Summer Training-and-Listening Sessions: DFL Headquarters Comes to You!
06/13/2007
From the DFL State Chair Brian Melendez -
(More info closer to the date on car pooling.)
Summer Training-and-Listening Sessions
DFL Headquarters Comes to You!
The 2008 cycle will include elections for the Minnesota House of Representatives, for Representatives in Congress, for United States Senator, and for President of the United States. I am writing to invite your help in planning the 2008 DFL Coordinated Campaign.
Last year, the 2006 Coordinated Campaign was the most successful ever. They did nearly everything right . . . but I still hear from party leaders and members who felt left out of the loop. This cycle, we can do a better job of including party leaders and members in the planning, not just the execution, so that all the stakeholders shape and understand the enterprise from the ground up.
This summer, we are kicking off the 2008 cycle with an intensive series of training-and-listening sessions around the state, to get input as we draft the 2008 Coordinated Campaign Plan. From June through September, the staff and officers will hold a series of day-long mini-retreats one in each congressional district for party leaders and other members. Here is the statewide schedule:
* Sat. 23 June: CD6, Andover
* Sat. 30 June: CD4, St. Paul
* Sat.14 July: CD2, Eagan
* Sat. 21 July: CD1, Mankato*
* Sat. 28 July: CD8, Cloquet
* Sat. 4 Aug: CD5, Richfield
* Sat. 18 Aug.: CD7/CD8, Bemidji
* Sun. 19 Aug.: CD3, Plymouth
* Sat. 9 Sept.: CD7, Mahnomen
* Sat. 29 Sept.: Founders Day!
* CD1 Training-and-Listening Session
Saturday, July 21, 2007
8:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m.
Location: Mankato Country Inn and Suites
1900 Premier Dr., Mankato, MN 56001
If you can't attend your district's session, please feel free to attend any other session. The series will wrap up in September with Founders Day, a day of events that is essentially an off-year state mini-convention.
For each session, State DFL Headquarters will move into the field for a day, and the officers and staff will teach and learn from the activists in that congressional district. The intended audience is
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any member who will work on taking back the White House, taking back Paul Wellstone's seat in the Senate, and getting DFLers elected across Minnesota !
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party officers at all levels, right down to the precinct
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Central Committee members, who set the Party's budget and policy
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elected officials and candidates, on whose behalf the Coordinated Campaign works
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you!
The teaching part will help the activists better understand the Coordinated Campaign's internal dynamics, which are largely invisible (as they should be) outside of Headquarters, but which nevertheless have a direct and significant impact in the field; and will hopefully clear up some myths and misconceptions about the Coordinated Campaign. The learning / listening part will help the staff develop a Coordinated Campaign Plan that involves good communications and relationships with volunteers and activists. And the entire exercise will help acquaint local leaders with the Headquarters staff, and vice versa, so that we can all match names and faces when we connect during the thick of the campaign.
The faculty will include state officers, Headquarters staff, and local activists. Here are some topics that will be offered at each session (descriptions can be found below):
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Campaign Finance: Staying Out of Trouble with the Board
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Communications 101: The Basics
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Communications 201: Campaign Communications Coordinating Our Efforts for 2008
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Coordinated Campaign 101: Targeting, Triage, and Control
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Fundraising 101: Basic Party-Unit Fundraising
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Fundraising 201: Advanced
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Keys to the VAN (for unit chairs and their designees only)
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Party-Building Tools and Resources: How to Use the VAN and Other Technology to Enhance Your Party-Unit Activities
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Strategic Planning and Problem-Solving
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Three Rs of Outreach to Underrepresented Communities: Recruit, Retain and Respect
There is no registration fee, but these trainings are for Democrats only, and you will be asked to sign a statement like the one at precinct caucuses affirming that you are a member of the DFL Party and are attending the session in order to help get DFL-endorsed candidates elected.
The staff, the other officers, and I are very excited about using these mini-retreats as a way of building the most successful grassroots campaign in the Party's history. We look forward to seeing you this summer!
Sincerely,
Brian Melendez
Chair
Minnesota DFL Party
Training-and-Listening Session Descriptions:
Campaign Finance: Staying Out of Trouble with the Board helps you navigate the maze of federal and state campaign-finance laws. For most jurisdictions, the 2008 ballot will include three federal races but only one state race, complicating the way that your party unit can raise and spend money from the way that you did it in 2006.
Communications 101: The Basics presents the basics in communications, including writing effective letters to the editor, opinion-editorials, responding to events and activities in your area, and spreading a positive message for the Party.
Communications 201: Campaign Communications Coordinating Our Efforts for 2008 presents strategies for coordinating our media and communications work during the 2008 cycle. Topics include building a network for writing and placing letters to the editor and opinion-editorials, using opportunities for coverage and responding to opposition events and activities statewide, and using the Party as a resource for communications.
Coordinated Campaign 101: Targeting, Triage, and Control covers the relationship between the State DFL Party, the DFL Coordinated Campaign, and the UDF Board: what the Coordinated Campaign and the United Democratic Fund are, why they exist, who the members are, and how they work. He will also cover the kind of tough resource-allocation decisions that the Coordinated Campaign requires, including how endorsed candidates get targeted for additional resources, and who makes those decisions. (Hint. It's isn't the State Party.)
Fundraising 101: Basic Party-Unit Fundraising provides an overview of basic fundraising principles to help party units get their fundraising programs moving, as well as tips on best practices for common fundraising techniques. Topics include ways to fundraise, building lists, and setting event budgets and goals.
Fundraising 201: Advanced covers advanced fundraising principles for party units with established fundraising programs. Topics include additional fundraising techniques not covered in the Basic class, fundraising best practices, and writing a finance plan.
Keys to the VAN provides an overview of the Party's voter file, the Voter Activation Network, commonly referred to as "the VAN." This is not a hands-on technical training session and you don't need to be a "computer person." Rather, the discussion will include how the VAN works, what the various components mean, and how your party units can use it to accomplish party-building and electoral goals!
*For unit chairs and their designees only.
Party-Building Tools and Resources: How to Use the VAN and Other Technology to Enhance Your Party-Unit Activities explores ways to use the resources that the Party provides for local units, including volunteer-management tools, websites, electronic mailing lists, and online calendars. Learn how to make organizing easier and more effective using the Voter Activation Network to build your events and manage your volunteers. Know what the Party can do to support you at the local level, and how your work helps benefit DFLers across the state.
Strategic Planning and Problem-Solving discusses ways to create focused, action-oriented, effective party units to attract and retain members in order to ensure success. With your strong party unit, how do you prioritize what you'd like to accomplish? The problem-solving part talks about how to deal with this transition time of merging Party and campaign work, and how to determine what will put party units in the strongest, most effective position as a part of this whole.
Three Rs of Outreach to Underrepresented Communities: Recruit, Retain and Respect explores how to create an affirmative-action plan for your district, how to approach a community you want to participate, and what you should do with all of the new activists once they're in the door.