Hey, this is Matthew McAllister from the University of Colorado at Boulder. I’m here in D.C. representing CU at the Power 100 Summit for the ONE Campaign’s Campus Challenge. I just got out of a lecture given by Newt Gingrich the former Speaker of the House about advocacy work. It was amazing, I didn’t think that anyone would be able to follow the passionate speech given by President Bill Clinton’s lead economic advisory Gene Sperling. He brought up many important issues and obstacles we as advocates of the poor deal with and have to think about. The best piece of advice he brought forward and emphasized was how to talk with an elected leader when you visit to lobby.

1) Why the issues we’re talking about matter to the official, namely making it them relate to them on a personal level rather than just speaking with statistics.

2) Attach action to the visit, “We want you to vote x on this bill.”

3) Close the sale: If the official say they care about the issue you’re bringing forward get an answer from them no matter what.

He allowed for a ton of questions and answered them very intelligently and showed a great deal concern for the issues we care about. At one point he started talking about how the world now, with the most wealth in history, it’s pathetic that we cannot prevent a child dying needlessly in the world’s poorest countries. He was especially moving when talking about our lack of help with the situation in Darfur, mentioning the motto of the Holocaust Museum in Washington, “Never again”. These past days have been some of the most invigorating of my life. Awesome speaker followed by awesome speaker. I can’t wait to get back home and help continue to build the momentum of ONE.

Matthew-

CU-Boulder

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