SPN Annual Meeting

Jumpstart your organization’s activist engagement programs! Grassroots organizers and trainers will share how you can build an effective call to action network to turn your white papers into winning ideas.

Agenda:

1:30-2:00 Dynamics of the Tea Party
A snapshot of the Tea Party movement and a pulse check of the current momentum. What are future trends and best practices? Train activists to get out of meetings and play effective offense all the time. 

2:00-2:30 Establishing Your Call to Action Network
Find and train activists to get out of meetings and play effective offense all the time. Move your strategic plans and policy goals off of the shelf and into reality. 

2:30-3:00 Social Media Strategy
How to build your online community of activists through social media and email marketing, and then move them to offline action. 

3:00-4:00 Ask the Activists & Partner Resources
Florida activists and national “grass tops” will answer your questions about any and all activisim engagement. Grassroots training organizations will present their tools and trainings available for activists that you can use for your plans. 

4:00-5:00 Problem Solving Session
Break off into small roundtable to work through issues that state groups might face on the ground or get feedback on ideas for outreach. 

5:00-6:00 Closing Reception (TBD)

Are you missing opportunities to move policy forward because you aren’t working with allies who hold sway? Outreach experts who work with Hispanics, women, and youth will share fresh opportunities and potential pitfalls to avoid when working with seemingly unlikely bedfellows.

Understand how hundreds of diverse groups, each with its own distinct goal, can work together on the issue of school choice under one big tent while maintaining autonomy. Each group advances its work while at the same time contributing to a national effort to raise awareness about school choice and uniting to build a groundswell of demand. How can we replicate this model to move the movement in other policy areas?

Increase your organization's ability to achieve meaningful policy change by building coalitions around important issues. This session will give you the tools to begin building effective partnerships with the people and organizations that share your interests.

My Food. My Choice! recognizes that the growing campaign by local governments and now nationally, through the White House and various federal agencies, to ban certain foods or tax them off the market is a dire threat to individual liberty.  If the state can control what we eat, there is nothing the state can't control. My Food. My Choice! is the citizen-led counterweight to local and national government bullies who've decided that the path to unlimited power is through our stomachs. Come learn more about this movement and how you can get involved.

Hosted by Students For Liberty

The forum will bring state-based think tanks together with leaders of the student movement for liberty to discuss student outreach efforts.

The forum’s purpose is to assist state-based think tanks in the development of more active and effective efforts to spread their institute’s ideas to today’s young people and support pro-liberty students in their areas. During this educational forum, Students For Liberty leaders will join representatives from a diverse group of state-based think tanks to discuss best practices of student outreach efforts.

The agenda will include:

• Think Tank Student Programs
• Students For Liberty and Think Tank Collaboration
• Internship Programs
• Getting Student Programs Approved
• Getting Students Involved With Your Work
• Regional Breakouts
• Open Forum

Media mavens and pitching pros will share their ideas for getting news coverage, establishing good rapport with reporters, and measuring success.

Great connectors will share how they worked with the Network of national and state free-market partners to propel policy change forward.

Learn from those who have built successful relationships with lawmakers, from hosting a policy orientation to working with your Congressional delegation.

Outreach experts will lead a discussion about activist engagement, using the web to create your call to action network, and creating a strategic outreach plan.

The Left is great at forming coalitions, having a united and clear message, and using emotion to win on policy issues. We will look at these strategies and discuss what we can learn and incorporate into our outreach plans.

This reception provides a networking opportunity for state-based communications directors to meet with each other, private-sector partners and coalition partners.

We must be prepared for attacks by the Left and use them as opportunities to win the battle of ideas. This panel will offer strategies to combat and anticipate, stories from those who have been through attacks, and solutions you can start implementing immediately when you get back to the office.