DP Tool Club 24/CD_ASCQ_24_0995.iso/vrac/liberty.zip/22.TXT

Text File | 1995-07-02 | 14KB | 268 lines

#########################################################################

       NOTES ON CREATING A SUCCESSFUL ISIL OUTREACH ORGANIZATION
                         By Jarret B. Wollstein

#########################################################################


If you want to have a real impact upon our society and our future,
creating a successful outreach organization may be one of your most
effective tools. In this brochure we will explore many useful techniques
available to you.

This brochure is designed to provide techniques for expanding a basic
ISIL chapter. For information on forming a basic chapter, see our
brochure entitled ``How To Start An ISIL Chapter.''


OUTREACH MEETINGS
A basic ISIL chapter can be formed by a single individual. Successful
outreach efforts,however, usually require the enthusiastic assistance of
at least a few other people. (The more, the better!) Be sure at least a
few other people in your club are ready, willing and able to help before
you attempt a major outreach effort.

Here are some suggestions to make your outreach activities as successful
as possible:

* Book your meetings rooms at least four weeks in advance to give you
time for advertising. (Major events can require two months or more
advance booking). Many newspapers and radio stations offer free
advertising for community activities, but they usually require at least
two to three weeks advance notice. One of the biggest mistakes made by
local groups is not scheduling activities far enough in advance to allow
for adequate advertising.

* Schedule a time that is convenient for your audience. At most colleges
this usually means mid-week and late afternoon. At high schools, just
after school lets out. For community groups, Saturday or Sunday
afternoon is usually best.

* Have an attention-grabbing title and presentation. Many activities
compete for people's time, so it is important to get people's attention
and make them feel their time would be well-spent attending your
activity. Here are some suggestions: Is the Government Destroying Our
Liberty?, The War On the Poor, The Case for Drug Legalization, Is
Government Trying to Destroy the Middle Class?, How You Can Stop A New
Draft, etc. If you have the time, create several different flyers for
the same meeting, designing them to appeal to different groups.

You will also want to get the best speaker possible. In many areas you
can find excellent free libertarian speakers through local colleges,
ACLU chapters and libertarian groups.

* Advertize, advertize, advertize. No one will come to your meeting if
they don't know about it. Use every means of advertising at your
disposal. This usually doesn't require much money; just some imagination
and a lot of effort. Everyone in your group should help with
advertising. In fact, for the first four to twelve months, advertising
will be your group's major activity. You should have your advertising
printed and ready for mailing at least three weeks before your meeting.

Use as many of these forms of advertising as possible:

FLYERS. Prepare attractive letter-size flyers announcing your meeting.
If someone in your group has access to a personal computer with desk-top
publishing capabilities, use that. Alternately, use press-on letters
(available from local graphics and art shops), or draw headlines neatly
in ink. Text can be printed on a typewriter. Make sure to include the
date, time and place of the meeting, name of your group, and a local
contact name and phone number. Art work can also add greatly to the
visual appeal of you r flyer. You can get art from ISIL and other
libertarian brochures, the telephone book, or the newspaper.

BULLETIN BOARDS. Put your meeting announcements on every possible
bulletin board, including on-campus, off-campus, drug-stores, recreation
centers, etc. Check boards at least once a week to replace flyers that
may have been taken down.

SEND NOTICES TO NEWSPAPERS & RADIO STATIONS. Prepare a brief notice of
your meeting, and mail it three to four weeks in advance, to all the
local newspapers, campus newspapers, and radio and TV stations that have
community activities announcements.

NOTIFYING OTHER GROUPS. Mail meeting announcements to other local groups
that might be interested. At universities, this might include the
Philosophy Club, Economics Club, Young Republicans, Young Democrats,
International Student's Association, Psychology Club, etc. Also on
campus, put flyers in the boxes of friendly professors.

MAIL AND CALL YOUR MEMBERS. Send a flyer to everyone on your mailing
list at least two weeks in advance. Also call everyone a few days before
the meeting. Ask them explicitly if they will be coming.

Again, advertising must commence at least four weeks in advance of your
meeting and should be continued up until the day of your meeting,
otherwise few people will show up.

* Meeting format. At your meeting, be sure to get the names, addresses,
and telephone numbers of everyone who attends. In the case of college
groups, be sure to get both the campus and home addresses of students.
Greet everyone, and make them feel welcome. Use name tags. If possible,
have some light refreshments. Have literature on hand to pass out. It is
very useful to have a brochure describing your local group and its
objectives, plus the name and telephone number of a chapter contact.

Don't book too large a room. It looks very bad to have ten people in a
room designed for 100.

Arrive early at your meeting room to make sure everything is properly
set up; that the sound system works; that literature is put out, etc. If
the meeting is small, put chairs in a circle. Have each person introduce
him or herself.

Start your meeting on time. Dress conservatively. Introduce yourself.
Describe your group's goals and introduce your speaker. Speeches should
be no more than twenty to twenty-five minutes long, with plenty of time
for questions. Ask people if they would like to receive future meeting
announcements, if they have suggestions for future activities, and if
they would like to help out with the group.

Be courteous, friendly, and professional. Thank everyone for coming and
invite them to come back.

OTHER GROUP ACTIVITIES
As your membership and experience grow, there are a large variety of
outreach activities in which you can engage, including debates, courses,
social activities, concerts, seminars, letter-writing and editorial
replies, testimony at public hearings, lobbying legislators, and social
action projects. The choice of how much or how little you take on is
entirely up to you and your members. Here are some possibilities:

NEWSLETTER: After your group is established, you should publish a
periodic newsletter, in which you report previous meetings and announce
future activities. You may also want to report other news and meetings
of interest to your members. A newsletter can be a simple letter-size
sheet printed two-sides on a photocopier. Ideally you should mail a
newsletter once a month. In the newsletter, be sure to thank everyone
who has helped with the organization's activities.

RECRUITING: A major objective for a libertarian group is to find and
train new libertarians. An excellent way to recruit is by giving
speeches to other organizations. At high schools, you can arrange
libertarian speakers for economics, government, and psychology classes.
One particularly effective technique on college campuses is to arrange
for friendly professors to give extra credit to students who attend your
speeches and debates. All of the activities listed below should also
help you with recruiting.

FUND RAISING: If you have a campus group, some funding should be
available from the college. Community groups should charge dues. Here
are some other possibilities for fund-raising:

* Hold a club garage sale, selling used goods donated by members.
Proceeds go to the club.

* Have ISIL booklets, tapes and posters for sale at all meetings, and
particularly at large gatherings.

* If you have a community group, have members donate and auction off a
few hours of their skills for the club. A lawyer could auction legal
advice. A teacher could donate tutoring. A plumber a few hours of
repairs. This can raise substantial amounts of money.

* Coordinate with a professional fund-raiser to produce and mail a local
fund-raising package. You can borrow or rent mailing lists from other
libertarian groups and mailing list houses.

* Sponsor a libertarian film festival with films such as ``The
Fountainhead'', ``We The Living'', ``1984'', ``Animal Farm'', ``The
Handmaiden's Tale,'' and ``They Live!''.

* Organize a concert or play at your local campus.

* Solicit local businessmen and sympathizers for financial assistance.

Speakers, Discussions & Debates. In addition to the previous suggestions
for meetings, if you want to get a good turnout, pick topical and
controversial issues. Debates usually draw particularly well. Hot topics
vary from place to place, but currently the War on Drugs, taxes, bank
failures, and the Middle East Crisis are particularly important. Most
colleges will provide funds to official campus groups to help pay for
speakers. ISIL will be glad to assist you in booking notable libertarian
speakers for your group.

Literature tables: Tables well-stocked with free pamphlets and books and
t-shirts for sale are a good way of getting new members. Good locations
include county fairs, in front of post offices, shopping malls, campus
student unions, and libraries.

Courses: SIL, ISIL's predecessor group, created ``Principles of
Liberty,'' the first libertarian home study course. Regular weekly
discussion meetings are an excellent way to train new libertarians.
Write to ISIL for more details.

Letter-Writing and Editorial Replies: These are activities that can be
engaged in by any group. Most state legislators receive very little
mail, so a concerted effort by a few dozen libertarians can make them
believe there is a groundswell of citizen opposition to some new
government tax or regulation. Writing regular letters to the editor and
editorial replies on radio and TV can also sway public opinion. If you
have the time and talent, consider writing a regular column for a local
newspaper and arranging appearances on local radio and TV talk shows.
You can also regularly read letters to the editor, to identify
sympathizers who should be contacted.

Outreach to other groups: Most groups are eager for a new and exciting
speaker. Speaking before other campus and community groups is an
excellent way to recruit while having fun. Be sure to bring lots of
literature along and get the names and addresses of those who are
sympathetic. On campus, organizing panel discussion and joint meetings
with other groups is an excellent way to boost your attendance, get help
with advertising, and recruit.

Social Activities & Concerts: Libertarian social activities tend to be
poorly attended. However, if you are very sociable, like music and
dancing, organizing a social activity will enable you to recruit an
entirely new group of people. Many of your ``social libertarian''
friends will never attend a lecture, but they will be glad to come to
more parties and bring friends with them. You can certainly talk about
the libertarian perspective on current events at parties and hand out
literature (preferably with l ots of pictures). If you are particularly
ambitious you an even organize concerts, plays, etc.

Social Action Projects. You can participate in social action projects
initiated by national groups, such as ISIL's National Tax Protest Day,
or Bill of Rights project., Or you can send a libertarian contingent to
local and national social action projects, such as anti-war
demonstrations. Or if you are really ambitious you can start your own
social action project.

Many successful, national social action projects were started by just a
few people operating out of their living room, such as Mothers Against
Drunk Driving. If you have the right issue at the right time, your group
could start a national movement.


YOUR KIND OF GROUP
A local ISIL chapter can be as simple as a few libertarians getting
together once a month for socializing and discussions. Or it can be a
dynamic community club with hundreds of members, like the Libertarian
Social Club during the mid-1970s. Or it can be a concerted effort to
organize ISIL groups at all local colleges (which is now being done in
Pennsylvania). Or it can even be an attempt to change the consciousness
of an entire nation, as is now being done in parts of Eastern Europe.

The type of groups you create should be one that fulfills your needs and
objectives. No matter how modest or lofty those may be, we at ISIL are
here to help.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Jarret B. Wollstein is a co-founder of the original
Society for Individual Liberty and a Director of ISIL. He has organized
many libertarian groups, including SIL chapters at the University of
Maryland and George Mason University. During the 1970s, his Libertarian
Social Club in Washington, D.C. regularly drew 50 - 150 people at
monthly meetings. Mr. Wollstein co-authorized SIL's ``Principles of
Liberty'' course, which has been used by hundreds of groups throughout
the world.


            INTERNATIONAL SOCIETY FOR INDIVIDUAL LIBERTY
            1800 Market Street, San Francisco, CA 94102
              Tel: [phone] Fax: [phone]