National Grassroots Conference Call for Global Campaigns – February 2014
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Dr. Joanne Carter, Executive Director
Welcome everyone to the RESULTS global national conference call for February 2014. A special welcome to our new activists in Rapid City and anyone else on the call for the first time!
If I sound a little far away, I am in Amsterdam where I’ve been with advocates and program implementation leaders from around the world planning how we can take advantage of the great work you have done to get that US $5B pledge and leverage the US commitment to the Global Fund to engage other donors and accelerate progress to end these diseases.
Prior to this I was also in South Africa with the Minister of Health of South Africa; he chairs the board of the global Stop TB partnership and I am Vice Chair.
Re: the huge global burden of TB and HIV. Commitment –supported by the Global Fund to cut new HIV infections by half, get 80% of people on treatment and cut infections and TB deaths also in half. The majority of new TB diagnostic machines in the world in scale-up are deployed in South Africa. South Africa funds most of this themselves, but this external support is and will be so key.
Today’s call is focused particularly on our work to impact the appropriations process—the Congressional process that determines how we spend our development assistance dollars (and all the rest of the money). John Fawcett, our Global Legislative Director, will say a lot more on our priorities and strategy in a moment. We’re taking the time to focus on this today because of how incredibly important this process is and how incredibly influential your engagement is. You may literally be the only ones engaging at this detailed and informed level with your congressional offices on the funding decisions for these billions of dollars that will or won’t be invested in ways that can save millions of lives, get the most marginalized kids in school, get resources in the hands of very poor women. And the work that you’re doing not only has you engaged in this process, but engages many members of Congress who care about these issues but wouldn’t themselves be engaged.
I was in the cafeteria in one of the House office buildings just before the holidays, and I saw a congressional staffer who I’ve known for years and who works for a member of Congress who is a strong ally of ours. He talked about how great the local volunteers were but he also said something extremely telling to me related to our appropriations work. His boss doesn’t sit on the appropriations Committee and he said that when the local RESULTS volunteers first came to him and asked that his boss talk the key leaders on appropriations on these key anti-poverty foreign aid issues, he thought we were crazy. And then because we asked, they did it and it worked really well, and he and his boss felt empowered to influence these issues in a way they hadn’t been doing before. He said he realized we weren’t crazy but actually had more creative ideas about how to use the process than they did. So . . . do not underestimate the importance of what you are doing!
I want to end by personally urging every one of you on the call (and your partners and allies s who aren’t on the call) to attend the 2014 RESULTS International Conference. It will be our biggest conference ever and a transformational time for our work.
We’ve confirmed some exciting new speakers including
*Marian Wright Edelman, founder and president of the Children's Defense Fund (CDF), civil rights leader and children’s advocate, winner of the Presidential Medal of Freedom, and RESULTS board member.
*Nationally syndicated columnist Michael Gerson who appears twice weekly in the Washington Post and who was previously a top aide to President George W. Bush. He was a key administration advocate for the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR), the President's Malaria Initiative (PMI) and poverty issues. He also served as presidential speechwriter. He’s written and advocated incredibly eloquently on issues of global health.
*David Bornstein, journalist and author who is co-authors the “Fixes” column in the New York Timeswhich explores and analyzes potential solutions to major social problems and wrote last year about RESULTS. He is the co-founder of the Solutions Journalism Network which supports journalists who report on constructive responses to social problems. His books include The Price of a Dream: The Story of the Grameen Bank, and How to Change the World: Social Entrepreneurs and the Power of New Ideas.
And of course our keynote will be World Bank President and longtime ally Jim Kim. Our plan is not to just have Jim Kim come and talk with us and we ask him some good questions. It’s to solidify our partnership with Jim and plan with him how we can work together to deliver on the goal he launched to eradicate extreme poverty on the planet by 2030.
So I really want each and every one of you there to be part of this moment and to bring our collective voice and vision to Congress and the World Bank.
The conference registration page is open so please register and please encourage your partners to attend.
- registration page
For those 18-28 or for young leaders that you know who might not be on the call, please check out the REAL Change fellowship. It’s an opportunity to not only attend the conference, but to be part of an ongoing young leaders program.
- REAL Change
John Fawcett, Legislative Director
Appropriations is an annual process to decide how much to decide on which programs. How big a piece of the pie does each get?
Recap on FY14 appropriations, current fiscal year:
· 175 million for GAVI- fulfills 3-yr $450 million pledge made by administration
· Protected Global Fund - $1.65B
· Rejected administrations proposed cut tobilateral TB
·For more information:
Moving forward in FY15:
Three ways members of Congress can help:
· Each member of Congress can submit wish list to appropriations committee
· Personal outreach to heads of committees and subcommittees
· Round of sign-on letters
Early March will be President Obama’s request. It should still be in play during our conference in June
Things making appropriations easier: appropriations FY15 budget level was already decided in omnibus bill passed recently. Size of the pie is set. That means process should go smoother since this does not have to be argued.
Things making it harder: It is an election year, so members are spending more time campaigning. House Republicans may not want to pass bill until after election because it could affect them being in power.
We have separate one-pager request sheets on each of our issues on our websites: microfinance, TB, Global Fund, etc. These can be shared directly with members of Congress. Some members will have a form to fill out for these requests that are more meant for local projects like bridges, etc. If you get one like that, contact the RESULTS office and we can help navigate that. Ask if your congressperson has a deadline for appropriations requests and work with that.
Don’t stop with an -email and form. At least make a phone call. Ideally, get a meeting. Finally, when we meet with congressional offices, the office sometimes say “We support you. I’m with you,” but they don’t have many chances to actually vote on the floor about it. So they will have to support us by making the wish lists and personal requests and through the future sign-on letters.
Don't assume that freshman congressmen know that they can make wish lists or personal requests. This may be an opportunity to educate them on how to make a difference on these issues.
When Congress reaches a deal on a budget cap, does that apply to overall level or does it apply equally to all the sub-accounts (pie or slices)? John says he doesn't know and others who should know, don't seem to know for sure. He has asked that question and got varied answers. Those decisions seem to be binding at a high level and then some discretion can happen at the lower, more specific levels.
What do I say to a member who prides himself on not voting on foreign aid? Try saying, money is definitely going to be spent. We're not talking about the overall level. We're going to spend something, so this is the chance to have a say in what it will be spent on and how it can have the most positive impact.
Remarks by Tony Baker, Education for All Campaign Manager, available upon request –
Ken Patterson, Director of Global Grassroots Advocacy
Hello, Activists!
I want to start the Grassroots Café by picking up where the brilliant Tony Baker left off. I don’t know about you folks, but frankly, I was pretty outraged by the numbers I saw in the UNESCO global monitoring report on education. How is it possible that 38% of all children in the world of grade school age can’t read or do math? It’s mind-blowing. We have to ask ourselves what do we have do differently to change this, because though we’ve made progress, we’ve repeatedly broken our promise to the world’s children.
The first real promise to educate all children happened in 1948 with the UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which states, “Everyone has the right to education. Education shall be free, at least in the elementary and fundamental stages.” Then in 1959 with the United Nations Declaration of the Rights of the Child, which states, “The child [every child] is entitled to receive education, which shall be free and compulsory, at least in the elementary stages.” Then at the World Conference for Education in 1980 a goal was set to provide a basic education to all children by 2000, then the Education for All World Forum in Dakar in 2000 helped craft what became MDG #2 to have all kids receiving a basic education by 2015. Clearly something is not working. It’s been 66 years since they world has declared that all children have a right to an education and we are only 62% of the way there. I’ve missed goals before in my life, and sometimes significantly, but I’ve never had 55 years to get it right.
This is why we really need to take this issue on with passion and work unapologetically with the media, congress, and our community over the coming months on education. Here’s what we need to do, and you may want to take notes:
1. The first step is to schedule face to face meetings with your representatives and senators to discuss all of our appropriations requests and the Education for All Act in the House.
2. Second is to put our appropriations requests in front of all of our foreign policy aides ASAP, as John talked about. You can do this now.
3. Third will be to prepare yourself to work with the media. For this I want to ask Colin Smith, Deputy Director of Communications to give us some ideas on how to get going. Colin?
Comments by Colin Smith available upon request –
4. Fourth, learn about the Global Partnership for Education and educate your community about GPE and the work to be done in global education. We’d like to support you through the following:
- You can learn more and educate your community on March 8 at 2 pm when the national conference call will become an international webinar featuring Alice Albright, the Chief Executive Director of the Global Partnership for Education. Our colleagues from RESULTS UK and Canada will be joining us for this webinar, as will some of the partner organizations working the Global Partnership for Education pledging effort. This will take the place of our normal monthly national conference call and we will provide you with a outline this coming week for how to turn this into a community outreach event. We’ll also share with you the technology needs to access the webinar soon.
We have a lot of very important work to do together in the coming months on appropriations and global education, so to give you a bit of inspiration we’ve asked a couple activists to share with us about their efforts and their success in getting their Republican representatives to cosponsor the Education for All Act.
Shares by Fran Moore and Linda Schatz available upon request – .
We now have 4 Republicans on the EFA Act. Our groups in WA, NE, TX, FL have cracked the door open and made cosponsoring for Republicans more do-able. We should take advantage of this as it will help us make our case on GPE pledging in the coming months. By cosponsoring the bill they are acknowledging their acceptance of GPE as a viable funding mechanism.
Thanks for all of the great work you are doing in planning and face to face meetings. Both are so critical. One note on group plans, your RC will not stop asking you for your group plan until she/he has a copy, so do finish that work up.
Cindy Levin, Grassroots Development Associate
We’ve listened to our grassroots, we’ve analyzed the data, and we have a brand new strategy to share with you for our 2014 Friends and Family Campaign!
The Friends & Family Campaign, instead of a month-long effort, will be an ongoing campaign from February to October.Donations to RESULTS or RESULTS Educational fund solicited by volunteers through fundraising letter writing, emails, or webpages will count towards our overall$25,000 goalfor personal fundraising appeals to friends and family.
Why did we make the change?
Mainly, participation in fundraising is changing. More of you are participating when it is best for your personal schedules. Many partners have told us they enjoy asking their friends to give when they feel a personal connection, like when they celebrate a birthday, run a race for RESULTS, or ask around a holiday. Our survey of the grassroots showed there is no overall consensus about what a good time of year would be for a month-long Friends & Family Campaign.
So, to help our groups and individual volunteers fundraise at convenient times, we will support you if you want to do a mailed letter campaign, an online birthday campaign with our RESULTS Celebration website, or take on a physical challenge with our RESULTS Race to End Poverty website.
We will also be creating seasonal online campaigns at three times of the year themed around Valentine’s Day, the International Conference, and Thanksgiving.
If you have participated in Friends & Family Campaigns in the past, you can expect a phone call or e-mail from our development staff to help explain the change and make sure you have all the support you need. Donor envelopes for a mailed campaign help with websites, or general coaching about how to make the most of your campaign are all available. We’ll help you to choose a campaign that is exactly right for you!
If you have not participated in the past, please reach out to your fundraising coaches, Jen DeFranco () and Cindy Levin () to get started.
Thank you to all our partners who annually volunteer their energy to collectively raise thousands of dollars for RESULTS/REF with the Friends & Family Campaign. We hope the new strategy will be more fun and successful for everyone!
Laser Talk - Appropriations
Engage: Most Americans think that the U.S. spends 10 to 25 percent of our budget on foreign aid. When they learn that we spend less than 1 percent on poverty-focused assistance, many feel we could invest more.
State theProblem: But poverty-focused developmentassistance has been targeted for cuts in recent years, even though it has a profound impact on saving livesas well as on the U.S.economy and national security.
Inform: For example, U.S. investments in child survival have helped cut the number of under-five child deaths in half since the 1980s. Investments in the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosisand Malaria have saved millions of lives. And by promoting health and development, we are investing in future trade partners and allies becausedeveloping nations purchase 50% of USexports.
Call to Action: Our representative/senator needs to be a voice for effective foreign aid so that successes can continue. I would like the representative (or senator) to write and speak to the heads of the Foreign Operations Subcommittee of Appropriations. I think the representative/senatorwould be particularly interested in (choose an issue). How may I send you some detailed requests?