This summer, we featured a Fair Share blog post highlighting how the Legacy Foundation is leaning into advocacy — and how the foundation’s leadership helped organize stakeholders in the greater Northwest Indiana region to speak out against proposed federal budget cuts at HUD and EPA that would have severe negative impacts on the region’s low- and moderate-income population and environmental protections.
Legacy Foundation President Carolyn Saxton shared this update on the process with TFN:
“We finally got our meeting with the Congressional leaders together last Friday…not an easy process and we were not able to secure participation by Sen. Young. But we had Rep. Visclosky and Sen. Donnelly in attendance.
I am attaching some of the items from that meeting, including the agenda. Ahead of the meeting we provided our Congressmen with the participants who are signatories on the impact statement. The impact statement is attached. At the meeting we distributed the materials that informed our impact statement; those are also attached. We discussed next steps and at this point the newspapers are holding off on any coverage about these budget concerns primarily because they believe they will be dead in the water when they arrive from the President. I am not so sure but we are ready if that is not the case. Our Congressmen in attendance voiced their support for continued funding and commented that these meetings and personal correspondence are very important.”
Carolyn also shared examples of an impact statement and other documents Legacy compiled to share with elected officials, which may be of interest to other funders considering similar approaches:
Impact Statement and Support Documents
Letter Opposing Changes to the Johnson Amendment
Carolyn writes:
“Taken together, the documents mentioned above offer a sample guide to advocacy action on any number of policy issues.”
For more information you can contact Carolyn directly at csaxton@legacyfdn.org.
Fair Share is an occasional column devoted to sharing innovative projects and promising practices from the OIC network. If you have ideas for a topic, or a story to share, contact Alicia at alicia@www.fundersnetwork.org.
Alicia Kitsuse
Program Director for Older Industrial Cities
alicia@www.fundersnetwork.org, (305) 667-6350