Archive for the ‘phone calls’ Category
March 10th, 2008 at 2:27 pm
The numbers for the Fiscal Year 2009 budget are out and as you may have heard the news is mixed. John Ruxin, a public health expert and New York Times blogger, told the story on his blog today–and made a shout out to ONE as the major organization taking action.
But the long and short is this: President Bush gets to request funds to operate the government each year and he requested increases for most programs to fight poverty worldwide (the major exception being Child Survival with a hefty $251 million cut).
Unfortunately, the House thought he budgeted “too much” and cut $1.5 billion. The Senate decided to cut even more–an extra $2.6 billion roughly.
Senators Durbin (D-IL) and Smith (R-OR) decided to take action, drafting an amendment to raise funding to House levels, which isn’t asking much since the House cut $1.5 billion from Bush’s request and Bush only requested about 28% of what he promised back in 2002.
You can sign ONE’s petition here in support of the amendment, and if the cuts to Child Survival funding bother you then send a letter in support of the Child Survival Act.
And calling Congress never hurt. A list of each Senators phone number is available here. Calling only takes 2 minutes but can make a big difference–I’m a Floridian so I’m calling Senator’s Nelson and Martinez after I post this for instance.
February 19th, 2008 at 11:07 am
Every school that did a competitive entry into the final weekly challenge used phone calls as their weapon of choice for making their voices heard.
And though several schools placed hundreds of calls, UNLV did it the best.
The Rebels gathered together a core group of people of people for a marathon phone bank calling all of their members of Congress on each of ONE’s key pieces of legislation. With a grand total of 540 phone calls, they have certainly shown that they know who to bring people together to take effective action.
Good luck to UNLV and everyone else as we head into the final round of the competition.
February 11th, 2008 at 2:21 pm
This week’s episode of OCC TV turns to something that we should all be doing, making more phone calls to Congress. It only takes a moment (as we show in these simple dramatizations) and it really does make a difference.
If you have 5 minutes between classes or have a couple of extra minutes in the morning then you have time to make a call and help to save lives. So why wouldn’t you?
You can report phone calls on the handy call reporting page.
January 31st, 2008 at 2:03 pm
We know that there is a Democratic debate tonight and the season premier of Lost is on, but if you can peel yourself away, please consider joining us on the ONE Campus Challenge conference call at 9 PM Eastern / 6 PM Pacific.
To get on the call dial 1-800-868-1837 and enter the conference code: 755351#
Hope to talk to you tonight!
January 17th, 2008 at 10:08 am
We want to end poverty. Problem is, how do we do it? How do we – a bunch of passionate students – change the world?
The answer: Phone Calls. Don’t let that little dial tone discourage you either; it can be intimidating, I know, but you have to look beyond it. Your temporary discomfort WILL alleviate the discomfort of those living in extreme poverty worldwide. I think that’s a fair trade, don’t you?
Here’s how:
1. Find the bill that you want to support. You can check out the ONE.org Take Action page, ONE.org Issues page, check out your ONE emails, or any one of our poverty fighting partner’s webpage.
2. Find out if your members of Congress are already sponsoring the bill. You can find this on either the ONE Action pages for each bill (ex: the page of the Global Child Survival Act) or by looking the bill up in Thomas (rightfully named after Thomas Jefferson).
3. Call your member of Congress – U.S. Capitol Switchboard 202-224-3121.
4. Ask for the staff member who would work on your bill. Talk to them about who you are (especially that you are a constituent) and why you care about the bill. You don’t have to be an expert, passion matters more than anything here.
5. Follow up. Send an email thanking the person for their time and call back a week later and find out if they have worked on it. You’ll find that a little persistence goes a LONG way.
I find that to be a pretty simple formula, and it’s worth 1,000 points per call (but you have to report them using the “create your own action” page). There are a hundred more ways to fight poverty and score points with the Campus Challenge as well, and hundreds more that aren’t even listed on the Campus Challenge page.
So how do you fight poverty? What have you done that works? What do you want to try?
Let me (and the rest of the world) know. We’re counting on you.
Huzzah!
Mike Fazzino, Sacred Heart University
December 11th, 2007 at 2:43 pm
About a month ago, we asked you to call the Senate to help reform the Farm Bill. Thing is, they delayed the vote, and the amendments we want to see for the Farm Bill are just now coming up for a vote.
- You can help out by calling your Senators using the capitol switchboard:(202) 224-3121
- When you get through to the office, ask them to support the Lugar-Lautenberg Farm Ranch Equity Stewardship and Health (FRESH) Amendment and Grassley-Dorgan Payment Limits Amendment. You can use these talking points to help you with your call.
- Then, when you are done, report your phone calls here.
Our beef with the Farm Bill as it stands is that millions of dollars of subsidies go to big-business farms (small farmers get some too). These subsidies help the big farms sell their crops below cost. The result is that small farmers here and around the world simply can’t compete.
The Lugar-Lautenbern and Grassley-Dorgan amendments both help fight poverty by putting caps of the size of subsidy payments that can go to big-business farmer, and puts the savings into things like nutrition programs.
The Farm Bill only comes around for review and renewal every 5 years, so this is our last chance for a good while to fix this thing. I Hope that you find a moment during a study break to pick up the phone and make a couple of quick calls to your Senators.
UPDATE: Lugar-Lautenberg just failed 37 Yea – 58 Nay. focus your calls on the Grassley Dorgan amendment.
December 5th, 2007 at 3:50 pm
You might have noticed that the points and the rankings blew up a couple of days ago. This is no mistake. Several schools (like Brandeis and Sacred Heart) kicked it into high gear and organized to make TONS of calls to the presidential campaigns.
These points are showing up as calls to Congress. This means that each “call” can range from 1,000 to 15,000 points in value since some people called all 15 candidates.
Organizing your group to write letters, make phone calls, or visit your local Congressional offices is one of the most effective ways to fight global poverty, and hence, it is one of the best ways to earn points.
November 28th, 2007 at 2:44 pm
For the last few weeks we have been turning on the heat for the presidential candidates to tell us exactly what, if elected, they would do fight extreme poverty and global disease.
So far this “On the Record” campaign has been stunningly successful as we’ve delivered more that 55,000 petition signatures to each of the campaigns. But if we’re going to get all of the presidential candidates to take this challenge and make the On the Record campaign a success, we need to go all out. It’s phone call time.
To make a call:
- Go to ONE.org/OnTheRecordCalls/
- Use the drop down menu to look up candidate’s numbers.
- Use the talking points to help you with your call.
- Fill out the form and check off each candidate you called.
It should take about 30 minutes to call all 15 candidates, and at 1,000 points a call, that good for 15,000 points for just half an hour of work.
This is a huge chance to make a real difference in the fight against poverty. If we can get the candidates to make commitments to fighting poverty now, before the primaries and caucuses, we stand a good chance of our next president being dedicated to our cause.
November 13th, 2007 at 3:24 pm
Today (and maybe tomorrow) the Senate will be voting on amendments to the Farm Bill, which includes subsidies to American farmers both large and small.
The problem with these subsidies is that when big-business farmers receive millions of dollars in subsidies they end up driving down prices of these crops around the world. As a result, small farmers around the world can’t compete. For small farmers in the developing world, this means they stay trapped in poverty, unable to compete because their government can’t afford to underwrite their production.
The Farm Bill only comes up for renewal every 5 years, so if we don’t change it now, we won’t get another shot until 2012. The status quo is a promise of 4 more years of extreme poverty to millions of people, so we are asking our Senators to vote YES on two amendments that put a limit on the cash handouts given to big-agribusiness.
- You can help out by calling your Senators using the capitol switchboard:
(202) 224-3121
- When you get through to the office, ask them to support the Lugar-Lautenberg Farm Ranch Equity Stewardship and Health (FRESH) Amendment and Grassley-Dorgan Payment Limits Amendment. You can use these talking points to help you with your call.
- Then, when you are done, report your phone calls here.
Keep reading for more on the amendments.
Read the rest of this entry »
TAGS: Action, Uncategorized, phone calls