RESULTS Campaigns Weekly Update July 14, 2020

Quote of the Week

“Democracy is a muscle. Just as babies have to strengthen their leg muscles to walk, we all have to develop the skills we need to act collectively to achieve our common interests.”

                         – Dr. Hahrie Han, Dec. 16, 2019 in the NY Times 

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? Contact your senators and representatives about the global pandemic

 Global health systems are overburdened as limited resources are diverted to address COVID-19—vaccination rates, TB case detection, and access to basic healthcare services are all down. There are alarming projections of increased deaths from treatable disease and malnutrition. And as COVID-19 takes a toll on healthcare systems, it is also negatively impacting economies, with projections that, without action, global hunger could double, and 70 million people could be pushed into extreme poverty. 

But we can take action to ensure Congress does their job for the people who are most at risk. Our window of opportunity for taking action is closing. The next couple of weeks are critical. Reach out to your senators and representatives today. 

We are asking for the following:  

A global response of at least $20 billion for development assistance in the next COVID-19 supplemental spending bill, and a designation of $10 billion of that to be used as follows: 

• $4 billion over two years for the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, TB, and Malaria 
• $4 billion for Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance 
• $2 billion for anti-hunger programs, with at least $500 million for nutrition 

If your representative or senator signed the House Frankel-Rooney letter or the Senate Cardin-Rubio letter in favor of action in the face this global situation, thank them and ask them to also speak directly to leadership about a global response. Send them our detailed requests. Ask them to let you know if they will take this action. 

If your representative or senator did not sign a letter, send them a copy of the final letter for their chamber (see letters above), and ask that they write their own similar letter and speak directly to leadership. 

TAKE ACTION: Contact your senators and representativesabout a global response to a global pandemic. Use our Global Poverty July Action Sheet, laser talk, and online alert to take action and to engage others in calling and writing.

Got Another Fifteen Minutes? Follow up on your International Conference activity

The joy of the International Conference is still being felt across our network. But don’t let the memories fade. During this congressional recess (which extends to July 20), follow up on the good work done during the conference and the Week of Action!

1. Revisit the conference. Enjoy playbacks of select conference sessions.
2. Keep getting lobby meetings. Schedule meetings with those legislators with whom you couldn’t meet during our Week of Action. Your voice is still important and effective. (Need help? Read our activist milestone for top tips.)
3. Follow up on the lobby meetings you had during the Week of Action. Your reports are important to us in many ways, as they help us track progress and point to what to do next. Please report your meetings. And personalize our email template in order to follow up on the requests you made in each meeting. Be persistent until you get clear responses to your requests.

TAKE ACTION: Follow up on your Week of Action meeting requests and fill out your lobby report forms. Then take more action by contacting Congress about dedicating at least $20 billion toward the global COVID-19 pandemic response.

QUICK NEWS ON GLOBAL POVERTY

Congratulations. Thanks in part to your great work, the House Frankel-Rooney letter (in favor of a global health response to the global pandemic) had 123 signers and the Senate Cardin-Rubio letter had 32 signers. Brilliant work!  

Get a letter to the editor published. The recent bill in the House of Representatives failed to include any international funding to fight coronavirus and its fall out. It’s clear that a global pandemic requires a global response, so it now falls to the Senate to make sure that happens. The U.S. can and must play a role in slowing COVID-19’s spread globally and protecting access to other health services and education. Make sure your senators get that message loud and clear in their local paper.  

U.S. Poverty Campaigns Update

QUICK ACTION Tell Congress to fund emergency rental assistance 

Got Ten Minutes? Follow up with Congress to prevent a spike in evictions 

On last Saturday’s National Webinar, Dr. Megan Sandel emphasized the importance of quality, stability/affordability, and location when analyzing the impact housing has on someone’s health. Children’s HealthWatch found that the long-term costs of unstable housing to the health system are $111 billion over the next ten years. While millions are facing a surge in COVID-19 cases, approximately 25 percent of families felt housing insecure in mid-June with most existing eviction protections end this month, and between 19 million and 23 million Americans are at risk of eviction by the end of September. To prevent a dramatic increase in evictions, Congress must include $100 billion in emergency rental assistance to help both tenants and landlords as well as a national moratorium on evictions in the next COVID-19 response package. The mass displacement that is inevitable if Congress does not act carries the potential to destabilize communities for years to come.  

TAKE ACTION: Take ten minutes to schedule meetings with your senators and Senate staff if you have not connected with them (this can coincide with the National Virtual Lobby Day next Tuesday – see below) and follow up on lobby meetings with Congressional staff, urging representatives and senators to speak to leadership calling on them to include $100 billion for emergency renter assistance relief and an eviction moratorium in the next emergency response package. Send them our detailed requests, and you can use our U.S. Poverty July Action Sheet and online action to engage your action network and community members to call, write, or contact Congress on social media in favor of renter relief and an eviction moratorium.  

If you don’t get a chance to connect with offices this week or want another excuse to engage with offices further, you can join housing advocates for a Virtual Lobby Day on July 21. The National Low-Income Housing Coalition has created a toolkit (borrowing from RESULTS resources) that includes the top policy priorities for this Lobby Day, talking points from different sectors, sample tweets, and some best practices. In addition, see NLIHC’s Out of Reach 2020 report, which shows the significant gap between wages and housing costs, released today.

Got Fifteen Minutes? Report these alarming child food insecurity statistics to congressional staff 

As the Senate returns next week, negotiations on a new COVID-19 bill will begin in earnest, and the latest analysis from the Brookings Institute on child food insecurity underscores the importance of boosting SNAP benefits by 15 percent. Researcher Lauren Bauer found that approximately 17.9 percent of children lived in a household characterized by child food insecurity in late June—the equivalent of 13.9 million children. Unconscionably, the parents in Black families were three times as likely to say that the children under their roof “were not eating enough because we just couldn’t afford enough food.” Nearly 4 in every 10 Black households are experiencing food insecurity, according to reporters at Politico, reminding us once again how this pandemic exacerbates racial inequities. Jessi Russell, RESULTS Zero Hunger Intern via the Congressional Hunger Center, has a new blogpost that offers an overview of federal nutrition programs, including the additions made in response to the pandemic, and why additional investments in food assistance is still needed. If during your lobby meetings, staffers have brought up another program that you don’t know too much about or claimed that what has already been done for families facing food insecurity is enough, be sure to check it out!  

TAKE ACTION: On Monday, July 20, RESULTS will join other anti-hunger advocates in a day of action targeted at the Senate to support food assistance. Between 9:00 am and 12:00 pm in your local time zone, we urge you to call and tell your senator to boost the maximum SNAP benefit by at least 15 percent in the next COVID-19 bill, and message your senator on social media using the hashtag #BoostSNAPNow.

Remember to also check on the status of your housing (see above), SNAP, and tax credit requests with congressional aides. You can use our template follow-up e-mail as a starting point, but please remember to personalize it before sending. Call, e-mail, or tweet at your member of Congress quickly through this link. 

QUICK NEWS ON U.S. POVERTY

Bread for the World Racial Equity Scorecard. The new Bread for the World Institute #RacialEquity Scorecard is a way of assessing how successfully a given policy/program or legislation applies a racial equity lens – as mentioned on last month’s National Webinar, this kind of analysis is critical. For more: https://bread.org/sites/default/files/downloads/racial-equity-scorecard-policies.pdf.  

RESULTS Announcements

Vote for your next Grassroots Board members. 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.

Wednesday, July 15: Hit “Send”: Write and Submit a Letter to the Editor in an Hour, 9:00 pm ET. Join grassroots writing and publishing leaders for this informative and inspirational workshop. Bring along access to a local newspaper, a copy of our EPIC format worksheet, and a copy of a recent editorial packet or the U.S. poverty and/or global poverty leave-behinds. You’ll learn about finding and utilizing great hooks for your writing and the power of the EPIC format to enhance your writing, as well as get positive feedback before submitting your letter for publication. All in an hour! Join at https://results.zoom.us/j/390106571 or dial in to (929) 436-2866 or (312) 626-6799, meeting ID 390 106 571. 

National Webinar recording available. Listen to the July National Webinar featuring Dr. Megan Sandel of Children’s HealthWatch and Dr. Jim Kim, former president of the World Bank. You can find the recording and the companion slides online.  

Fill out the lobby report form. Please take time to let us know what happened in each of your recent lobby meetings at: www.tinyurl.com/RESLRF. Please be as detailed as possible when completing the form.

Join book discussion on racism on July 21. 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. Also, consider joining our group of volunteers and staff working to implement our anti-oppression values personally and collectively. If you are interested in joining, please contact Jos Linn for more information.

Watch International Conference recordings. If you were unable to participate fully in the International Conference – or if you’d simply like to revisit something you heard –  take a look at the International Conference agenda for individual playback links for select sessions.

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 House and Senate are on recess until July 20. Submit your remote meeting requests today. 

Tuesday, July 14, 9:00 pm ET. Book Discussion, The Righteous Mind, 9:00 pm ET. Join via Zoom online or dial (669) 900-6833 US or (646) 876-9923, meeting ID 655 036 085, password: 641539. Focusing on final portions of book. 

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. 

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. 

Tuesday, June 21: 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. 

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. 

Saturday, August 1: 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. 

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.