TOOLKIT Toolkit Table of Contents About .......................................................................................................1 Guidelines for Brcoming a Fair Trade Town or City ......................2 The Local Committee or Coalition ....................................................6 Events and Education ............................................................................7 Stage 2 – For the Fair Trade Town. ....................................................8 Maintaining Momentum & Volunteer Leadership ........................10 Fair Trade Towns - Frequently Asked Questions ...........................11 Making the Community Case ............................................................15 Making the Business Case ...................................................................16 For the Fair Trade City .........................................................................18 All information within this document may be printed and distrib- uted by local Fair Trade committees for the purpose of spreading the message of Fair Trade. Please ensure that Fair Trade Towns USA has your contact information (form provided at end of this document). www.FairTradeTownsUSA.org About Us Fair Trade Towns, USA is an innovative grassroots movement to raise awareness of Fair Trade and build demand for Fair Trade products, thereby providing increased benefits for farmers, workers and artisans in Latin America, Africa and Asia. Fair Trade Towns USA seeks to empower communities to organize a local grassroots movement for Fair Trade that brings together businesses, civic and educational institutions, and faith-based and community organizations in their towns and cities and provides special recognition for their efforts. The Fair Trade Towns designation provides a permanent platform in the community for continued outreach and education to build the Fair Trade movement and deepen each community’s commitment to international justice. Following the example of the Fair Trade movement in Europe, the campaign supports local, grassroots groups by offering tools and resources to become a Fair Trade Town or Community and unites these local groups with the common goal of making Fair Trade products the standard in the U.S., one community at a time. The Fair Trade Towns USA campaign is based on principles and guidelines set forth by Fairtrade Towns in the U.K., where the first Fair Trade Town, Garstang, Lancashire, was recognized in 2000. To be recognized as a Fair Trade Town, City, or Community in the U.S., the following goals should be met: • A local Fair Trade Steering Committee is formed and meets regularly, with the aim of increasing awareness and building demand for Fair Trade products through education, outreach and public events. • A range of Fair Trade products is available in local stores, cafés and other venues. These include Fair Trade Certified™ products and products sold by retailers that are members of the Fair Trade Federation. • Fair Trade products are used by a number of local organizations, including places of worship, schools, hospitals and offices. • The local campaign attracts media attention and visible public support, including press and radio. • The town or city council/governing body passes a resolution supporting Fair Trade and the local campaign and commits to serving Fair Trade products at its meetings. From the campaign launch in October 2007 through August 2009 eleven towns have achieved Fair Trade status: Media, PA; Brattleboro, VT; Milwaukee, WI; Amherst, MA; Taos, NM; Northampton, MA; San Francisco, CA; Montclair, NJ; Ballston Spa, NY; Chico, CA; and Bluffton, OH. Many more towns and cities have initiatives underway. For more information on how you can get involved and tips on starting a steering committee in your area, please contact Billy Linstead Goldsmith, Fair Trade Towns, USA National Coordinator, 510-844 1414, wlinsteadgoldsmth@transfairusa. org or visit the Fair Trade Towns website www.fairtradetownsusa.org. www.FairTradeTownsUSA.org page 1 Guidelines for Becoming a Fair Trade Town or City Five Goals to achieve Fair Trade Town Status 1: Form a Steering Committee that meets regularly. • Engage individuals representing different sectors (academic, business, faith-based, non-profit). • Maintain a manageable size for the group, and develop a plan to recruit additional members to broaden your base. • Identify a suitable meeting location, time, additional invitees, organizational format of group (i.e. rotating Chair with Board, task committees, constitution, norms, etc). • Identify key strengths/skill sets/ interests within the group - assign tasks or develop committees accordingly. – Identify each member’s capacity to participate/commitment level and any specific areas of expertise – Become informed experts in Fair Trade. Ensure that the committee works from a common definition of Fair Trade. Discuss and agree upon what being a Fair Trade Towns means to each committee member. – In addition to holding regular meetings, the Steering Committee plans and facilitates events to raise awareness among the public—this can be great fun and helps to maintain momentum within the group! Helpful Hint: Set up a website or blog to share news of your campaign with your supporters. Use social networking sites like Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and Flickr to generate a buzz around your campaign and recruit new members. See Events and Education section in this document’s The Local Committee for more ideas. www.FairTradeTownsUSA.org page 2 2: A range of Fair Trade products is available in local stores, cafes, and other venues. These include Fair Trade Certified™ products and products from member organizations of the Fair Trade Federation. • There should be at least one business selling a minimum of two Fair Trade products for every 2,500 residents in a town of 10,000 or less. There should be at least one store for every 5,000 residents in a town that has over 10,000 residents up to 200,000 residents. For towns or cities with over 200,000 residents up to 500,000 residents, there should be at least one store selling FT products for every 10,000 residents. For cities larger than 500,000 residents, we encourage the campaign to divide the city into neighborhoods or boroughs and apply the above standards accordingly. For more ideas and info on large cities or towns, please check out the section For the Fair Trade City. • A store that sells Fair Trade should have at least two Fair Trade products for sale on a regular basis (this is the minimum, and the committee may choose to increase the target numbers). Helpful Hint: Use the Merchant Survey in this guide to determine how many stores offer Fair Trade products in your community, prospect new members for your steering committee and generate a where-t- buy list for your consumer outreach. You can also research which Fair Trade companies are active in your community and look to their websites to find their accounts, or use TransFair USA’s national where-to-buy list and the Fair Trade Federation site to get started. http:// transfairusa.org/content/WhereToBuy/ http://www.fairtradefederation.org/ht/d/Memdir/pid/1722 Suggested Tool: See Green America’s Supermarket Campaign; offer resources and brochures for stores to display, decals for the store windows, etc. www.FairTradeTownsUSA.org page 3 3: Fair Trade products are used by a number of local organizations, such as places of worship, schools, hospitals, and offices. • There is at least one organization for every 5,000 residents of the town or city that has committed to serving/ selling Fair Trade products. Examples include school cafeterias and faculty lounges that use Fair Trade coffee and tea, churches that serve Fair Trade coffee and tea during after the service, and offices that purchase and brew only Fair Trade coffee and tea in their staff kitchens. Helpful Hint: Find out which already offer Fair Trade products and develop a target list of those that should. Determine if any of your local organizations like churches have links to national organizations with a position on Fair Trade. Make a presentation based on what you learn. Be prepared with a list of alternative suppliers for products that are available as Fair Trade. Then invite these groups to be a part of your steering committee once they switch! 4: The local campaign attracts media attention and visible public support, including press and radio. • Listings of local Fair Trade activities appear in calendar/communities section of local and papers (both in print and online versions). • Articles are published in local papers (tip: Include reporters’ emails in listserves and add them, on social media sites). • Your town’s Fair Trade activities are posted on www.fairtradetownsusa.org, getinvolved.transfairusa.org and Fair Trade Resource Network’s events page. • Local radio shows host interviews of Fair Trade business owners, community leaders, and others involved in the Fair Trade campaign. Helpful Hint: Develop relationships with the press and invite them to all of your events. Many communities have public radio stations with segments that you can join on-air. Send out press releases each time there is an event. Don’t forget new media. Build your networks online to get news out via blogs, Facebook and Twitter. Make sure key reporters are your friends on all these sites so they are getting your news even when you aren’t pitching them. www.FairTradeTownsUSA.org page 4 5: The town or city council/ governing body passes a resolution supporting Fair Trade and the