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NRL News
Resistance by Petition: Stopping Obama’s Abortion Agenda NRLC’s two primary goals for 2009 are to double our membership and expand our chapter base. While ambitious, these are very attainable goals. This article focuses on how critically important circulating pro-life petitions is to chapter development. Chapter members, the life’s blood of any locally based organization, don’t magically appear. They must be found. A petition drive is every chapter’s major organizational tool to recruit new members. A re-energized, mobilized, and growing chapter base will be the key to stopping President-elect Barack Obama’s Abortion Agenda The beauty of the petition drive is that it can begin at any point in the calendar year. The petition drive can be undertaken as an immediate project as well as an ongoing effort. It provides both immediate and long-term benefits to the chapter and to the cause of the unborn. The financial cost of running a petition drive is minimal, the time spent behind the table doubles as outreach, and the benefits of meeting your local supporters makes the petition drive the most cost-effective project a chapter can undertake. National Right to Life will assist state and local affiliates and chapters with two simultaneous and timely petitions, beginning in January 2009. So, where should you gather petition signatures? Anywhere you can set up a booth. As long as you are polite, you will be amazed how many different settings there are and how many people will sign your petition. Be creative. Stretch your imaginations. Who’ll do the work? Chapter members (the “face” of local right to life) are the people who will coordinate with officials at local churches, fairs, festivals, and other community groups to set up a display table with educational materials and petitions. (Many of these volunteers got involved by signing a petition.) They can ask if family businesses such as Christian bookstores and restaurants will place the forms at the checkout, at a shopping mall fair, or bring them to the work place to share with colleagues. If your goal is a church petition drive, you might ask where you should start. It could be with the pastor or church secretary or head of the deacons. Other times the chapter will already have a church contact that can set up the details internally. Where else? Check your city or county Chamber of Commerce for scheduled events and contact the corporate coordinators to see if you may participate with a petition drive. What about educational programs? Invite audience members to sign. Friendly person-to-person contact is crucial. When done well, the preparation—setting up the details of times, locations, publicity, bulletin announcements, pulpit announcements, and tables—becomes the basis of chapter credibility and future goodwill. Whom else can you ask to play a role? Ask your pro-life family, friends, and colleagues to take a petition form to their own social circles and fill them out. Don’t forget college students. They can run the project while on campus, or when they are home. Once you have collected the signatures it is crucial to immediately convert them to an electronic format so that you can most easily communicate with the people who have just signed. National Right to Life makes this process easier than it used to be. You make two hard copies, one for your chapter’s possession and use, and the second for your state right-to-life office. The original is sent to National Right to Life for data entry. NRL does additional computer processing at no charge to the chapter and provides a computer file to the state right-to-life affiliate. Petition files are the chapters’ first resource for major events and legislative alerts to support (or oppose) pending federal and state legislation. The more petition names in your computer, the more pro-lifers who will call when the need arises. NRL is eager to help state and local affiliates and chapters with two simultaneous and timely petitions, beginning in January 2009. The “National Petition to Stop the Federal No-Limits-On-Abortion Bill” (popularly known as the Freedom of Choice Act—FOCA) and the “Stop Obama’s Abortion Agenda” (SOAA), are free from National Right to Life. You can also download them (or sign online) at www.nrlc.org or www.stoptheabortionagenda.com. The back side of the petition has numerous suggestions how to get them signed. (One is included on pages 14-15 of this edition.) A final recommendation: send in the completed forms frequently for quicker data entry turnaround time. Good luck. If you have any questions, please e-mail nrlc1985@bellsouth.net. |