Recap of the July D4U meetup with CORC director Linda Hilton

The guest speaker at the July D4U meetup was Linda Hilton, director of the Coalition of Religious Communities. CORC's main focus is poverty issues, which isn't something D4U works on, but nonetheless I thought Linda's presentation, "Building a Coalition and Getting Your Issues Embraced," was an extremely good fit for where D4U is right now. Following are my notes from the meetup.

Focus the group in order to get something done

CORC faced a problem similar to ours — their members are interested in a wide range of issues. Eventually they decided they needed to stop going off in all directions and narrow it down to just 3 issues. Their current list is:

• Remove sales tax on food
• Raise the minimum wage
• Regulate payday lenders

Linda explained how CORC built the food tax issue from next to nothing into a major issue in this year's legislature. They started working on it several years ago. Initially they ran a bill in the legislature to remove all sales tax on food just to see who would oppose it and what arguments would be used. Running the bill functioned as research on the topic.

They developed counterpoints to all the objections that were raised and also started developing "talking points" of their own, such as: Why should the state take food tax from the poor and then give it back to them as food stamps, housing assistance, etc.? Why not let them keep the money? Then when Jon Huntsman decided to run for governor, CORC met with him right away and convinced him to get on board. Linda said it takes, on average, four years to achieve success on a key issue. She also mentioned that CORC has worked with Republican legislators (gasp!) — you never know where you'll find an ally.

Tabling and other events

Linda gave some great advice on tabling (staffing a table at an event such as a street fair or convention). First, you have to promote the issue, not your group. No one cares about your group and they've probably never heard of you; what they care about is the issue. Ask people if they're mad about X. When they say yes, ask them if they'll sign your petition, put a bumper sticker on their car, or take some other action. CORC's current bumper sticker is Affordable healthcare is not a luxury. People are motivated by anger, and they're not going to be motivated to action unless they're fed up. If you don't have bumper stickers or a petition, you can have voter registration forms on hand and sign people up to vote. The important thing is to get them to do something (and also, um, to get their e-mail address).

Look for tabling opportunities everywhere. Even if it seems like it wouldn't be allowed, you can still ask. The Farmer's Market at Pioneer Park offers nonprofit groups four free tables a year in the nonprofit part of the market.

Some of CORC's other techniques for raising the profile of an issue include putting people at public debates and candidate forums to ask questions about their issues, running bills in the legislature, lobbying at the legislature wearing their eye-catching neon green stickers (which the legiscritters have come to hate because the stickers are everywhere), writing letters to the editor, calling radio stations and submitting questions, holding press conferences, and holding rallies and demonstrations. The idea is to get the issue out there, everywhere.

Funding

CORC gets most of its funding from grants. Grants are usually available for groups who work on specific issues that are important to the grant-giver. Grants aren't usually available for non-specific causes like "promoting democracy." CORC is a 501(c)(3) organization, so they can't endorse candidates (unlike D4U).