Fwd: Latest Successes

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want to make sure you saw our latest successes below. As 2010 is going to get even busier, do you have a time we can connect to discuss our plans? Best, Mike 303-931-4547 cell ---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: Michael Huttner, Founder and CEO <[email protected]> Date: Tue, Feb 16, 2010 at 7:38 PM Subject: Latest successes To: [email protected] Dear Board, Investors and Key Partner Organizations, If we learned one lesson in 2009, it is the realization that our system is too broken to be fixed by politicians alone. Change has to come from outside Washington. There's a great political legend about Martin Luther King, Jr. telling President Johnson "We need this Voting Rights Act & we need your help." Johnson's response, "Then make me do it." The fact is, President Johnson needed to be made & he also needed the public will to make it. If the votes aren't there, the people need to create them. Just like King did. We need to build a movement outside Washington. As a network of state-based organizations with a successful track record in changing public will, ProgressNow Education is uniquely qualified to be part of the solution we need right now. We build crucial communications and new media infrastructure, state by state. We inform the misinformed. Below you will find a share of the successes from each of our states, which is based on the following three strategies: 1. Communications: The ProgressNow Education State Partners are generating hard hitting communications and new media year-round with thousands of stories in the traditional press and online media, reaching an estimated audience in our states and nationally of more than 50 million. 2. Online Network: The ProgressNow Education State Partners are the fastest growing state based online organizations in the country. Since 2008, ProgressNow Education has more than doubled in size. We have built an online to offline grassroots network, at the state level, now exceeding 2.4 million people. 3. Capacity Builder for Allies: In 2010, ProgressNow Education is taking capacity building efforts to a new level. We are working with more partner organizations than ever before to ensure successful message development, coordination and delivery, including the latest in new media. We are experiencing a series of successes that we would like to replicate across the country. We need to build an effective state based infrastructure that will help serve local organizations, and at the same time, build the leverage to overcome the special interests in Washington. One year ago, we hoped that our newly elected leaders would enact real change. Now we need to use the lessons of Dr. King to create conditions that give politicians no other choice. We hope you will join us in these efforts. We look forward to being in touch, Michael Huttner Founder & CEO ProgressNow Education P.S. Check out the successes below of our ProgressNow Education state partners: State Organization ED Advisor California Courage Campaign Institute Rick Jacobs Deborah Rappaport Colorado ProgressNow Colorado Education Bobby Clark Ted Trimpa Florida Progress Florida Education Mark Ferrulo Doug Phelps Michigan Progress Michigan Education David Holtz Frank Smith Minnesota Alliance for a Better Minnesota Education Fund Denise Cardinal Donald Ross Nevada ProgressNow Nevada Education Erin Neff Susan McCue New Hampshire Granite State Progress Education Fund Zandra Rice-Hawkins Peter Glenshaw Ohio ProgressOhio Education Brian Rothenberg Jeff Rusnak Pennsylvania Keystone Progress Education Fund Michael Morrill Anna Burger Washington Fuse Innovation Fund Aaron Ostrom Martin Collier Wisconsin Institute for One Wisconsin Scot Ross Anne Summers Here are updates and success stories from each of our partner states: CALIFORNIA / Courage Campaign Institute: In advance of the federal Prop. 8 trial, Judge Vaughn Walker asked for public comment as to whether or not the trial should be available via delayed broadcast on YouTube. The Courage Campaign Institute launched a campaign, asking our members to "Televise the Trial," and in less than 3 days, we gathered 138,248 comments and signatures, nearly all of the 138,542 comments accepted by Judge Walker. The Prop. 8 proponents defending the lawsuit appealed Judge Walker's ruling to the 9th Circuit, which upheld the ruling. Then, they appealed to the Supreme Court, which overturned Judge Walker's ruling. However, the Courage Campaign's signatures were mentioned twice in Supreme Court Justice Breyer's dissenting opinion against the stay. This appears to be the first time in online organizing history that an online organizing campaign has been included as part of a Supreme Court decision. Given the absence of You Tube broadcasts, the Courage Campaign Institute launched the "Prop 8 Trial Tracker" web site on Jan. 11 -- the first day of the trial. Rick Jacobs began liveblogging the trial at prop8trialtracker.com and by the time evidentiary phase of the trial ended, the site had attracted nearly 1.7 million views with over 17,000 comments. A community has formed that continues to visit the site, posting hundreds of comments a day as the Trial Tracker moves towards 2 million views and 20,000 comments. During the course of the trial, we were also sued by the Prop. 8 legal team, claiming our Prop 8 Trial Tracker logo was a trademark infringement. Law firm Morrison & Foerster joined the suit on our side and the matter was swiftly dismissed in federal court, but not before the media and blogs covered the irony that the Prop. 8 side presented in not being able to tell the difference between a family with two mothers and two kids versus a family with a mother, father and two kids. All of this generated considerable earned media from outlets including AP, Sacramento Bee, AOL News, SF CBS affiliate, NPR and literally hundreds of blogs from Huffington Post to Daily Kos and beyond. As the trial moves toward a decision and inevitable appeal all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court, the Courage Campaign Institute is continuing to provide coverage on the Prop 8 Trial Tracker and develop plans for future campaigns highlighting this historic event. COLORADO / ProgressNow Colorado Education: In January 2010, ProgressNow Colorado Education launched a campaign to engage young people in Colorado in the public dialogue around climate change and clean energy. The goal of the campaign is to reach young people who are not already engaged using social media and social networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter. We launched this campaign in partnership with Aspen Skiing Company at the Winter XGames in Aspen/Snowmass. In one week, we engaged more than 1600 young people and published ads on Facebook viewed by more than 2 million targeted young people who have demonstrated progressive attitudes on Facebook. ProgressNow Colorado Education also is working to develop a project with the Colorado c3 roundtable to work with roundtable members to expand capacity of table members to engage in effective communications work with the traditional media and using new media and social networking. FLORIDA / Progress Florida Education Center: "Thank you guys for all your help leading up to and all day yesterday!!!! We are so lucky to have your help and sage advice!" ~ Ellen Freidin, Chair, Fair Districts Florida, the day after Amendments 5 & 6 officially qualified for the November ballot. As reported by the Orlando Sentinel, the FairDistrictsFlorida.org redistricting reform amendments "could literally re-shape the face of Florida politics" by helping ensure more competitive elections. Progress Florida is playing a central role in the area of earned media and communications for the FairDistrictsFlorida.org redistricting reform campaign. In January, working closely with FairDistrictsFlorida.org Chair Ellen Freidin, Progress Florida ensured maximum news coverage for the announcement that both redistricting constitutional amendments were officially certified as Amendments 5 and 6 for the November ballot. After helping develop press materials and refining the message, Progress Florida coordinated media outreach resulting in favorable print and television coverage across the state. Newspapers covering the story included the Orlando Sentinel, St. Petersburg Times, Miami Herald, Gainesville Sun, Sarasota Herald-Tribune, Tampa Tribune, Florida Today and many others. After targeted TV news outreach by Progress Florida, Capitol News Service (CNS) did a feature piece that was distributed to a dozen television news stations across Florida. Progress Florida also successfully pitched CNS on an in depth interview with Ellen Freidin that will appear on their new Meet the Press-style Florida political show airing Sunday mornings across the state. MICHIGAN / Progress Michigan Eduction: ProgressMichigan Education in January became a driving force in organizing an unprecedented coalition of more than 30 labor, environment, education, health, human services and other progressive organizations to confront a fiscal and political crisis that threatens to put the state under right-wing control for a decade. A Better Michigan Future campaign, housed within ProgressMichigan, was formed in with a war room steering committee consisting of Progress Michigan, the United Auto Workers, Michigan Education Association, Michigan League for Human Services, American Federation of Teachers, Planned Parenthood, Clean Water Action, AFSCME, and Michigan Primary Care Association. More than two-dozen other organizations have endorsed the campaign. A Better Michigan Future is advocating reforms of the state's tax system amid a financial crisis that has emboldened conservatives and driven polling numbers to all-time lows for progressive elected officials who control the state House and Governor's seat. Legislative gridlock over the state's budget has resulted in two successive brief government shutdowns in a state with the nation' highest unemployment driven by a 78% decline in auto-related jobs. Unless reforms are enacted that position progressive lawmakers as problem-solvers, progressives face a likely political tsunami in November and a Republican political majority for redistricting. MINNESOTA / Alliance for a Better Minnesota Education Fund: Return My Rebate Campaign Minnesota's right-wing governor, Tim Pawlenty, unilaterally cut a vital tax break that low-income renters receive from the state. The governor was more interested in protecting tax incentives for corporations than helping out the 300,000 Minnesotans dependent on this important rental subsidy. Alliance for A Better Minnesota is running a grassroots advocacy campaign to urge legislators to restore the funding. We have launched a website, titled "Return My Rebate," which educates the public on the issue and urges them to contact elected officials. In the weeks leading up to the legislative session, we ran online ads that had over 5 million views throughout the state. These ads generated media attention that forced the governor to defend these cuts to vulnerable Minnesotans. The website also has interactive features that allow individuals to figure out how much money they lost as a result of the cut. Now that the legislative session has started, we are going to increase pressure to lawmakers by engaging 25,000 renters in calling and sending e-mails to their elected officials. NEVADA / ProgressNow Nevada Education Fund: The IRS approved our 501(c)3 application on Feb. 1. We celebrate our first birthday this week and have seen slow but steady increases in our network and our social media sites. Our media website gets great traffic. Pushing back against right-wing messaging: We have been hammering the seven dwarfs running against Harry Reid and pounding the governor on the budget. Most importantly, our constant vigilance of the right-wing Las Vegas Review-Journal led to the paper's publisher getting named Keith Olbermann's Worst Person in the World. Our media website, http://www.lvjournalreview.com is also a good way to pushing back against the conservative think tank in Nevada (NPRI) and conservative consultants. Every time they're in the paper, we hound them. Check this link for Worst Person; mining; Ensign or tea party work http://www.progressnownevada.org/page/content/videos NEW HAMPSHIRE / Granite State Progress Education Fund: Fours days after New Hampshire's marriage equality law went into effect, opposition went into action. Opponents to marriage equality launched 'Let NH Vote', a town meeting strategy designed to pressure the legislature to pass a constitutional amendment and have a statewide vote on the definition of marriage as between one man and one woman. Granite State Progress quickly began working with members and allies to reframe and disarm the conservative effort as a campaign to take away rights and vote to discriminate. In the past three weeks, multiple newspapers have editorialized against the initiative using the 'vote to discriminate' message framework, and Granite State Progress members have effectively targeted a number of towns to strike and amend the language of the non-binding town meeting warrants during pre-voting deliberative sessions to simply state "To see." In addition, Granite State Progress has developed an extensive network of members in the hometown of one of the State Representatives pushing the vote to discriminate, working with a broad coalition of stay-at-home moms, gay and lesbian couples and other community allies to present a strong and unified front against hate and prevent the vote to discriminate from appearing on the ballot in his own district. OHIO / Progress Ohio Education: ProgressOhio grew faster in 2009 in membership added, site visits, online actions and offline actions- largely because our issue based work is just as intense in non-election years. From the nearly 1,200 emails we've sent, we have collected a rich dataset on our 360,000 members. This allows for effective micro-targeting which is enhanced by over 300,000 matched voter file records. Our match this January shows that we are: 53.9% Ohio Registered Ds (voting in primary) 7.8% Ohio Registered Rs (voting in primary) 58.5% Women in Households 23.4% Single Women in Households 13.8% African American Households 1.8% Hispanic Households 28.3% Early Vote Participants 7.8% First Time Obama Surge Voters Our members frequently take online and offline actions in part because we commit ourselves to running relevant, focused campaigns. For example, last March, a bill making Ohio eligible for federal passenger rail funds passed the Ohio House. However, it didn't get a single Republican vote which presented a major obstacle in the Senate, where the party holds a 9 seat majority. With only days before it came up for a vote, ProgressOhio members flooded Ohio Senate targets with 10,896 emails. The bill passed the Senate with bipartisan support. In January 2010 it was announced that Ohio is being awarded $400 million in federal rail funds. Our work online extends far beyond just sending emails. With over 22 million page views on our website, ProgressOhio runs one of the highest traffic political blogs in the state. We've been honored multiple times as the weekly, #1 most viewed non-profit on Youtube. PENNSYLVANIA / Keystone Progress Education Fund: Keystone Progress organized the first Pennsylvania Progressive Summit the last weekend in January. It was the largest, most dynamic gathering of progressive activists ever assembled in Pennsylvania, with at least 600 progressive activists and leaders in attendance. We held 48 workshops and panels with on communications and media, organizing strategies, electoral campaigns and advocacy. The Summit included sessions with national experts on the environment, jobs, equality legislation, healthcare and immigration, including USAction President William McNary, United Steelworkers International President Leo Gerard and healthcare whistle-blower Wendell Potter. The Summit also included the first Gubernatorial Debate with all four Democratic candidates answering pointed questions from progressive activists and organizational representatives. The debate was followed by U.S. Senate forum with Senator Arlen Spector and Congressman Joe Sestak facing hard questions about the issues progressives care about. The summit received great media coverage, and is likely to become an annual event that will add unity to the progressive movement and give new skills to hundreds of progressive leaders. WASHINGTON / Fuse Innovation Fund: Fuse is coordinating the progressive community's legislative campaign to include new revenues in the solution to the State's financial crisis. Fuse members and our allies made a very strong impression on legislative leaders on the first day of the legislative session. Fuse organized a team effort that generated over 20,000 signed petitions and postcards urging the Governor and legislators to take a balanced approach to the state's financial problems. Four TV news stations and several reporters joined our team as we delivered the petitions to Governor Christine Gregoire, Speaker of the House Frank Chopp, and Senate Majority Leader Lisa Brown. You can click on the link to check it out, and see the news coverage on King 5. http://www.fusewashington.org/page/content/petitionvideos/ WISCONSIN / Institute for One Wisconsin: The Institute for One Wisconsin's 501(c)(3)Communication Capacity Building Project has begun its 2010 class of individual communication trainings for eight new organizations, bringing the total of organizations served by this unique program, to 20 in the past 14 months. The Institute worked closely with staff from progressive non-profit, non-partisan organizations to complete a comprehensive communications assessment and training program tailored to each organization's existing communications capacity and goals, and ensure more effective communications with members, media, decision-makers and donors. The impact of the Institute's innovative Communications Capacity Building Project was felt in many traditionally underrepresented communities including urban youth, LGBT individuals, Latino and immigrant rights groups, and the economically disadvantaged, among others. The class of 2010 includes organizations representing reproductive freedom, the environment, communities of faith, working women and sensible transit policy. The goal is to replicate and build upon the success from last year's participating organizations, who report in evaluations that many several dozen of improvements were made to organizational web sites, press releases, member communications, media relations, social networking capacity and in the ability for organizations to raise money online. The Institute provides this free to participating organizations, saving potentially tens of thousands of dollars in consulting fees and other costs associated with this type of comprehensive communications analysis, training and ongoing advice and strategic support. -- Michael Huttner Founder and CEO 1536 Wynkoop St. #203 Denver, CO 80202 303-991-1900 www.progressnoweducation.org CA: Courage Campaign Institute CO: ProgressNow Colorado Education FL: Progress Florida Education Fund MI: Progress Michigan Education MN: Alliance for a Better Minnesota Education NH: Granite State Progress Education NV: ProgressNow Nevada Education OH: ProgressOhio Education PA: KeystoneProgress Education WA: Fuse Washington Education WI: Institute for One Wisconsin To unsubscribe from these updates, please click here: http://progressnow.org/unsubscribe