First Step: State Organizational Development Department

NRLC Works Closely with Local RTLers, Offering Expertise, Resources, and Encouragement

By Dave Andrusko

Whether a local RTL organization is months old or decades old, chances are there are any number of areas in which it could on occasion use help. And, after nearly three decades, surely it is true that the collective store of expertise, insight, ideas, practical tips, and commonsense solutions is so vast that the answers to nearly all questions/problems have already been found.

It is precisely because we don't need to "reinvent the wheel" that NRLC's State Organizational Development Department has proven so valuable to state and local pro-life organizations nationwide, according to Director Jacki Ragan.

"We're here to work with pro-lifers in each of the 50 states to help them solve any problem that they might encounter," she said. "The department exists solely for them - - to assist them in any way we can to develop a statewide presence."

And those problems run the gamut from the most basic through the most complicated. The answers take the form of materials, information, expertise, and being "a voice on the other end," Ragan said, to those who need to know they are not the first organization to run into a particular problem.

Formed in 1985, in a typical week the State Organizational Development Department will:

* Provide materials

* Help a pro-life organization with fundraising (camera-ready direct mail solicitation letters are available for all states on a regular basis)

* Give them help in updating or writing bylaws and creating a 501(C)(4), (legislative and lobbying) entity or a 501(C)(3) (educational entity).

* Offer a list of speakers for a state RTL convention and offer hints on how to run that convention

* Help an organization write a job description for a newly created RTL position in the state

* Send a field worker into a state to assist with chapter development

* Collect materials from various states and make them available to all states

* Assist in drawing up a brochure describing an affiliate

* Offer model state legislation and assistance in lobbying

* Teach a group how to establish a filing system

* Offer expert testimony at a legislative hearing

"As much as anything, our job is to build confidence," Ragan said. "Often, just because they're stymied by some problem, local pro- lifers may lose momentum."

The task, she said, "is to prove to local pro-lifers that their problems are not insoluble - - they've happened hundreds of times before, in fact - - and that the local pro-lifers have the talents and abilities to do far more than they think they can."

Because National Right to Life is large, "sometimes it can appear to the grassroots person as 'that organization in Washington,'" Ragan said. "Our job is specifically to make NRLC even more accessible to grassroots people to the point where if they don't call us, they won't be surprised if we call them (and we do)."

The State Organizational Development Department can be reached at 202-626-8843.