Leadership Institute

How to Run an Effective Meeting For Your Political or Civic Organization

Matthew Hurtt — Fri, 15 Mar 2024 14:57:36 +0000

A woman came up to me after a recent meeting for a local political committee. She had recently been elected to a leadership position in her local women’s auxiliary organization and had never before held an elected position in a political organization.

She asked me, “How can my organization run a good meeting?”

In the world of political activism and organization, meetings serve as the backbone of a successful organization. However, not all meetings are created equal. To truly galvanize your members and ensure productivity, your meetings must be more than just gatherings — they must be experiences that leaves participants energized and ready to take action.

Here are seven essential strategies to run an effective meeting for your political or civic organization:

Start on Time and End on Time: Respecting your members’ time is fundamental to maintaining a professional and productive environment. Starting and ending meetings on time sends a clear message that you value the time of your members and understand the importance of their commitments outside the meeting. This practice not only help keep the agenda focused but also builds a culture of punctuality and respect within the organization.
Have Name Tags Available: You never know who is going to walk into your meeting, and you can bet your members don’t know everyone there. People who have never attended your meetings may not know anyone else, and people who do attend your meetings may not know the names of the people they meet there, so make it easy for new people to make friends and for regulars to remember the names of the people they meet.
Work from a Prepared Agenda: A well-prepared agenda is the roadmap for a successful meeting. It outlines the topics to be discussed, allocates time for each item, and sets the stage for a structured and focused discussion. Circulating the agenda before the meeting prepares the members, which enhances engagement and ensures that the meeting stays on track. A clear agenda allows for the efficient use of time and makes sure that all necessary topics are covered without unnecessary diversions.
Keep It Interesting: Invite Speakers and Give Members Valuable Updates: The monotony of routine meetings can be a motivation killer. To keep the energy high and your members engaged, introduce elements that spark interest. Inviting guest speakers who are experts in areas relevant to your political or civic goals can provide fresh perspectives and valuable insights. Providing updates on the organization’s achievements, ongoing projects, and future plans keeps members informed and invested in the shared mission. These practices not only make meetings more interesting but also educational and inspiring.
Make Your Members Want to Come Back: Creating an environment that members look forward to being a part of is crucial. This means fostering a sense of community, respect, and mutual support. Acknowledge contributions, celebrate achievements, and ensure that every member feels heard and valued. When members feel a strong connection to the group and its cause, they are more likely to remain active and enthusiastic participants.
“Give ‘em a title, and get ‘em involved.” Law #6 of Morton’s “Laws of the Public Policy Process” is very important in volunteer organizations. Involvement encourages commitment. By assigning roles or titles to members, you empower them to take ownership of the organization’s activities. These roles can vary from leadership positions to responsibilities for specific tasks or projects. This not only helps in distributing the workload but also gives members a sense of purpose and belonging. An involved member is a motivated member.
Have a Call to Action: Every meeting should end with a clear call to action. What steps should members take before the next meeting? How can they contribute to the organization’s goals in the meantime? A call to action provides direction and keeps the momentum going. It ensures that the energy and ideas generated during the meeting translate into tangible progress for the organization.

Running an effective meeting for your political or civic organization requires careful planning, respect for members’ time and contributions, and a clear focus on the organization’s mission. By implementing these seven strategies, you can ensure that your meetings not only serve their purpose but also inspire and mobilize your members towards achieving collective success.

View and share the booklet version of this article here.

Matthew Hurtt is Director of Professional Services at Leadership Institute. You can find more resources and training for political activists at LeadershipInstitute.org. A version of this publication first appeared on Matthew Hurtt’s Substack. You can read other strategies for activists there, as well.

The post How to Run an Effective Meeting For Your Political or Civic Organization appeared first on Leadership Institute.

Your Campus Group Survival Guide

Morton C. Blackwell — Fri, 23 Feb 2024 13:41:07 +0000

So, you want to lead a successful conservative or libertarian student group on your campus. Perhaps you already lead one. It will be your responsibility to lead your group to success, including long-term organizational survival. You must expand your leadership, grow your membership, and train good successors to build your legacy. This manual will teach you how.

You’ll learn about key topics, including how to:
Set up a systematic, ongoing program to recruit large numbers of new members
Conduct programs which educate other students
Deepen your own philosophical education
Establish working ties with conservative and libertarian leaders and organizations at the local, state, and national levels
Raise sufficient funds for your activities

Earn favorable publicity for your groups and projects
Identify and work with local conservative or libertarian faculty
Prepare worthy successors to replace yourself next year
Remain involved in your group as a mentor and ally after you graduate

I expect you to succeed. You’re already smart. You’re already committed to your principles. Your training from the Leadership Institute, in this manual and at LI events, will teach you a lot. You will learn more through your experience in the months to come.

What you do on campus will change people’s lives, including your own.

From my own career, I can promise you that, years from now, you will look back on this period of your life as one of your most interesting and valuable experiences.

Students you recruit and develop as future leaders this year will build on the skills they learn from campus activities. Many will develop someday into highly effective leaders in government, politics, and the media.

Much more good will be done than you will ever be able to measure. When you launch people in the right direction, they’ll do good things you may never see or hear about.

Morton C. Blackwell

Read the entire Campus Group Survival Guide PDF here

LEADERSHIP

Leadership Qualities

A great campus group leader is:

Philosophically solid
Technique-oriented
Courageous
Persistent
Prudent about making commitments

Scrupulous about keeping commitments
Skilled in verbal and written communication
Good with numbers and in handling money

A group leader must also demonstrate sustained enthusiasm – and commitment – to the organization. You set the tone and the expectations for your club with your behavior.

If you’re an able leader, you’ll keep your group focused on the organization’s mission and ready to tackle new projects and new programs on your campus.

A group leader’s responsibilities include the ability to:

Recruit new members for the organization
Dedicate time to the group
Motivate and direct the rest of the group
Be level-headed and effective in a crisis
Identify and train new leaders

By no means does every effective member have the skills to become a group leader.

Every successful group includes deeply committed people who can maximize their effectiveness by working with others. There’s nothing wrong with that. It’s a high calling.

Leadership Training

One of the best predictors of sustained group success is well-trained leaders.

You and your group members can learn about leadership through trial and error. But it’s much quicker, practical, and fun to get top-notch training in effective techniques and apply them to gain valuable personal experience.

Youth Leadership School

The Leadership Institute’s Youth Leadership School (YLS) – known as the “boot camp of politics” – will teach you how to increase the effectiveness of your group and be a competent youth leader for candidates and causes.

In this two-day, comprehensive training, you’ll learn how to:

Increase the size and effectiveness of your group
Motivate group members with exciting projects
Host successful speaker events
Gain media coverage

You and your group members will bring proven tools and techniques back to your campus – and you’ll build motivation and camaraderie, too.

Many campus groups send their membership. Some go further: the Young Americans for Liberty (YAL) chapter at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette requires all group members to attend the YLS in their group constitution.

The YLS is held across the country on weekends throughout the year.

You can find the most up-to-date calendar on the Leadership Institute’s website (leadershipinstitute.org/training) or by contacting the YLS staff (YLS@leadershipinstitute.org or 703-247-2000).

“The Leadership Institute’s Youth Leadership School has transformed the way my chapter of Young Americans for Liberty operates on campus. I believe that requiring all executive board members to take a Youth Leadership School directly contributed to our chapter becoming the 2018 YAL Chapter of the Year. The YLS brought us from a few friends to a community of over 100 dedicated pro-liberty activists.”

— Kaleb Moore, Young Americans for Liberty, University of Louisiana-Lafayette

Student Activism Conference

The Leadership Institute’s Student Activism Conference (SAC) brings together the best conservative and libertarian student activists in the country each year.

You could be among them.

Conference attendees receive advanced training in building a network of student leaders, and get hands-on experience in skills like conducting media interviews.

At the SAC, you’ll learn how to:

Expand group membership
Build coalitions on campus
Raise funds
Earn media attention
Deliver a message on camera

Host successful events and programs
Develop a leadership succession plan
Expose leftist bias and abuse

Contact your LI Regional Field Coordinator (visit leadershipinstitute.org/campus/map.cfm to find the coordinator serving your state) to learn about the next Student Activism Conference. If you’re chosen to attend, your travel, hotel, and meals will all be covered thanks to generous Leadership Institute donors.

Expand the Leadership

It does you and your group no good to centralize all the power around you as the group leader.

You must expand the leadership. Delegate responsibilities. Give group members a stake in the group’s future (essentially: “give ‘em a title and get ‘em involved”).

Encourage your members to develop their own skills as activists and leaders. The success and survival of your group depends on it.

The Young Americans for Freedom Chapter at the University of Florida has developed a broad leadership structure: 15 leadership spots – and they’re willing to create more as needed. New members quickly become involved and invested. Returning members keep their enthusiasm high as they can move up in the group’s ranks.

“With Leadership Institute training, I learned that it is important to ‘give ‘em a title and get ‘em involved.’ I began creating position for my YAF chapter and getting as many people involved as possible. If we see a need, we don’t hesitate to create a new position.”

— Daniel Weldon, Young Americans for Freedom at the University of Florida

Leadership Transition

The hallmark of your effectiveness as a leader is setting your group up for years of success.

Too often, student leaders graduate and their group falls apart. The leaders may congratulate themselves for being the glue that held the group together. All they’ve demonstrated, however, is their own failure in leadership. They let down their group – and themselves.

The final test of leadership comes in the year after you step down. Does your group continue to flourish, or does it dwindle or die off? You can control the outcome today.

Commit to constantly identifying and developing promising new leaders. Then make and enact a plan to transition power to them.

You might also consider beginning the tradition of electing a junior as your chapter president. The junior president should then promptly identify a talented sophomore to train as the next leader throughout the year.

The former chapter president, a senior, can then serve as a senior advisor to the group. In this role, the former president assists in the decision-making process and offers advice to the new president as requested.

The Students for Gun Rights group at Liberty University in Lynchburg, Virginia, has its senior president train and ensure they are ready to take the group over once he graduates. By using this system, this chapter has been sustainable for over six years and continues to grow and train new leaders on campus.

Faculty Advisors

If you can find one who is sympathetic to your cause, a faculty advisor can be a valuable resource for your campus group.

The majority of faculty are long-term university employees. They can help to maintain the longevity of your group as seniors graduate and freshmen arrive.

The Hawaii Pacific University Laissez-Faire Society has a faculty advisor who helps to identify and support new group leaders. The group has been around since 2006 – more than 10 years – because of the advisor’s work to keep the group active.

An advisor can help you:

Properly host meetings and plan events
Navigate your school’s bureaucracy to achieve your goals
Find faculty who will offer extra credit to their classes to attend your public programs
Become recognized as an official student organization, which will help you reserve campus space and receive funding

Conservative or libertarian faculty members and staff are your best bet. Look carefully through the faculty of the Economics and Business departments in particular. You can also ask your LI Regional Field Coordinator for assistance.

Sometimes you just can’t find a conservative or libertarian professor in any liberal arts field who is willing to serve as your club’s faculty advisor.

Search elsewhere. Often engineering professors or others in the “hard sciences” share your political philosophy and make great faculty advisors.

Try to find an advisor who wants to be involved in your group. It’s best if your advisor is willing to attend meetings, support activism events and public programs, and help to hold your group (and you!) accountable.

RECRUITMENT

You must set up a systematic, ongoing program to recruit large numbers of new members.

Whether you’re at a four-year or two-year school, you’ll see a constant churn of students each year. Freshmen and transfer students arrive on campus, seniors graduate, and others spend time off-campus for study abroad programs or internships.

The numbers can be staggering. At a school like the University of California-Los Angeles, which has about 31,000 undergraduate students enrolled, there is almost a completely new set of 31,000 students … every four years.

As a bonus, an effective recruitment program will also keep your existing members active and involved with your group’s growth.

Tabling

Tabling is the number-one way to find new members and keep your existing members involved in your group. Plan to do it at least once a week.

Remember: you don’t to have to lead an officially recognized campus group to begin tabling. Don’t be afraid to table on behalf of a group you’d like to form – but haven’t formed yet.

Unfortunately, most students don’t know how to table correctly. They sit behind the table, make limited eye contact and conversation with passersby, and finish their tabling shifts without finding any new members.

To combat this, instruct your members to stand in front of the table and ask clever, provocative questions of students passing by. For example, you might ask, “Do you support freedom of speech? Or ‘Are you pro-life?”

Opening with a personal question about political views is a stronger recruitment tactic than asking whether people have time to talk. (Hint: students you want to talk to will always say “no.”)

It’s recommended that you schedule shifts with at least one guy and one girl. Your group members should dress like normal college students. Don’t ever wear business clothing while tabling; this will just deter other students.

The goal of tabling is to invite potential members to get involved. Quickly steer your conversation to your group and its mission. Ask the person you’re speaking with to join and attend a meeting.

Once a student has agreed to sign up, ask for his or her phone number. Phone numbers are far more valuable than emails.

Before your group’s next event – even a regularly scheduled membership meeting – text the potential member and invite them to attend.

“Tabling is the way to keep growing constantly and find the future leaders of the organization. If we are not growing, we are dying.”

— Tahmineh Dehbozorgi, Young Americans for Liberty at the University of California-Los Angeles

Organization Fairs

Student organization or involvement fairs are often held at the beginning of the academic year or semester. Check your school’s calendar to find when yours are scheduled.

These fairs are a valuable opportunity to identify potential group members. After all, students go to organization fairs with the goal of finding clubs and activities to join. That means they’ll require far less convincing to sign up for your group or consider attending a meeting.

If you cannot access a table, distribute clipboards to your group members and sign up students that way. If you’re asked to leave by university officials, explain that you wanted to do the organization fair “right” (i.e. with a table) … but you also didn’t want to miss the opportunity to find members for your club.

“The student org fair is the most important recruitment opportunity because it’s the beginning of the semester when students are feeling lonely, overwhelmed, and they need to connect with like-minded people.”

— Brooke Paz, Students for Life of America at California State University, Fullerton

Social Media

Social media is not a replacement for tabling. But it can support your group’s efforts to attract and communicate with new members.

For example, you can use Facebook’s search to find students who have “liked” conservative and libertarian politicians, celebrities, groups, and causes. Look for currently enrolled students who have mutual friends with you.

Send a brief, relatable Facebook message (e.g. “I saw you liked Rand Paul and were friends with John Doe–do you still attend State Tech?”) and ask them to join your group. Your goal is to follow up with a phone call so you can establish a relationship – and stay in touch for future events. Quickly fold in new members to your existing group; add them to your Facebook group or group chat.

Create social media accounts dedicated to your group, based on what platforms are most popular at your school and what you can reasonably manage. Foster a social media environment that is both work and play to help maintain members’ involvement and communication.

Make sure the transition of social media account information is part of your leadership transition each year. You don’t want to discover a student studying abroad or a graduate now working out of state is the only person who can reset your Instagram password.

You can also join social media groups for coalitions, whether specific to your campus or at a state or national level. If you’re in a chapter for a national organization, it’s highly likely the organization has groups for you to join.

Follow-Up

No matter how you identify a potential group member – tabling, an organization fair, social media, or a personal conversation – you must follow up with each person.

The post Your Campus Group Survival Guide appeared first on Leadership Institute.

Wednesday Wakeup Club Breakfast January 2024

Leadership Institute — Thu, 22 Feb 2024 17:18:12 +0000

Join the Leadership Institute for a monthly discussion with exclusive guests in the conservative movement!

Karin A. Lips is the founder and president of the Network of enlightened Women (NeW), the nation’s premier organization for conservative university women. She is the editor of She’s Conservative: Stories of Trials and Triumphs on America’s College Campuses. Karin was a resident fellow at the Harvard Institute of Politics. Upon graduation from the University of Virginia, and University of Virginia School of Law, she practiced law at Wiley Rein LLP in Washington, D.C.

Join us at this month’s January WWCB to hear Karin speak on her recent book, “You’re Not Alone: The Conservative Woman’s Guide to College” which has garnered praise from accomplished conservative women such as Ambassador Nikki Haley, Fox News commentator Katie Pavlich, and Senator Marsha Blackburn.

The post Wednesday Wakeup Club Breakfast January 2024 appeared first on Leadership Institute.

Matt Walsh’s Epic Takedown Of The Left’s Radical Gender Ideology.

Leadership Institute — Thu, 22 Feb 2024 17:16:17 +0000

Watch Matt Walsh’s epic takedown of the left’s radical gender ideology.

The post Matt Walsh’s Epic Takedown Of The Left’s Radical Gender Ideology. appeared first on Leadership Institute.

Riley Gaines Exposes the Dangers of Gender Ideology

Leadership Institute — Thu, 22 Feb 2024 16:54:31 +0000

At San Francisco State University, brave collegiate swimmer Riley Gaines was physically struck twice by a man wearing a dress — as a violent mob trapped her in a room for three hours. Leftist agitators couldn’t stand hearing basic truths — that men are not women, and men should not be in women’s locker rooms, let alone compete against them in sports — so they assaulted her and tried to shut her down. Riley will not back down. She said, “When they want you silent — speak louder.

The post Riley Gaines Exposes the Dangers of Gender Ideology appeared first on Leadership Institute.

Harvard students’ Pro-Palestine Hunger Strike Lasts Only 12 Hours

Campus Reform — Tue, 13 Feb 2024 23:00:58 +0000

Over 30 Harvard University students went on a 12-hour hunger strike in support of students at Brown University who didn’t eat for eight days to push their administration divest from companies with connections to Israel.

In an Instagram post, the Harvard Undergraduate Palestine Solidarity Coalition wrote, “To send solidarity to @browndivestcoalition for their incredible hunger strike, 30+ Harvard students committed to a day-long hunger strike to prove to university corporations that we will not back down.”

Violet T.M. Barron, who’s associated with Harvard Jews for Palestine, told The Harvard Crimson she did the hunger strike because, “until our universities divest, they are complicit and we are complicit — because we pay tuition — in the genocide in Gaza.”

According to the Brown Daily Herald, 17 students ended their hunger strike after eight days on Feb. 9, while around 200 other students completed a 32-hour solidarity fast.

Brown University President Christina Paxson refused to put forth a resolution to the Corporation of Brown University for the consideration of divesting from companies with connections to Israel, telling the protesters in a Feb. 2 letter to consider filing a proposal with the Advisory Committee on University Resource Management. The Brown University students ended their strike on Feb. 9.

A Brown Divest Coalition statement read, “Rather than continue the strike with now-obsolete demands, the strikers decided collectively to end their strike, along with 200+ student solidarity fasters, at 5 p.m. on Friday.”

The post Harvard students’ Pro-Palestine Hunger Strike Lasts Only 12 Hours appeared first on Leadership Institute.

Navy Drops Diploma Requirement Amid Recruiting Crisis

Campus Reform — Wed, 07 Feb 2024 22:56:52 +0000

Amid its recruiting crisis, the U.S. Navy has dropped its requirement that recruits have a high school diploma or GED.

In 2023, the Navy “missed its recruitment goals for active duty enlisted sailors by more than 7,450,” and also didn’t meet its targets for officer recruitment, as reported by the Navy Times.

Recruits without a high school diploma or GED will be required to score 50 or higher on the Armed Forces Qualification Test that ranges up to 99. The last time that recruits could join the Navy without similar qualifications was 2000, wrote News Nation.

In June 2022, the Army dropped its requirement that recruits have a high school diploma or GED but reversed the change a week later.

The Navy, Army, and Air Force all fell short of their recruitment targets last fiscal year. The services have had trouble attracting candidates who qualify.

According to the U.S. Army, only 23% of young Americans ages 17 to 24 “fully meet the Army’s eligibility requirements.”

71% of American youth “do not qualify for military service because of obesity, drugs, physical and mental health problems, misconduct, and aptitude,” according to the U.S. Army Recruiting Command.

Amid its recruiting crisis, the Department of Defense has asked for more than $114 million for diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility efforts, according to CBS Austin.

In 2022, the Department of Defense asked for $66 million for diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) spending and also asked for $86 million the following year, wrote CBS Austin.

“The Biden Admin’s focus on progressivism over warfighting continues to exacerbate the military recruiting crisis and calls into question our level of military preparedness,” the GOP-controlled House Oversight Committee wrote on X.

Additionally, between January 2016 and May 2021, the Department of Defense, “reportedly spent approximately $15 million to provide gender-affirming care (surgical and non-surgical care) to 1,892 service members,” according to the Congressional Research Service.

[BREAKING: ‘Woke ideology has infected every aspect of American life,’ Sen. Rubio says]

Lack of qualified candidates and DEI spending are not the only factors contributing to the military’s recruitment crisis.

The Air Force attributed its recruiting crisis, in part, to the “lack of patriotism in Generation Z,” as Campus Reform wrote.

Generation Z demonstrates that they have trouble answering basic questions about the federal government on civics tests, as seen on Campus Reform.

Members of Generation Z also live at a time in which college and K-12 courses teach a version of history that, by focusing on and exaggerating America’s and the West’s wrongdoing, leaves students with little pride in America specifically and Western civilization more generally.

[RELATED: OPINION: Critical Race Theory is poisoning our military]

“Generation Z is not patriotic, in the traditional sense,” Maj. Gen. Ed Thomas, the Air Force Recruiting Service commander, told Military.com.

The post Navy Drops Diploma Requirement Amid Recruiting Crisis appeared first on Leadership Institute.

LI Grad Spotlight: Joy Gjersvold and AnnMarie Adams

smaule — Wed, 22 Nov 2023 16:47:00 +0000

Working-class Bremerton drives Kitsap County, Washington’s Democratic politics.

You may remember Bremerton from the Supreme Court decision in Kennedy v. Bremerton School District, which reversed a 9th Circuit decision prohibiting a high school football coach from praying on the field after football games. The free exercise of religion guaranteed in the 1st Amendment is part-and-parcel of a wide range of issues galvanizing parents to take back school boards across the country.

Meet parents Joy Gjersvold, a military spouse, and her partner-in-crime, AnnMarie Adams, who have collectively attended a handful of Leadership Institute trainings and co-founded a Moms for Liberty chapter in Kitsap County.

Gjersvold was featured in POLITICO coverage of Moms for Liberty’s national conference in Tampa in July of this year, at which Leadership Institute training played a central role:

The moms flocked to Tampa from all over the U.S., including Joy Gjersvold, who leads a Moms for Liberty chapter in Kitsap County, Washington.

Like many others, Gjersvold was inspired to get more involved in education by the pandemic — the closing of schools in her area, a “lack of preparedness” to go virtual, masking and vaccination requirements for students and teachers. Gjersvold found out about Moms for Liberty through a Facebook post and last August founded a local offshoot in Kitsap, which spans five school districts in Western Washington.

In the time since, the group has expanded to include an executive team and district “captains” — parents who keep everyone posted on education happenings in their district. The group sees about 12-20 people at their regular meetings, Gjersvold said.

“It spoke to me,” Gjersvold said in an interview. “I realized, with a daughter who is still in high school, I had to do something.”

…. Moms for Liberty is clearly inspiring parents to take action locally as the movement continues to expand.

In Washington, for example, Gjersvold said there are 15 local school board seats up for reelection soon that the local Moms for Liberty group is targeting.

“There are red voters — there are conservative voters — who know what is happening is wrong,” Gjersvold said. “We need to empower them to have a voice.”

Joy and AnnMarie are using their unique skills to advance pro-parent policies in Washington.

Dena Espenscheid, LI’s Director of Grassroots Coalitions, writes:

“Joy is using her crafting skills and imagination to find new ways to introduce liberty principles and GOTV messages to the parents in their area. Joy and AnnMarie made a GOTV Photobooth for a massive Trunk or Treat event in late October. They are also using their Trunk or Treat space as an official Moms for Liberty ballot drop-off location for secure voting.”

These political newcomers are using “this kind of out-of-the-box thinking,” as Dena puts it, to engage voters on important issues.

Great work, Joy and AnnMarie!

The post LI Grad Spotlight: Joy Gjersvold and AnnMarie Adams appeared first on Leadership Institute.

Get to Know Pro-Life Emily

Leadership Institute — Sat, 28 Oct 2023 16:49:00 +0000

Meet Emily Berning, Leadership Institute (LI) grad and faculty member. I recently talked with Emily to ask about her role as a pro-life woman and as the founder of Let Them Live. She shares how she got where she is today, her struggles, and advice for conservatives unsure of their next steps.

What motivated you to get involved in conservative politics?

“I first became involved with the conservative movement in college. I had grown up in a conservative and pro-life household and college was really the first place that I started exploring my own personal beliefs on politics and culture. I am someone who is strong-willed and when I really believe in something, I put all my energy and effort into it.”

“Many conservatives on college campuses prefer not to get involved or make noise about their beliefs for fear of being ostracized. But that’s just not who I am.”

“People who know me know that I am extremely passionate and vocal and will stand up for what I believe in. I believe in many conservative principles, especially the right to life. The crux of why I got involved in the first place is that I saw so many things wrong on my campus at Colorado State, in my state, and in our country specifically related to abortion. I felt motivated by my need to do something about it.”

“There is too much at stake to leave to someone else the role that I am supposed to fill.”

As President and Co-Founder of Let Them Live, what inspired you to start your organization?

“I have always been pro-life and during college people started to know me as ‘Pro-Life Emily.'”

“I lived and breathed (and still do) advocating for the pro-life stance and when I met my husband through the Leadership Institute, he noticed that in me. He said, “You should start a pro-life nonprofit.” Having no clue how to do that or what my mission would be was scary but slowly the pieces started coming together.”

“I came up with the name Let Them Live on a late-night car ride to Indiana from Virginia and then our true mission came about two months after Nate and I got married.”

“Nathan stumbled across a pro-life Facebook page one night and saw a comment from a woman who was asking for advice on how to talk her cousin out of getting an abortion. After messaging back and forth, he found out that it was a financial burden that was causing her to feel like abortion was her only choice. She lost her job, was evicted, and was living in her van outside in the December weather.”

“Nathan and I knew we had to help her so we sent her all the money we had, $1250, so she could get back into her apartment, and then she canceled her abortion!”

“It was at this point that we started to realize that we had found our mission.”

“We knew there were probably more women with abortions scheduled because of financial burden (73% of women in the US have abortions because of finances according to Guttmacher Institute) and we wanted to help.”

“We knew we didn’t have enough money to keep doing it ourselves, so we started reaching out to our friends and family for help. Three-and-a-half years later and we have helped almost 500 moms cancel their abortions and our staff has grown from just the 2 of us to over 70 staff members and over 200 volunteers!”

As a former Leadership Institute (LI) Field Representative and current LI faculty, how has LI helped you with your career in pro-life activism?

“I love LI. I cannot say this enough. LI was my first job out of college, where I met my husband without whom I could not have started Let Them Live (LTL). LI is where I met some of my greatest friends and where we have been given so much support.”

“LI has been an amazing partner for Nate and me and Let Them Live.”

“From supporting me and covering costs for me to speak on college campuses to spread the word about LTL to having me guest lecture and share LTL with new LI grads, LI has given us the tools we need to grow.”

“On top of that, most of the knowledge we used to build and grow LTL came from LI trainings.”

“Thanks to LI we know how to properly cultivate and steward our donors, partake in media interviews, grow our teams, and ultimately be the absolute best we can be so we can continue to create jobs for people in the pro-life movement, help women, and save lives from abortion.”

What are your thoughts on the importance of speaking out about your beliefs?

“There is nothing more valuable than being vocal about your beliefs.”

“We live in a world where people are encouraged to be part of the status quo and not rock the boat. But my advice is to rock that boat. Speak up.”

“There are people depending on your voice. In my case, it is the most defenseless human beings and their mothers who need me to speak on their behalf.”

What are you most eager to do at Let Them Live now that Roe v. Wade has been overturned?

“I am obviously eager to just continue showing up for women and giving them the support they need.”

“I am also really excited for our new campaign called “I Fund Life.” This is our new peer to peer fundraising project which allows our donors to continue supporting us by creating GoFundMe style campaigns for LTL and having their friends and family donate. This will help us to grow our donor pool and keep raising as much money as possible for our cause.”

“With Let Them Live specifically, the money we raise goes to help women pay their rent, car payments, utility bills, etc., so that they can confidently choose life.”

“We are 100% donor funded. Without donations, we can’t support women, and if we can’t support women, we can’t save lives from abortion. We have some direct competition from organizations that raise money for abortions, and we want to out-raise them and show them that we can tangibly support women in choosing life.”

“I am especially eager to substantially increase our fundraising because women are turning to the abortion funding organizations to cover the cost of their travel or their abortion itself, but we want women to know that they don’t have to have those abortions because we can walk alongside them. But it takes money to make those commitments!”

Do you have advice for others who want to get involved in the pro-life movement or a movement that matters to them?

“My advice is to just go for it.”

“I think a lot of people have huge hearts for this work and this mission but they aren’t sure about the impact they will make or they are afraid of stepping out of their comfort zone.”

“My advice is to step out of your comfort zone. It’s a hard place to be but there is nothing more worthwhile.”

You can learn more about being an effective pro-life advocate at LeadershipInstitute.org/ProLife. If you want to start your own conservative organization, read Morton’s advice in The Conservative Organizational Entrepreneur and reach out to learn more at the Leadership Institute’s Conservative Organizational Entrepreneur training.

The post Get to Know Pro-Life Emily appeared first on Leadership Institute.

Robert Ordway: From the Rust Belt to DC

Leadership Institute — Thu, 23 Feb 2023 16:43:00 +0000

Meet Robert Ordway, a successful conservative public policy advisor for Senator Mike Braun of Indiana. In our recent interview, Robert and I discussed his experience, how he ended up working on the Hill, and some tips on what to expect once you’re there.

Can you tell me a little about yourself and your background?

I grew up in the small mill-town of Lake Station, Indiana, a bedroom community to the more historically famous Gary which is located in the Chicagoland area. I was in the Delayed Entry Program (DEP) with the U.S. Navy when the war in Iraq started in Spring 2003. But after I received from the Eli Lilly Endowment a four-year scholarship to any university in the state, I ended up completing a BSBA in Finance at Valparaiso University.

You have been working with Senator Mike Braun for some time now. How did you initially get involved, and what does your position involve?

I had no intention of ever working in Congress after moving to DC in 2017. But like most things in this city, you can’t plan out your career, and you never know what opportunities might present themselves. After Mike Braun’s election to the U.S. Senate in 2018, I knew his senior staff were pursuing people from the home state along with people who shared his principles and values.

My title is Senior Policy Advisor, but that just means I’ve been around too long. My portfolio includes ‘all things numbers’ such as issues within the Budget, Finance, Appropriations, and Banking Committees. I also perform all the coalition work for the office, which is what I enjoy most.

Why did you decide to get involved in conservative politics?

I really fell into it. Graduating in December 2007, my finance degree went from being prized to near worthless overnight. During school, I studied risk and randomness in nature as a philosophical pursuit/hobby, which later led me to research the housing crisis.

After my gap year, I enrolled in grad school, joined a local political party, and the rest is history. Whether it’s Jesus’ testimony by changing hearts and minds or observing our entire galaxy, I see culture and evolution as a ‘bottom-up’ exercise which is driven by hyper localized decision-making. My politics and religion both are channeled through that framework.

What is one challenge you have faced during your time in politics, and how did you overcome it?

I ran for local office in 2015 and despite the job paying merely $6,000 a year, it was amazing to see how many people (on the internet) came out of the woodwork to say false and ridiculous things about me.

The teaching moment was acknowledging that not everyone will like me and other than getting a majority of votes, that’s not the point of the exercise. Being principled means you’re going to ruffle some feathers from time to time, but that is the cost of leadership. Without taking risks, it’s hard to move the ball forward in any aspect of life.

How has the Leadership Institute (LI) helped you during your time in public service?

LI was one of the first organizations I interacted with after attending an America’s Future event at The Heritage Foundation.

A few of the classes I took at LI helped prepare me to retool the way I write for my current role. One thing I love about the organization is the diversity of options for training – it feels like there’s a class or seminar for everything under the sun.

Do you have any advice for others who want to get involved in local politics or a movement that matters to them?

I think there are many ways to serve your community and politics/public service is just one avenue. To me, it’s always about building a team and uniting people around a common goal with the pursuit of moving your community forward.

Remember that there is no ‘self-made’ person. We all have mentors who have helped us along the way, and we have a duty to pay it forward by developing others. That’s exactly what LI has done over the past few decades.

The post Robert Ordway: From the Rust Belt to DC appeared first on Leadership Institute.