U.S. Poverty Weekly Update June 21, 2016
U.S. Poverty Campaigns
Weekly Update | June 21, 2016
“Even in this climate of division and negativity in politics it is possible to work together to fight poverty.”
– RESULTS Washington, DC volunteer Lisa Peters in a June 18 letter to the editor in the Baltimore Sun
If You Are Coming to the RESULTS International Conference and You’ve…
- Got Two Minutes? Let People Know How You’ll Collect Their Letters for the Conference (June Action)
- Got Ten Minutes? Read the Conference Checklist and Make Sure Nothing is Left Undone
- Got Twenty Minutes? Confirm Your Lobby Meetings
If You Cannot Attend the Conference This Year and You’ve…
- Got Two Minutes? Register to Livestream the Opening of the RESULTS Conference
- Got Ten Minutes? Set Up Lobby Meetings for the Summer Recess
- Got Twenty Minutes? Write and Deliver Your Letters to Someone Going to DC (June Action)
- Upcoming Events
For RESULTS Volunteers Coming to DC This Weekend
Got Two Minutes? Let People Know How You’ll Collect Their Letters for the Conference (June Action)
This month, we are working to generate letters from people in your home cities and states that you can deliver to members of Congress next Tuesday during the RESULTS International Conference. Hopefully, you and your group have been successful in getting people to write letters for you. Now is the time to start collecting them (if you don’t have them already). These letters will help magnify your voice with members of Congress next week in Washington.
TAKE ACTION: Take two minutes to contact people writing letters for you to take to your lobby meetings in Washington, DC next week and tell them how you will collect them. Remind them to personalize their letters as best they can. Then provide them several options to get the letters to you, if possible. For example, you could:
1. Pick Them Up. If your letter-writers are local, tell them you’ll swing by to pick them up sometime before you leave for DC. To make it easier, you could ask them to leave the letters in their mailbox for you to retrieve. Be sure to let people know a specific day and time when you will come by so they have them ready.
2. Ask People to Deliver Them to You. You could also ask people to drop them off at your home or business before you leave for DC. Again, make it easy – ask them to drop them in your mailbox if it’s convenient.
3. Designate a Time and Location to Drop Them Off. If options 1 and 2 are not convenient, find a central location where you can tell people to drop off the letters (local library, coffee shop). Give people a window of time when you’ll be there to collect them.
4. E-mail. If personal delivery just won’t work, ask people to scan their hand-written letters and e-mail them to you. Or if they don’t have a scanner, ask them to type them up and e-mail them as an attachment.
Got Ten Minutes? Read the Conference Checklist and Make Sure Nothing is Left Undone
With the RESULTS International Conference beginning this weekend, this will be a busy week. To make sure you have all your ducks in a row before heading to Washington, DC, please do a final check to make sure everything you need to do before you leave will indeed get done.
TAKE ACTION: Take ten minutes to read the 2016 Conference Checklist. Read through it to make sure all the things you need to complete this week are checked off. Have you set up all your lobby meetings? Do you have your letters to bring? Are you packing for the weather in DC? The checklist has lots of tips to help you make the most of your time at the Conference. This tool is especially helpful to people coming to the Conference for the first time. You can find other helpful resources, including our issue background packets, on the Conference Resources page (be sure to visit it frequently; we will be adding things before, during, and after the Conference). Finally, please be sure to review our updated U.S. Poverty Campaigns Background Packet, with new information in light of the Ryan Poverty Task Force report. We won't update the packet any further so this version is safe to print off and bring to DC.
Got Twenty Minutes? Confirm Your Lobby Meetings
The biggest and most important day at the RESULTS International Conference each year is Advocacy Day. This is when you get to take all the knowledge you learned at the Conference (and before) and share it with your members of Congress and their staff. Without these meetings, all the information you learn and all the stories and experiences you bring go unused; the difference you want to make never happens. Imagine Hamilton in perpetual rehearsals with no opening night. Imagine the Cleveland Cavaliers practicing all day Sunday but never playing Game 7. That’s how important Advocacy Day is to the RESULTS International Conference and our work.
This year Advocacy Day is on Tuesday, June 28. Hopefully you have already scheduled all your meetings (if not, please get to it quickly; don’t cause yourself unnecessary stress by trying to schedule meetings once you get to DC.). This is the week to confirm that you are good to go. NOTE: Many senators do “constituent breakfasts” when they are in session so if you requested a face-to-face Senate meeting but did not get one, see if they are holding one of these breakfasts you can attend.
TAKE ACTION: Take twenty minutes to confirm your lobby meetings for Advocacy Day (June 28) at the RESULTS International Conference. Contact schedulers later this week – Thursday, Friday, or next Monday – to confirm that the meeting you have set up with your members of Congress and/or their staff are still a go. If you’ve set up meetings directly with an aide, contact that person to confirm the meeting. Find scheduler and aide names and contact information on our Elected Officials page. If you have made a request but do not have a confirmed time yet, contact them now to get your meeting set. The longer you wait, the harder it will be to get a meeting. Finally, please, please, please record any and all lobby meetings you schedule during the Conference (both face-to-face and with aides only) in our Conference Lobby Meeting Log. This is the only way we can keep track of all the meetings happening next week in DC.
If you have questions or need help with scheduling or confirming your lobby meetings, please contact Jos Linn at [email protected] for assistance. See you in DC!
Safe travels to all of you coming to Washington this weekend!
For RESULTS Volunteers Who Cannot Attend the Conference
Got Two Minutes? Register to Livestream the Opening of the RESULTS Conference
It’s finally here! The RESULTS International Conference begins this weekend. We wish all our volunteers could be there to experience this exciting event first-hand. With over 400 people planning to attend, it will be a great experience. However, we don’t want those of you who cannot come to feel left out. Therefore, we will be livestreaming the opening day of the Conference this Saturday, June 25. Starting at 1:00 pm ET, you can watch RESULTS Executive Director Joanne Carter welcome everyone to DC. After her remarks, watch world-renowned physician and founder of Partners in Health Dr. Paul Farmer speak beginning at 2:15 pm ET. You can then close out the day by hearing journalist, activist, and talk show host Tavis Smiley speak at 3:45pm. We are lucky to have these amazing speakers with us this year and we want all our volunteers to hear what they have to say. Plan to livestream the event so we can open the 2016 RESULTS International Conference all together!
TAKE ACTION: Take two minutes to mark your calendars to livestream the RESULTS Conference opening this Saturday, June 25 beginning at 1:00 pm ET. Go to the RESULTS Blog and register today to get the livestream information and experience the Conference at home.
Got Ten Minutes? Set Up Lobby Meetings for the Summer Recess
One thing those of you not coming to DC this weekend can do to support those who are and keep the pressure on lawmakers to address poverty in America is to set up lobby meetings for the summer recess. While Paul Ryan’s Poverty Task Force recommendations have not gotten the kind of attention he would have hoped, there is little doubt he will continue to push his agenda We need to remind members of Congress that protecting and expanding anti-poverty programs that work should be our focus, not acting on questionable premises to make destructive changes. Meeting with them this summer is the best way to do that.
Both the House and Senate will be on recess for about seven weeks this summer, July 18 – September 5. In addition, House members will be on recess next week. This gives you a number of options to keep the pressure on: 1) you can attend a local event or town hall with them next week, 2) you can schedule a sit down meeting for the summer congressional recess, or 3) you can do both. As for senators, contact them about meetings after your fellow volunteers have met with them or their staff on June 28. Let’s keep the conversation going about ending poverty in America by setting up your recess meetings now.
TAKE ACTION: Take ten minutes to contact schedulers to see if House members will be holding events back home you can attend next week. If not, ask to schedule a face-to-face meeting during the summer recess. As for these meetings with senators as well. The recess will be the perfect time to follow up on meetings volunteers do next week with their staff in DC. Find scheduler and aide names and contact information on our Elected Officials page, as well as a sample meeting request you can use. If you need help scheduling lobby meetings, please contact Jos Linn at [email protected] for assistance.
If and when you get a face-to-face meeting scheduled, please contact Meredith Dodson ([email protected]) to set up a lobby prep call to get you ready.
Got Twenty Minutes? Write and Deliver Your Letters to Someone Going to DC (June Action)
We are working this month to help everyone feel included in the RESULTS International Conference starting this weekend. One key way to do that is for you to take the June Action – writing letters on tax policy and nutrition programs to be hand-delivered in DC – and get them to someone you know coming to DC. If you have not written your letters, it’s not too late. Most people will not be traveling to DC until Friday or Saturday of this week so there is still time to crank out a few letters (even one is better than none) and get them to a DC traveler.
As for getting them in the hands of someone coming to the Conference, ideally someone from your city will be attending and you’ve already worked out how to get your letters to them. If you have not done so, please do so this week. Travelers will likely be too distracted to work something out once they are in DC (such as printing them off from an e-mail). Also, if you don’t live near a RESULTS group but would like to submit letters to be delivered in DC, contact the closest group in your state and plan to scan and e-mail them to people attending the Conference (regardless of whether they are U.S.- or global-focused).
TAKE ACTION: Take twenty minutes to write your letters and deliver them to someone you know attending the RESULTS International Conference. The June Action has all the information you need to draft your letters. Once they are written, have your letters picked up, drop them off, or e-mail them so they can make the trip to DC this weekend. If you need help finding someone to send them to, please contact Jos Linn, Grassroots Manager for U.S. Poverty Campaigns ([email protected]).
Thank you to all of you who have supported RESULTS and your fellow volunteers to have a great International Conference – we could not do this without you! (and we hope to see you at the next Conference)
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: June 27 – July 4 (House only), July 1 – 5 (Senate only), July 18 – September 5 (House and Senate). Request face-to-face meetings. After your meeting, please tell us how it went by filling out the RESULTS Lobby Report Form: www.tinyurl.com/RESLRF.
RESULTS Introductory Call, June 17, at 1:00 pm ET. If you want to learn more about RESULTS, register for an upcoming Intro Call on the RESULTS website.
RESULTS U.S. Poverty Free Agents Calls, June 21 at 1:00 pm and 8:00 pm ET. Join online at http://fuze.me/32256018 or by phone at: (201) 479-4595, Meeting ID: 32256018#.
Independence Day, July 4. All RESULTS offices closed.
RESULTS U.S. Poverty National Webinar, July 9 at 12:30 pm ET. This will be a join call with RESULTS Global Poverty volunteers. Listen to previous webinars on our National Webinars page.
2016 RESULTS International Conference, June 25-28, 2016 in Washington, DC. Register at www.resultsconference.org.
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/.