Next RESULTS International Conference Dates Announced: July 21-24, 2012
We have secured RESULTS International Conference dates for next year! I’m pleased to announce that we’ve found a great hotel with very reasonable rates and this conference is not one you’ll want to miss. The dates for next year’s conference are July 21-24, 2012.
As many of you know, our annual RESULTS International Conference (IC) is an amazing experience for those who participate. There are few things that stand out for me about the conference that I’d like to share.
First of all, the RESULTS IC provides top-notch training for our activists on issues and the skills we need to be effective. It offers a sense of community of being with you all — hundreds of smart, dedicated activists from around the U.S. and the world.
The lobby day portion of the conference offers a thrilling and sometimes nerve-wracking experience of being on Capitol Hill. Congress is where you have the deep impact because you aren’t a paid lobbyist or someone advocating on your own behalf.
And importantly, the International Conference inspires and re-inspires us. I remember my first conference as a volunteer myself. It was the energy, the community, and the strategic support to confidently knock on the doors of about half a dozen Hill offices that got me hooked on RESULTS and this work.
We recognize the tremendous sacrifices many of you make to come to Washington, D.C. to attend the conference. The expense and the time away from work and family are no little sacrifice. Your extreme commitment to this work amazes us.
The RESULTS staff also invest many, many hours organizing the conference and have seen the impact two days of D.C. lobbying can have in moving forward our campaign goals. This conference is key to getting results.
This summer, the RESULTS staff took a step back to really look at how to make the most of the conference — for impact on the political agenda and for expanding our ranks.
What we know is that many, many people are looking for the kind of experience a RESULTS conference offers – and decided to design the 2012 conference to provide that RESULTS experience for many more people
We’re committed to making this the largest conference we’ve ever had — more than doubling the 2011 IC attendance. We plan to create training tracks for new people and invite groups of new allies to come to be trained and lobby and hopefully link up with existing RESULTS groups or start new chapters. This plan will include significantly expanding the number of students attending the conference as well.
As an exciting part of this strategy, we realized we have a very unique opportunity to use the conference to recruit and mobilize many more people and leverage our advocacy.
We’ve designed our conference to coincide with a huge International AIDS Conference (IAC) taking place in D.C. next summer.
The 2012 AIDS conference will be in the U.S. for the first time in over two decades. This massive conference with over 20,000 participants will receive huge media and political attention. The space will be ripe for coalition building and activism as this conference will be in D.C. in a presidential election year.
Not only will many international experts and activists be attending, but many U.S. based AIDS activists will be there, and it will be a prime location for you to find partners for your own coalition work.
Our conference will run parallel to the IAC and provide a special “advocacy boot camp” with sessions for experienced RESULTS folks like yourselves but also trainings for people who are new to advocacy or who are looking to deepen their skills.
Again, having the RESULTS International Conference coincide with the IAC will provide us with great opportunities and the chance for us to market ourselves to a much broader group.
I really want to invite you now to plan to attend the conference next July 21-24, 2012 and to start thinking now about who else you will bring to the conference next year. If we each brought one person our ranks would be doubled and our work even more effective. But what if we each brought two or five or ten?
We look forward to seeing you there!