ONE Members ‘On The Move’

Apr 24th, 2007 12:30 PM UTC
By Vicky Rateau, ONE Campaign Field Director

With just a handful of ONE member lobbying meetings yet to happen this week, we’re wrapping up our ON THE MOVE lobbying push. During the short legislative April recess, that lasted just one week for the Senate and just two weeks for the House, ONE volunteers reported close to 60 constituency meetings with members of Congress’ offices across the country. These included 19 with senators’ local offices and many with members of Congress themselves. Many of the lobbying leaders sent in posts and photos, which you can find by scrolling through the ONE blog.

If you led a meeting but didn’t report back yet, use this online form or email us at giveyourtime@one.org to tell us how it went. I love hearing about the visits – I even found out one very dedicated ONE Member was a long-lost childhood friend! Beyond the personal stories of your lobbying experience, the intelligence you gather about offices’ reactions is incredibly useful for us.

If you’re just reading about all this now, let me catch you up on the great things ONE member leaders are doing. “ONE member advocacy delegations,” ranging from three to ten people, focused on scheduling meetings with members of Appropriation Committees to galvanizing support for $39.8 billion for the 2008 international affairs budget. Many ONE volunteers scheduled meetings with members not on those committees, and focused on other ONE priorities, such as the Farm Bill and debt cancellation.

The “On the Move” lobbying push was named after Bono’s National Prayer Breakfast speech from 2005, which was released in book form on April 3 and used as a “leave-behind” for members of Congress and their staffs. The book served as a useful hook and inspiration for both ONE volunteers and members’ offices.

Hill veterans Susan McCue, ONE’s CEO, and Tom Hart, DATA’s Deputy Director, held grassroots legislative briefings to educate ONE members on talking points to use during their visits. ONE leaders made sure our many first-time lobbyist were fully prepped. ONE field organizers and partners organizations, such as Bread for the World, RESULTS, CARE, and the U.S. Global Leadership Conference, lent crucial support that ensured these meetings were a success.

The response to these meetings has been incredibly positive. A previous ONE member lobbying meeting led New Hampshire Representative Hodes’ to invite the ONE Campaign to brief all of the newly elected members of Congress. The April meetings helped encourage members to sign onto the Feintein-Hagel Dear Colleague letter, and even spurred support for a Hill “ONE Campaign Caucus” for members of Congress.

Fantastic local-national effort! Here’s to more of it in the future!!

TAGS: The ONE Blog