For Companion Powerpoint and to Listen to the Call in Its Entirety, Go To

December 2013 Joint National Grassroots Conference Call – Some Highlights For companion PowerPoint and to listen to the call in its entirety, go to: http://www.results.org/skills_center/results_national_conference_calls/

**Individual and Group Planning Materials: Begin now and plan to complete your work when you gather at the January 11 National Conference Calls! http://www.results.org/skills_center/group_resources_and_admin/**

Dr. Joanne Carter, Executive Director

Welcome everyone to the RESULTS December 2013 National Conference Call. This is a very special call because it’s a joint call that only happens once or twice a year-with all of our partners who work on both domestic and global poverty issues together on one call.

One purpose of this end-of-year call is to understand and own and celebrate all that you have accomplished this year. And to own and celebrate what it took to get there—the persistence and, frankly, the courage it took to keep calling back your Congressional office or editorial writer. Because I know that so many of us are so committed to the outcomes, AND to the next battle to be won that we hardly stop to notice and celebrate what we did accomplish.

One touchstone for me in our advocacy work is historian Howard Zinn, author of A People’s History of the United States, and among the things Zinn taught us is that change is not made by leaders—the President or leaders in Congress—just “deciding” to do something, though that’s often how it’s told. But change is made by people who made a decision a possibility or a priority.

I think many of us know this, but we sometimes forget it when it comes to our own work, and we undersell our impact. So I want to talk a little about the impact you’ve had.

Domestically, you have done a truly amazing job with face-to-face meetings with members of Congress and with media as an absolutely central part of the national fight to protect SNAP (formerly Food stamps). You had nearly 70 face-to-face meetings with House members and 14 with Senators. You produced nearly three times as much media in 2013 as in 2012, and that has been an absolutely critical piece of the overall fight to protect SNAP. (Food stamps virtually eliminated extreme hunger in this country. It is one of the country’s most effective anti-hunger and anti-poverty programs.)

Because of the key part that you’ve played in this effort, just the week before last I was part of meetings in the same day with Congressman Jim McGovern, then House Majority Whip Eric Cantor and then Agriculture Committee Chair Senator Debbie Stabenow on SNAP and the Farm Bill. I heard from members of Congress and from the other anti-hunger orgs how important our role is with grassroots able to reach MoC and also get this issue powerfully into the media.

Meredith Dodson, our Director of Domestic Campaigns will say more later in the call of exactly where things stand on SNAP. While there’s not yet a final agreement on the Farm Bill and while we are still worried about cuts to SNAP, nearly all of the worst policy changes that would have led to deep and very harmful cuts in SNAP are NOT expected to be in the final bill. All of those things that won’t be in there are in no small part because of the media work you did to really help shift the tide on this and your amazingly persistent outreach to Congress.

It’s not OK that we should need to fight these defensive fights, but we do have to fight them, and your work helped avoid huge harm and build public and political support for these programs that we will build on to create even more positive momentum in the future. (Thanks to many Global volunteers who also worked to protect SNAP!) Decisions are not final yet. Your outreach to your MoCs over the recess will be critical to protecting SNAP in the final Farm Bill deal. More on how everyone can take action later in the call.

On our global issues, we just achieved an amazing victory in the replenishment of the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria.

For those of you who don’t follow these issues, the Global Fund is the most important funding external funder to help countries fight these diseases, which are among the biggest killers on the planet. And donors decide on refunding the Global Fund every three years. We were seeking $15B overall—important not just for the next three years, but because with the science and the health infrastructure we’ve built, it is literally possible to defeat these diseases in the next 10-15 years if we invest ambitiously now.

So we were seeking up to $5B from the US as a one-third share. And on Monday, December 2, President Obama said the US would provide up to $5 B over the next three years, matching other donors 1:3. It was literally everything we wanted him to say. This pledge was echoed powerfully by Secretary Kerry, National Security Advisor Susan Rice, and UN Ambassador Samantha Power. What you need to understand is that we were told the White House would not say $5B. This was not likely to happen. You played an absolutely central role in building support to make it happen via your brilliant media work. Pieces were coming in every single day and are STILL coming in! And then all of the Congressional work that showed support for funding for 2013 and 2014. Several hundred pieces of media happened. We worked with our African colleagues from Malawi and Zambia to meet with editorial boards.

THE WORK TO RAISE MONEY FOR THE GLOBAL FUND IS NOT OVER! We’ve gotten to $12B. President Obama said to other donors: don’t leave our money on the table. THE US WILL BE A CRITICAL “PULL FACTOR” FOR OTHER DONORS; I was just in Geneva and we are expecting contributions from Switzerland, Russia, Germany and others….We can get to $15B. I also want to acknowledge your work on ending child undernutrition globally: You helped get 17 Senators, 81 Representatives – including 14 Republicans – to sign a letter to the President and generated over 50 pieces of media.

RESULTS Expansion: 10 new U.S. poverty groups with 3 in training. 6 new global poverty groups with 1 in training. Over a dozen new groups in the pipeline.

International Conference: Our 2013 conference was our largest ever—500 people! Really powerful moment for our advocacy. And more than ever before we have used the conference not only to gather our collective advocacy power and train ourselves but also to expand our reach and impact with 70 young leaders and many new allies from Circles, Feminine Power and international partners from over 20 countries! Many powerful new RESULTS partners, new groups started from conference contacts.

Our 2014 conference is June 21-24, 2014 in DC, and we plan to have an even bigger conference this year with even more new allies. One of our very special keynotes will be World Bank President Dr. Jim Kim who has launched global goals to eradicate extreme poverty on the planet by 2030! Many other exciting invites that we hope to confirm by early January.

RESULTS Development: Number of grassroots fundraising events: 18. Raised: about $260,000.

Small house parties to large galas – they all help raise awareness and support. Fundraising events are some of the best ways to actually recruit new group members because they are inspired by the speaker and enthusiasm for RESULTS. Thank you for the individual fundraising outreach you did as well! And thank you to each of you for your generosity as donors. The resources you have raised are key for expansion, lobbying, and other advocacy, and they leverage millions in foundation funding.

Please push for face-to-face meetings with your members of Congress in Dec, January, February. This is the single most powerful way to reach and influence members of Congress and build relationships.

A quote from Nelson Mandela: 'I have been asked a question many a time, who is your hero? I say, my hero does not depend on the position a person occupies. My heroes are those simple men and women who have committed themselves to fighting poverty wherever that is to be found in the world.'

Ken Patterson, Global Grassroots Manager

Hi, everyone! It’s hard to believe that it’s nearly the end of the year. You’ve really done some amazing work this year that we want to celebrate in this section of the call. For our folks working on global issues, I want to give you an overview of some of our key successes and breakthroughs (slides 4-6), and then hear from a couple of advocates about some group breakthroughs. Then we’ll hear from Meredith Dodson on U.S. poverty campaigns, an action we can all take on SNAP, and then open the call for additional grassroots shares.

Let’s start on slide 4 by highlighting a couple of the major legislative successes we had this year. If I can point out one theme that is striking it is your work to bring bipartisanship to our issues in this time of divided government. Here are a few successes:  In April Dr. Muhammad Yunus was awarded the Congressional Goal Medal, an honor bestowed only on those who receive approval of 2/3 of the House and Senate. You mobilized that bipartisan support during one of the most politically divisive times in history. The moment allowed Congress to recognize Dr. Yunus and the power of microfinance. It also allowed RESULTS to be acknowledged by Dr. Yunus in front of the most important decision makers in our country.  In June of this year you generated over 50 pieces of media and mobilized bipartisan support in both the House and Senate again around child nutrition. Going into the Nutrition for Growth Summit we had no idea how much the US was investing in nutrition efforts or the first 1000 days or what was being achieved with those investments. Your advocacy helped secure a solid $1 billion commitment from the US and a commitment to form a plan and measure outcomes. We did not hit our funding target, but we got something more important—clarity, commitment, and the ability to hold the US accountable for saving the lives of babies and reducing stunting in the world.  You’ve been working on generating bipartisan support on the EFA Act and HRes 254, both critical for advancing our campaign work on education and nutrition respectively. Again, you’ve done great work generating bipartisan support. On the nutrition resolution you’ve gathered 53 cosponsors, 5 of them Republicans. This is incredibly important champion building work that you are doing. We need to build a deep bench of leadership on the child nutrition issue if we want to end preventable child deaths by 2030 and take a bite out of child stunting. Gathering bipartisan support on this resolution and the sign-on letters for the Nutrition for Growth Summit gives us a foothold for creating new champions. On the EFA Act I know so many of you have been working extremely diligently to gather Republican support for the bill, trying new tactics, and really sticking with your Rep’s offices. Well we just had our first breakthrough this past week with Rep. Lee Terry of Nebraska becoming the second Republican cosponsor thanks to the work of our Fran Moore and our Omaha group. We now have more leverage to go back to our Reps. and ask them to come on board. Continuing to gather bipartisan support on this bill will be critical in our work on the GPE replenishment pledge early next year and the logjam has now been broken, which will hopefully help all of you who have been working to sensitize your Republican Rep. around this issue. Go for it.

A couple of other things I want to point out about your great work this year:  On slide 5 you can see that had more meetings with Reps, Senators, and their aides than in time in the past 6 years. Really remarkable is the number of face to face meetings you had with Reps. Your 112 face to face meetings dwarfs anything that has happened in recent, and I’m guessing, distant history. Fantastic work. That is exactly what is required to develop relationships and create political will.  You also generated more media than in the past 2 years, providing the necessary public exposure for our issues at critical moments to create real successes. So many of you had breakthroughs on opeds and editorials that we have solid proof that generating print media on our global issues and developing relationships with editors, even thought the media landscape has changed, is very doable and extremely important in our work. We’ve seen great breakthroughs in Richmond, CT, SD, NC, MO, MT, NYC, WI, IA, WA and others.  On our global expansion work, we started 6 new global chapters and have 12 new opportunities in the pipeline for the beginning of 2014. Our goal for 2014 is to really grow significantly—by 12-19 groups, while strengthening all of our existing groups so we retain all of the 65 we currently have. We’ll need your help to expand though—we’ll need your help in identifying people who want to make a difference in the world. We offer such a great opportunity for people to become who they want to be in the world and we want to extend that to more people than every in 2014.

Frank Gilbert of Louisville, KY

RESULTS Louisville is a global group of 7 partners--and our World AIDS Day event last year was a showing of How to Survive a Plague--and though we thought it was well-planned it was poorly attended--so somehow we decided it was a good idea to do it again. Makes sense, right?

At the IC in July, Patrick Hughes, A RESULTS Board member got involved. He lives 5 hours away in Evanston, Ill--but has family in Louisville--specifically, the president of Bellarmine University--a small, liberal Catholic school in the heart of town. He got us connected with their administrative team, but our success is due to three things we did differently in our: Planning, Reaching Out, and being the community leader on this issue.

First, planning--we started in July--meeting with each other and eventually with the Bellarmine team. We stayed in communica- tion over the course of the next 5 months. Everyone contributed creatively to the event, from the grandest vision to the tiniest de- tail--nothing was left out.

Second, we reached out to area AIDS organizations. The director for AIDS Interfaith Ministries told us no one outside the AIDS community had ever approached them on this level before. They were impressed with our knowledge and welcomed our capacity to mobilize for this event.

Last, we took the role of leader in our community on this issue--and all the groups we worked with, the organizations who tabled at our event, the groups who helped us plan, and the people who came--they saw us that way too. It didn’t hurt that our partner Keith Wilhelmi had a brilliant Op-Ed on the Replenishment published in the Courier Journal two days before--giving us even more credibility.

Overall our event drew between 80-90 people. We had an inspiring evening of music, video, speakers, education, and action. Twenty panels of the National AIDS quilt were on hand for viewing. Patrick and his mother Brigid joined us and shared their per- sonal story of loss through AIDS. We acknowledged the tremendous toll of this crisis; we celebrated the achievements of the last ten years with the Global Fund, and took actions to #bethegeneration to end AIDS.

We’ve gained valuable partners in the community, we’ve raised our profile among advocacy groups in our city, there are new folks who have enlisted on our Action Network, and a few others who signed up to learn more about RESULTS. Best of all, each partner in our group has grown in leadership and advocacy . And all those other groups are already asking us about next year!

Meredith Dodson, Director of U.S. Poverty Campaigns

In this section, I want to reflect on how far we have come – and use a few shares from RESULTS volunteers to walk through our work this year. Then we’ll talk about where things stand now on our work to end hunger in American and protect the SNAP, or Food Stamp, program and how we can impact the debate.  When took this on, knew would be tough  Want to acknowledge tough to play defense  Despite the fact millions struggling with hunger  USDA: over 1/5 kids at risk of hunger in 2012  SNAP critical lifeline  According to the latest Census Bureau (slide 13), SNAP kept 5 million Americans out of poverty in 2012  House budget included over $140 billion in cuts to SNAP  Senate passed a bill with cuts to SNAP this summer (see slides 14)  Your face-to-face meetings were critical, back home and in DC o Real breakthrough year for getting meetings with members of Congress – critical for demonstrating the support for SNAP back home o Doubled face-to-face meetings with representatives o Lanae Havens, Circles Leader from Albuquerque, has lost her voice and cannot share. I want to publicly acknowledge the great work that our NM volunteers have done with these true experts on poverty, and making sure their voices are heard. You can see a snapshot of Lanae’s representative telling her story on the House floor during debate of SNAP cuts on Slide 11 o You were a critical voice for hungry families in hundreds of lobby meetings in DC this summer o Speaking of DC, go to 1st share: Rachel (Baltimore)  Then House put forward a draconious package (slide 15), you doubled down your media work o Forgive the pun, but you really “tripled down” – we generated almost 3 times more media pieces on our US poverty work than during previous years. o 2nd share: Streuferts (Lindsborg) o Shout out to global poverty volunteers for jumping in  As we talk about what’s happening now with SNAP, let’s start with reminding ourselves o SNAP benefits were cut automatically starting November 1 when the increases in SNAP benefits from 2009’s American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) was prematurely ended o Average cut of $36/month (family of 4) or 5.5 percent  Earlier this month, members of Congress shared with us some of the details about the proposed nutrition cuts agreed to in the final Farm Bill. o As Joanne mentioned and you can see on slides 17-18, so many of the worst provisions are not included in this deal – including the harmful so-called “work” provisions. o I think your media work and continued follow up with members of Congress to make sure they weigh in with the Farm Bill negotiators has made an impact. o While RESULTS is pleased that many of the most harmful provisions passed in the House are not part of this deal, we strongly oppose further cuts to SNAP and urge policymakers to reconsider the $8.6 billion cut to SNAP. o I want to flag that we have not seen the actual bill language for this deal. o Congress comes back on January 6 and I think we’ll see action quickly on the Farm Bill after that o We and other anti-hunger organizations believe it is important to not get a lot of public attention on this tentative deal – in other words, I ask you to hold off on generating media coverage that focuses on this deal, though our continued media work to tell Congress to protect SNAP is helpful.  What can we do? o I urge you to share our support for protecting SNAP with members of Congress and their staff. o In particular, share your deep concerns about the proposed $8.6 billion cut to SNAP to Democratic offices . I’d suggest you not share the details about the proposed agreement with more Conservative offices – honestly, they will probably not be happy with the deal and push for far deeper cuts. Instead, reiterate your support for the SNAP program generally and your concerns about the legislation passed by the House earlier last fall. . But do circle back to those that have supported the SNAP program in the past – and share your specific concerns about a Farm Bill that contains deep cuts to SNAP along the lines of the Farm Bill agreement o Our best strategy is to push members of Congress to protect SNAP, and that includes protecting benefits for all those that are part of the SNAP program, in face-to-face meetings. o As you can see on Slide 21, 97 percent of Congressional staff say that in-person issues visits from Constituents influence policymakers, with 46 percent reporting it has a lot of influence – more than any other tactic

Share: Vic and Kay Streufert of Lindsborg, KS

1. Importance of establishing and maintaining contact with the editor in charge of "letters to the editor" - becoming "e-mail friends" though we've not met him in person -Small introductory comments regarding possible contribution to "letters to the editor" submissions -Thanks for including our letters after their publication -Thanks for editorial improvements in our submissions -Thanks for being willing to publish a variety of points of view in the Journal 2. Significance of the help we have so readily received from RESULTS staff in preparing submissions -Quick turn-around time with suggestions for improving our letters -Quality of suggestions from RESULTS staff - help in statistics or additional points of view -Importance of encouragement received from staff in writing "letters to the editor" 3. Comments about length of time it takes us to prepare a "letter to the editor" - probably not true to everyone, but surely is for us -Takes quite a bit longer than we thought it would -Two of us writing together - checking facts, correcting, remembering important points, finding a better way to say something, even arguing - better product produced -Never regretted time - especially when articles were published and even when they were not.

Lisa Marchal, Senior Global Grassroots Associate

Laser Talk

Engage: Hello! I’m a constituent of XXX and an advocate with RESULTS.

State the Problem: I’m calling to follow up on the meeting request we sent on XXX. Our group is particularly concerned about ending extreme poverty here and abroad, and we’d like to meet to discuss that work for 2014.

Inform on a solution: We know that recesses are coming up in December and January, and we’d like to speak with XXX about our 2014 campaigns and about some practical compassionate poverty solutions we’re working on.

Call to action: When is the soonest we can we meet with XXX?

Announcements

 RESULTS U.S. Poverty Free Agents Call: Monday, December 16 at 1:00pm ET or Tuesday, December 17, 9:00 pm ET. See website calendar for more details.  RESULTS Global Poverty Free Agents – Lisa Marchal will be calling members of that group.  Mark your calendars! The 2014 RESULTS International Conference will be June 21-24, 2014 in Washington, DC. We’ll have more details in the coming weeks but we hope you’ll plan to join us in DC next June.  You can find a full list of upcoming events, along with call-in numbers on the RESULTS Events Calendar.  The next RESULTS U.S. Poverty National Conference Call is Saturday, January 11, at 12:30pm ET and the RESULTS Global Poverty National Conference Call is 2:00 pm ET.  Office closure – December 25-January 1, with some staff taking extra time before and after, so thanks for your patience.

Happy holidays!