May 4, 2012

Telling Your Story to Make a Difference

Posted by Alix
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We believe in the power of stories to make change, so we are excited about an opportunity to learn from one of the experts on this very topic.


The Sunflower Foundation is currently hosting an event called the Advocacy in Health Speaker Series, an educational program that supports nonprofit advocacy through leadership and civic engagement. One of the presentations of the 2012 Speaker Series, called “Telling Your Story to Make a Difference,” features communication trainer and educator John Capecci, who is also the founder and owner of Capecci Communications. Capecci recently co-authored the book Living Proof: Telling Your Story to Make a Difference. More information about his book and background can be found at LivingProofAdvocacy.com.

Capecci’s presentation takes place on Wednesday, May 23, from 3:00 PM to 5:00 PM with a reception following from 5:00 PM to 6:00 PM. The presentation will be held at the Hotel at Old Town Conference Center in Wichita. This event is free and open to the public, but requires advance reservation by May 16. To make a reservation, visit SunflowerFoundation.org or call (785) 232-3000.

We will be there, and we hope to see you there too!

April 13, 2012

A faster, simpler district match tool.

Posted by Jake Lowen
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openkansas

I am going to come right out and admit it – I am a civic-tech nerd. Imagine a venn diagram with community organizing on one side and technology on the other. You will often find me standing in the place where those two areas overlap saying, “How did they build that?”

Recently I have been unsatisfied with all the current free “find your legislator” tools available to Kansans.  KU’s IPSR lookup tool (http://www NULL.ipsr NULL.ku NULL.edu/ksdata/vote/) is frankly awkward. There is no real need to ask someone to first choose their county, then enter the numerical part of their address in one field and street name in another. It may seem petty, but even a couple unnecessary steps can become real barriers to motivating people to take action.

So we’ve built something better: introducing openkansas.org (http://openkansas NULL.org). A free and simple legislator lookup tool with one and only box.

(http://openkansas NULL.org)

It’s free and simple and our gift to you. Include it in your action alerts – or anytime you need to lookup legislator info.

Now – for the my fellow techies – Here is how I built it.

#1 – Download GIS shapefiles with your desired geo data  - there are several places to download free data online. There is nothing special about state legislative districts. You could also build similar tools for counties, city council districts, etc.

#2 – If you are a genius at POSTGRES then learn to use POSTGIS to upload and query against the shapefile. I am not that cool, so I took a different route. Using a free tool called shpescape (http://www NULL.shpescape NULL.com/) - I converted my shapefile into a google fusion table (http://www NULL.google NULL.com/fusiontables/Home/) .

#3 – When you enter an address, I use google’s free geocode API (https://developers NULL.google NULL.com/maps/documentation/geocoding/) to convert an address into a lat/long coordinate and google fusion table’s rich API (https://developers NULL.google NULL.com/fusiontables/) to determine which of my uploaded geographic polygons contain that lat/long point.

Everything else with the site is basic php/css with some mysql thrown in to pull legislator data from our statehouse app.

Props to google for making some awesome open-source tools and Chris Keller (http://twitter NULL.com/#!/ChrisLKeller) for a great example of how to use them.

March 17, 2012

Voter Suppression in Kansas

Posted by Mike Gaughan
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Ballot Boxes

Last fall we outlined the new rules regarding photo identification that Kansas voters will have to abide by in order to participate in elections beginning in 2012.

There is another major change that will we will see in 2013: proof of citizenship at registration. This update will mean that when an otherwise eligible voter registers to vote, they cannot exercise their right to vote until they produce a birth certificate or passport to the election officer in their county.

Now Secretary of State Kris Kobach wants to make that change before the 2012 election. (http://cjonline NULL.com/news/2012-03-15/kobachs-bill-voter-citizenship-limbo)

Let’s call this what it is: Voter Suppression.

Ballot Boxes

Will Kris Kobach's agenda leave you ballot in one of these boxes?

It’s voter suppression if it is implemented in 2013, and it will be voter suppression if it is moved up to 2012.

The fraud of voter fraud has been exposed, and these new rules – both Photo ID and Proof of Citizenship – are designed to put up barriers to participation.

Aside from the fortune that the State of Kansas will spend to implement these laws, educate citizens about the changes, and eventually defend in court, the incalculable cost will be the missing votes of our neighbors and family members who have enough other drama in their lives to jump through the hoops of these new laws.

This week the US Justice Department intervened in Texas (http://www NULL.washingtonpost NULL.com/politics/justice-department-bars-texas-voter-id-law/2012/03/12/gIQAUzgW7R_story NULL.html?tid=pm_pop). In Wisconsin judges have stopped similar laws (http://www NULL.huffingtonpost NULL.com/2012/03/12/wisconsin-voter-id-law-unconstitutional_n_1339830 NULL.html) from impacting upcoming elections. And Pennsylvania marched right into the fray by passing its own voter suppression legislation.

We are dedicated to encouraging citizens to get engaged in their communities and express their opinions everywhere from their kitchen table to the ballot box. The last thing we want to see is civic engagement discouraged. And we will be doing everything we can to make sure people overcome whatever obstacles the Secretary of State and the Legislature put between Kansans and the ballot box.

But sometimes you have to call a spade a spade. Making people pay to vote is wrong. (http://www NULL.kansascity NULL.com/2012/02/19/3438611/document-fees-for-id-to-vote-in NULL.html) And intentionally setting up obstacles to make it more difficult for Kansans to vote is wrong.

And for the Secretary of State to move Proof of Citizenship up to 2012 when election officers and poll workers will just be getting to know the new Photo ID requirements is just another example of his transparent goal of reducing the number of young people, low-income people, women, minorities and Kansas seniors who cast their ballots.

 

Photo from Keith Bacongco, via Creative Commons

February 17, 2012

From a New Hampshire Road Trip, a Lesson on the Importance of Media

Posted by Allison
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Mitt Romney is surrounded by the press at Webster Elementary School in Manchester, N.H. Photo by Rhys Heyden.

The Kansas Presidential Caucuses are coming up.  This year, Republicans are caucusing on March 10th, and Democrats on April 14th.

This the first you’ve heard of the 2012 Kansas caucuses?  I’m not surprised.

It seems like Kansas gets taken for granted in presidential campaigns.  Even during the primaries, candidates rarely make campaign stops in the state.  In some elections, the closest most Kansans ever get to a presidential candidate is when they campaign cross the border in Missouri.

Instead, Kansans are faced with what Fox News political correspondent Carl Cameron called a campaign of “TV ads, airport rallies and news coverage.” Kansans don’t get up close and personal with the candidates, so when it comes time to cast their vote, Kansans make their decisions via the media.

In January, I had the opportunity to travel to New Hampshire to observe something wholly different–the first presidential primary in the nation.

New Hampshire voters take pride in their role in the primary process.  While the Iowa Caucuses may be the first official presidential contest, the New Hampshire primary is the first state-run primary election in the presidential race, and most presidential candidates campaign hard to win the state.

Which means that New Hampshire voters have extraordinary access to the candidates.   Candidates start campaigning months prior to the primary election, meeting voters at rallies in middle school gymnasiums and on visits to restaurants and coffee shops.  Voters across the state are able to meet the candidates in person, ask questions about their positions, and base their decisions on those interactions.

But there’s also a downside to living in such a competitive state.  When New Hampshire voters host the candidates, they also host the media.

At a New Gingrich forum in Manchester there were only seats for about 30 voters.  The rest of the tiny restaurant was packed with cameras and reporters, who were standing, sitting and squatting anywhere they could find to get a shot of Gingrich.  And I was there too, press credentials in hand, pushing through crowds to stake out my own spot.  While there, I overheard a woman say, “How are we supposed to get in?  There are too many cameras!”

She was right.  In the last week or so before the primary, the media almost overwhelms the state, and in a lot of ways they limit the ability of New Hampshire voters to get the direct contact with candidates that they usually enjoy.

Here is a case in point––on election day, several candidates stopped by the Webster Elementary School polling place in Manchester to try and shake hands with the few voters heading in to cast their votes.  But the media, who swarmed the candidates as soon as they stepped off of their buses, made that an impossible feat.   It was a completely absurd scene.  When Mitt Romney stepped off of his bus and into the fray, hundreds of cameras pressed in around him, trying to ask just a few questions and capture a few quotes.  Those scrums contained reporters from across the country, some of them reporting for national news outlets, and others for their local TV station.

And at that point, it was clear that Romney and the other candidates were no longer talking to New Hampshire voters.  They were talking to voters in Florida, South Carolina and even Kansas.  Despite how excessive the hordes of reporters seemed when I saw them in person, I was also struck by how important they were.  Sure, it’s frustrating for New Hampshire voters to have to fight with the press to meet a candidate.  But for those of us in Kansas, those cameras may be the closest we will ever get to the people who are asking us to make them President.

December 10, 2011

Use Social Media to Improve Your Advocacy Campaigns

Posted by Allison
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We’re all familiar with action emails in advocacy campaigns.  They usually look a little something like this:

Dear Friend,

As a long standing supporter of _______, we thought you’d be interested to know that a bill was introduced into the legislature           yesterday to change ________.  Please contact your legislator today and tell him/her you oppose any legislation to change _______.

Emails like these can be an important part of engaging your groups’ members and getting them to take action toward your goal.

But here’s the biggest problem with action emails––How can you guarantee that legislators are listening to them?  If you’re only relying on one-on-one contact between your members and legislators, you can’t.

While email is a convenient way to get your members to write their legislators, it’s essentially a private method of contact, or a closed communication loop.  Even if a legislator reads every email your members send, if the world doesn’t know that thousands of constituents support or oppose your issue, how are you going to hold that legislator accountable?

By making them public!  Enter social media.

Those Facebook and Twitter accounts you created for your organization aren’t just good for communicating with your supporters, they can help magnify your message and make legislators publicly accountable to your advocacy efforts.  By using social media networks, you can increase the effectiveness of your advocacy efforts just by making them public.

Working social media into your regular advocacy campaigns can be as easy as having your organization or your members to post the action alert email message on a legislator’s Facebook wall or write to the legislator directly through Twitter.

Incorporating social media into your advocacy efforts can provide an added bonus as well.  Not only are you using public means of communication to hold legislators accountable to your efforts, you are also opening up an opportunity to engage new activists who don’t have a prior relationship with your organization.

For more information on using social media in your advocacy efforts, check out this presentation (http://www NULL.slideshare NULL.net/drdigipol/20111101-here-comes-social-advocacy-salsa-conference-rosenblatt) by Alan Rosenblatt, an online advocacy expert at the Center for American Progress.

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