Training Tuesday with the DFA: Recruiting Volunteers

This week, Training Tuesday will focus on another very important constituency: volunteers. As an organizer, building a strong volunteer base is your most important responsibility. The quality and quantity of the effort you get from your volunteers can make or break a campaign. They not only are giving you work for free (but don't tell them this!! See 'seizing an opportunity' below) but they are your direct representative to your most important constituency: voters. So their work is not only necessary, it must be done to a high standard and you must take it upon yourself to insure they are up to the task. From the Democracy for America (DFA) training manual:

You are a leader. Your job is to get your staff and volunteers to follow you. You set the tone. An energetic and enthusiastic leader will beget a focused and motivated volunteer base."

Our videos today will cover some of the basics of recruiting volunteers and building a lasting network. The DFA is truly an authority on this subject, so without further ado...

--Be Happy When You Ask For Volunteers


--Volunteers Are Seizing an Opportunity, Not Doing You a Favor


--The Volunteer Ask and the 5 Cs


That's all for this week. Don't forget to check back at the Sum of Change Training Tuesday page next week at 6:00pm for Matt Blizek's tips on how to run an effective email program!

Living a Double Life - Organizing in Second Life

One of the niche treats that we haven't yet shared from Netroots Nation 2009 in Pittsburgh was a panel we attended on Second Life, an online alternative universe where members create a 3d digital version of themselves, called an avatar, to live in a virtual world, that appears and operates much like our actual one. For the record I have never participated myself and probably never will, but the creative possibilities of Second Life are quite fascinating. By creating this realistic virtual world, Second Life allows people to express themselves in a world very similar to our own that they never could do in the real one. This gets played out in the creation of the avatar, for example, where one can build their appearance however they see fit, whether as an exact representation of themselves, a foil of themselves, or a dream character who they could never be in real life.

Personally I think it's nerdishly cool but pretty absurd and bizarre. Like Twitter, Second Life can be (and often is) used for personal superficial reasons, but also can be vehicles to build communities that address important social issues. Some waste time on twitter as a popularity contest, to build as many followers as possible and share every mundane insignificant detail of your life with the rest of the world, while others use it as a tool to build relationships and spread important information across the world. Anyone on twitter in the weeks after the Iran election will remember the green avatars, switching your hometown to Tehran, flooding the #IranElection and other various hashtags to make more traffic for Iranian officials to sort through while trying to locate protesters. Similarly, Second Life can be used to create an avatar that succumbs to all the excesses of life without the earthly consequences or one can use the Second Life character to make statements and connections surrounding important issues affecting the real world.

The people in these videos clearly fall into the latter category. In a variety of ways, their Avatars have taken creative but otherwise impossible actions in Second Life to confront important real world issues. They have taken advantage of the social networking possibilities Second Life offers and, in their own unique way, are taking a digital stand on actual issues...

--Connecting Second Life With Real World Small Organizations

--Second LIfe as an Immersive Educational Opportunity

--Second Life an Opportunity for Satyrical Commentary

--Building Communities with Interactive Experiences

For more videos from Netroots Nation 2009, go to www.SumofChange.com/NetrootsNation.

Brought to you by Sum of Change

Training Tuesday: 'Your Field Plan: Vote Goals, Targeting, and Field Strategy' from the DFA Campaign Academy

This week, we have a few clips from another session at Democracy For America (DFA) Campaign Academy's 'Grassroots Campaign Training' held September 26th and 27th at Gettysburg College in Gettysburg, PA. This session, called 'Your Field Plan: Vote Goals, Targeting, and Field Strategy', explains how a campaign can best prepare their own operation for electoral success by creating a specific and detailed field plan. According to DFA:

The field plan is the campaign's blueprint for victory. The field plan is the series of strategies and tactics a campaign uses to gather the necessary votes to win an election. The media plan, the finance plan, and all the campaign's administrative capacity serves one goal: support an operation capable of gathering the number of votes necessary to win the campaign. The field plan is that operation.

To this end, we have three clips for you. In the first, our new trainer, Kendra-Sue Derby, a longtime progressive campaign manager and advisor, explains how it is 'All About the Numbers'. As obvious as it sounds, the best way to win a campaign is to have the most voters, so keeping a plan of every voter and voting district and working off of that plan is the best way to win your campaign. In the next two videos, Kendra-Sue discusses some specific of how to best implement your plan by 'Targeting Your Voters'. In part one she outlines how a campaign should classify different kinds of potential voters while in part two she goes into how to approach, or not approach, each group...







For more information about the DFA Campaign Academy trainings, go to http://www.democracyforamerica.com/training. Unfortunately, the 2009 training season has ended, but you can contact DFA about having one in your area in 2010.

Please check out our Training Tuesday page for more Campaign Academy content, and come back every Tuesday @ 6:00 for more Training Tuesday videos.

Face-to-Face Encouragement: VOP at the Metro wth Rep Connoly Cutout

Last week, the Virginia Organizing Project (VOP) and Democracy for America (DFA) took to the metro with Representative Gerry Connelly, well, a cutout of him anyway. Volunteers asked passing metro riders if they would like to take a picture with the cutout for fun, and make a call to Representative Connolly and Senator Warner in support of a public option and a health care reform bill. The event made for some great hangin-with-Connolly interviews (with some unexpected street-side musical accompaniment) ...

The cutout, albeit fun to pose with, was there to send a very serious message to the Representative and other elected officials who are waffling on their support for a Public Option backed health care reform bill. It was an expression of frustration on the part of the DFA and VOP that Rep. Connolly appears to listen mostly to wealthy industry lobbyists, while ordinary citizens are forced to settle for a cutout. They feel that it is too important of an issue for a representative of the people to passivly decide upon and they want their congressmen to take an active role in ensuring its swift passage. This debate has gone on for an exceedingly long amount of time, but as the fight to pass a health care reform bill finally near the finish line, the DFA and VOP appear strong in their resolve to ensure a passage of a healthcare reform bill with a public option.

VOP uploaded a bunch of their pictures from the afternoon to their Flickr site, which we have included below...

Stand for Marriage Maine Plagiarizes Sum of Change

Apparently, the anti-gay marriage lobby isn't big on producing original material these days.

This morning, Sum of Change was startled to discover that video we shot at Netroots Nation this past August is being featured, unattributed, in a television advertisement for the 'Yes on 1' campaign produced by Stand for Marriage Maine. (We chose not to link to the commercial in question, "They Said", we would prefer if people did not watch it)

Stand for Marriage Maine uses our video to falsely suggest that gay rights groups are backtracking on what they paint as a 2005 promise not to pursue the legalization of gay marriage. The ad quotes Pat Peard, leader of Maine Won’t Discriminate, as saying that gay rights legislation "has nothing to do with marriage." The ad then shows Sum of Change's footage of Maine Equality's Monique Hoeflinger stating that her organization's 'No on 1' campaign, which works in exact opposition to 'Yes on 1,' had in fact been fighting for marriage equality since 2005.

Not only is this assertion false, Stand for Marriage Maine does not have the right to the footage and even went so far as to cut out Sum of Change’s logo.

While initially outraged by the theft of our material, we are more disturbed that Sum of Change is in any way associated with Stand for Marriage Maine. What 'Yes on 1' fails to realize is that marriage in a religious sense and marriage equality are two very different things. Peard's claim is that the gay rights debate has little to do with changing the religious institution of marriage but rather awarding the civil rights associated with marriage to gay couples, a conversation in which Maine Equality has indeed been honorably engaged since 2005.

In fact, this sentiment was echoed by Portland Democratic Party chair Sive Neilan. "I think everybody should have equal rights," Neilan told reporters at a rally in April. "[The legislation] has nothing to do with . . . marriage."

Sum of Change immediately issued a cease and desist request to Stand for Marriage Maine, but Zachary S. Kester and Barry A. Bostromm, the organization's attorneys, seems fairly nonplussed by our threat to pursue legal action. Kester is also the chair of the Christian Legal Society. Kester and Bostromm responded with a terse message to Sum of Change:

“Attached is Stand for Marriage Maine PAC's response to your cease and decist request. Any further communications regarding this or any other communication by Stand of Marriage Maine PAC are to be directed to this office.”

Apparently, Mr. Kester and Mr. Bostromm don’t know how to spell ‘desist’ (or ‘decist,’ as he puts it), nor are they aware that the organization they represent is called ‘Stand for Marriage Maine’ and not ‘Stand of Marriage Maine.’ We’re betting neither are the utmost authority on copyright law, either.

In the attached statement, Kester and Bostromm stood by Stand for Marriage Maine’s refusal to take down Sum of Change's footage:

“No permission was required and no permission was sought from Sum of Change Productions, LLC, for use of a very short segment of the gay right summit video, which was filmed at a conference of gay marriage supporters on August 13, 2009.”

Wrong again, Mr. Kester and Mr. Bostromm. The "conference of gay marriage supporters" at which we filmed the "gay right summit video" was, in fact, Netroots Nation, a political convention for American progressive political activists which addresses a wide range of topics. Though gay rights were indeed discussed at this year's conference, a few panelists speaking on behalf of gay rights does not a “gay right summit” make. Sum of Change has difficulty finding confidence in Mr. Kester’s legal assessment when he struggles to correctly define the nature of Netroots Nation.

(Sum of Change feels the need to point out that the gay community is pursuing gay rights, plural, not a "gay right," singular, as Mr. Kester and Mr. Bostromm put it.)

Also, the fair use doctrine under federal copyright law which Stand for Marriage Maine cites as its legal reasoning does not allow the organization to claim authorship of material. By failing to cite Sum of Change as the author of the footage in question, Stand for Marriage Maine implies ownership in an exhibition of blatant plagiarism.

Not surprisingly, this is not the first time Stand for Marriage Maine has run into trouble for stealing material. National Public Radio is currently pursuing legal action against the organization for using audio from an NPR radio show in television spots without permission. Gee, that doesn’t sound familiar.

Scott Fish, Director of Communications for the ‘Yes on 1’ campaign, called NPR’s claim a “ridiculous and frivolous complaint." However, when asked about the use of Sum of Change’s footage in a similar commercial, Fish played dumb and claimed not to have any knowledge of the television commercial whatsoever.

Sum of Change is currently considering legal action against Stand for Marriage Maine. We will continue to update the site with developments.

Training Tuesday: Online Organizing DFA Style

Matt Blizek, of Democracy for America (DFA), was kind enough to allow Sum of Change to bring a camera to the recent DFA Campaign Academy in Gettysburg, PA. The Campaign Academy was founded in 2004, and serves to "focus, network, and train grassroots activists in the skills and strategies to take back our country," We will be bringing you highlights from different panels for the next several Tuesdays, but for this first Training Tuesday we have something special. This is the only training session that we will be airing in full. We will still bring you highlights from many other trainings, but if you would like to see more of them in full, you will have to attend a DFA Campaign Academy training.

Online organizing has sent shock waves through the political community over the last five years. And DFA was on the front lines throughout. So, without further ado, I present to you, Matt Blizek and Online Organizing:

This first video is the entire panel, it is an hour long but definitely worth the watch if you are doing any online organizing:


From the highlight reel, let's start with Matt's story about his first political contribution:


Matt Blizek on online message delivery:


Here, Matt talks a little bit about the national reach of the internet:


We'll be releasing more videos from DFA's Campaign Academy every Tuesday for the next several weeks at Sum of Change. Check back next Training Tuesday at 6:00pm for the next installment. You can also sign up to get an email alert when we release new Sum of Change videos. And please look into DFA's Campaign Academy.

The Equality March: As Missed by the MSM

Lots more pictures available at Sum of Change

Over the weekend, you probably heard about tens of thousands of people standing up for LGBT rights at the Equality March in Washington, DC. It got some decent coverage, mostly on C-SPAN, but for the most part, the MSM really missed the scene. They missed the personal stories attached to this event. Our own Laura Gilbert was there to speak with the protesters.



The march coincided with President Obama's speech to the Human Rights Campaign (HRC). In his speech, President Obama reiterated campaign promises to end discrimination against homosexuals in the workplace, in the military, and in marriage. These promises were made absent any timelines, a fact that did not escape the protesters.

David Mixner, Author and Democratic strategist, expressed the frustration shared amongst many gay rights advocates: "When people tell me to be patient, when people tell me 'Oh Lord, not now,' all I can think about is how many more tears should be shed so that some politicians in a back room can figure out when it's convenient to join us and to fight for our freedom?"

Cindy, marching with her wife Gillian and son Jack, age 3, traveled from Cincinnati, OH for the march. "We are tired of not being represented properly. We want to be part of the visibility of the movement." Cindy is pregnant and due in Novemeber. "Even though we consider ourselves to be married, we are unable to legally wed. In Ohio, we don't have dual adoption and as a result, the non-birth parent has no rights." The New York Times found that, in a best case scenario, a gay couple with two children will pay an extra $41,196.00 simply because they are not a legally married couple. "Our ability to marry has no impact on those who oppose it. But the fact that we cannot marry affects us everyday."



Billie Tadros, seen in the picture above embracing fellow Susquehanna University student Katie Falvo, said "I'd like to have the option to marry the woman I love one day. We're not interested in settling for anything less." Billie "came to be a part of history and work towards equality."

This fight, "is definitively a process, not a one day thing" Billie's girlfriend, Katie, added with a laugh.

Jeremy Griffin, from Ogunquit, ME said, "I am so far from marriage right now. But I'd like to think it will be there for me when I'm ready. I know so many couples who have been together forever and they just don't have the same rights available to them." Jeremy had questioned traveling to DC for this event, seeing as Maine is facing its own version of Prop 8 right now. He decided he would attend this event to bring visibility to Question 1 in Maine and the Protect Maine Equality campaign (this campaign was a featured topic of discussion at the Netroots Nation panel 'From Prop 8 to Full Equality in all 50 States'). Question 1 is up for a vote on November 3rd. If the Protect Maine Equality campaign can pull out a victory here, it would be the first time marriage equality has won at the ballot.

Cynthia Nixon, actress from Sex and the City, hammered the point home:

“Our right to marry is of paramount importance, whether you as an individual gay person listening to me right now, want to get married now or ever. It is important because when a country has different laws for different categories of people, it sends its population a message that the different group of people with lesser rights are somehow inferior and less deserving of respect, and are, in fact, not wholly human. And that message is heard loud and clear by the worst elements in our society. And it instructs them that if they are looking for someone to bully, or beat, or even kill; if they are looking for someone vulnerable to prey upon, gay people are a ready target.

Marriage equality was not the only subject on people's minds this weekend. Don't Ask Don't Tell (DADT) was also prominently featured. Michael Bedwell, of San Francisco, told us that he came to the event in part to remind and inform younger people about his hero and friend, Leonard Matlovich (Seen on the cover of Time magazine in the picture below), a pioneer in the gay rights movement. "It empowers the LGBT community, especially the youth, to know their forebears. Public schools don't teach about these figures."



Lt. Dan Choi, a Unites States Army combat veteran who served in Iraq and the founder of KnightsOut, wasn't born when Leonard first fought the ban on gays in the military. "I hope people understand and decide what they're going to do if Obama is still making promises with no action in 6 months... Until we disrupt their lives and give them motivation to act, I sadly fear the situation is not going to change. It doesn't bode well when nothing is happening, in a situation in which we have such a liberal president, and Democrats have control of both houses of Congress."

The calls for action were partnered with a call to come out as well. Christine McIntire, a law student from Cleveland, OH, said, "I want to encourage people to be brave and come out to their families. Change starts at home." Bruce Babson, a member of the Board of Directors at the HRC, echoed that sentiment in his speech, "Our friends, family and coworkers need to know that when they vote for these bigoted politicians, they vote against us."

Mary Ann Bell, of Virginia said that, "We must all have courage and face what diversity really means. And that means orientation; it means culture; it means race." Mary Anne was one of the seven women to fast only on water for 37 days in front of the Illinois State House to support the ratification of the Equal Right Amendment in 1972. She told us that she fasted "to make the point, to witness, that equal rights should be for everyone. And here we are 25 years later, still fighting."

This sentiment was also expressed by Tanner Efinger, founder of Postcards to the President. "We are, all of us, an unrepresented, motley crew of underdogs, who have gathered in struggle from every class, race, religion, sexual orientation, gender identity and background to say that we are done with waiting. And while there is a certain pace to change the we are told we must abide by, our children are on the streets, our lovers are in early graves and our family are in hospital beds all by themselves and they don't have time to wait for politicians."



-Written by Will Urquhart, reported by Laura Gilbert

More pictures available at Sum of Change