing (929) 436-2866 or (669) 900-6833, meeting ID: 390 106 571.

Find coronavirus resources on our website. Our coronavirus pandemic page is a great resource for the latest policy and actions on poverty and COVID-19.

Receive action alerts via text. We are setting up a system to send some of our action alerts via text. If you’d like to receive text action alerts, please text RESULTS to 50457 to sign up for text action alerts.

Upcoming Events

Congressional schedule. The Senate is in Washington this week while House members are working remotely. Submit your remote meeting requests today.

Tuesday, June 16: U.S. Poverty Free Agents Webinars, 1:00 pm and 8:00 pm ET. Join at: https://results.zoom.us/j/324294681 or dial by phone at (929) 436-2866 or (669) 900-6833, meeting ID 324 294 681.

June 20-21: RESULTS International Conference. Register here.

June 22-25: RESULTS Week of Action. Read more here.

Saturday, July 11: RESULTS National Webinar, 1:00 pm ET. Join at: https://results.zoom.us/j/994444828. You can also join by phone at (669) 900-6833 or (929) 436-2866, meeting ID 994 444 828.

Wednesday, July 15: Hit “Send”: Write and Submit a Letter to the Editor in an Hour, 9:00 pm ET. Read more about the grassroots-led training here. Join at https://results.zoom.us/j/390106571 or dial in to (929) 436-2866 or (312) 626-6799, meeting ID 390 106 571.

Tuesday, July 21: So You Want to Talk About Race book discussion, 9:00 pm ET. Login at: https://results.zoom.us/j/390106571 or dialing (929) 436-2866 or (669) 900-6833, meeting ID: 390 106 571.

Monday, July 20: Global Poverty Free Agents Webinars, 1:00 pm and 8:00 pm ET. Join at https://results.zoom.us/j/464361707 or, by phone, (669) 900-6833 or (929) 436-2866, meeting ID 464361707.

Grassroots Resources

Learn about the RESULTS Experts on Poverty.

Do you have a new person in your RESULTS group or info to update? Use our Volunteer Information Form to add them.

Find actions and volunteer resources on our Current Volunteers page, including our anti-oppression resources.

Remember to please report your recent grassroots successes in lobby meetings, media pieces, and outreach activities.

If you have a question, comment, or suggestion for the RESULTS/REF Board, please e-mail Steven McGee at [email protected]. View Board minutes and Annual Reports.

RESULTS Staff directory.