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good evening everybody my name is Kimberly clinch and I am a national chapter the National chapter manager here at American promise and I am so excited and grateful for all of you who are on the call tonight thank you so much for joining to learn about how you can help end big money's reign in our country through the candidate pledge the pledge is a national volunteer led effort to ask candidates both challengers and incumbents at all levels of government to sign a simple pledge saying that they support the amendment to limit big money and will continue to be a supporter in office if you're new to American promise and you know maybe just heard about the pledge on last month's call with Nita Turner and Roe comic you'll be hearing more about it but in the movement to get big money out of politics you could say the candidate pledge is where the rubber meets the road it's about putting this issue big money and more importantly the solution of a constitutional amendment on your ballot and doing that by holding your candidates accountable u.s. representative Jim McGovern newest representative from Massachusetts he's a champion of this amendment in Congress he joined our national call in January right around the anniversary of citizens united and he said one thing that really stood out to me said the one thing that all of us politicians have in common is we all want to get reelected if there's enough pressure and the incumbents feel the pressure that this will matter in the next election that will sway them so that's what the candidate pledge is about it's about making your candidates answer the question so voters know what their options are we often talk about the juxtaposition between on the one hand the widespread support that exists among voters for an amendment to limit big-money and on the other hand the widespread feeling that nothing can be done now if you're on this call you know that that's not true and your mission should you choose to accept it is to spread hope because while we are facing many many problems right now as a result of big money and politics we the people do still have the vote and I know this most poignant Lee because of an example those of you who have been on calls before may have may have heard me point this example is it is when I go back to for a feeling of hope and it's the example of a small rural county in Minnesota Wright County where in 2018 two spots on the county council were up for election now normally an election or a campaign for a county commissioner seat costs max $2,000 but Wright County Minnesota is home to a landfill that in 2018 was owned by a company in Florida and they wanted to expand that landfill so they ran two challengers against the two incumbents in races that normally would have caused max $2,000 the company towards 45,000 dollars in but bottom line the incumbents still won the people of Wright County won because they still have the vote we all still have the votes but it takes hope and awareness to use our votes to collectively win and the candidate pledge is about both of those things it's about getting the information so voters can be informed and it's about spreading awareness of this amendment at this time and people are tuning in civically so that voters can be hopeful now in many ways for suing candidates for the pledge to be easy the pledge could be signed by candidates at all levels of government even if you're running for school board your candidate and the office that you're running for will give you a platform that you can use at minimum to spread awareness of this amendment and as I said hope more over mayor's City Council's County Commissioners can actually pass resolutions that call on Congress for this amendment like 800 cities and towns have already done state legislators can also pass resolutions as twenty states have already done and of course at the federal level your elected officials can propose and support consume II can introduce and support proposals for this amendment perhaps the difficult part about the pledge is remembering the importance of getting signatures from across the political spectrum voters across the political spectrum in America want this amendment and it's one of the beautiful parts of this movement that we can come together in unity and and care for people that we don't that we often dis Bree with and so we owe it to all Americans to ask their candidates if they support this amendment and give them a chance to sign and if your area just has pledged signers from one party it makes it easier for corrupt politicians of another party to say that it's a partisan issue and confuse voters so here to tell us about how to reach out to candidates whether they are people you know or people that you often disagree with is a schwa reso LaHood leader of American promise in New Mexico where she and her fellow members are candidate pledged champions after collecting 15 candidate pledges in a 2017 2018 election cycle they're already outdoing themselves in the 2020 cycle having collected 25 signatures with 4 months of what will really be increasing public scrutiny in the election to go so she's been in the trenches learned by doing figure out what works and she's here tonight to show you the inside scoop with us and so with that I'm happy to turn it over to you sorry thanks Kimberly thanks for that introduction and thanks for mentioning help and the cross part is in part of this because I think those are two really important pieces that sometimes don't get done spoken about as much as they need to so I'm hi everyone thanks for calling in to this training I'm super excited to share the what we're doing in New Mexico with the American promise candidate and elected official pledge now some of you all I know are familiar with the pledge but others might be new to the pledge and even may be new to the campaign finance Amendment movement so I hope this training provides each of you with something you can use to take meaningful action toward taking back our elections that's what it's about by the way I I have a habit of referring to American promise as AP so be forewarned I will probably do that and I hope nobody gets confused another thing I want to mention is that you'll be getting a recap of this call afterwards with links to the documents I'm going to cover as well as the websites and emails so don't worry too much about capturing all that so since 2018 when we started promoting the pledge in New Mexico we've learned a few things about what works and those are the things I want to share with you I'll be touching on the following items number one figuring out who to approach to tracking your efforts three sending the pledge out to your candidate and making your ask for walking your candidate through the process of signing and submitting for the pledge and then five following up so the pledge I'm gonna share my screen right now oh I'm just a bold Kimberly can you get me to be able to share the screen I think you might have to make me a co-host I think I just did that good there we go I think we are in business here oh okay there's the pledge I hope everyone can see that so this is what it looks like and it's actually pretty simple and since it's really short and since it's the the theme the whole point of this training is to get people to sign this pledge I'm going to take a minute to read it to you and please you know read it along as well I support amending the United States Constitution to guard against corruption and protect liberty federalism and the equal rights of free speech by limiting the undue influence of money in elections and government I pledge to use my office to advance a constitutional amendment addressing the above issues through passage and ratification in effective ways such as sponsoring or co-sponsoring bills resolutions or other legislation advancing proposal or ratification of this amendment voting in favor of such bills and resolutions in committee subcommittee or floor votes and publicly advocating for the necessity of this amendment that's the pledge it's pretty short and sweet then they need to put their name off as political party and then down at the bottom it shows that they can it can be submitted through this link online or it can be submitted via an email so I'm going to stop sharing this here so as you jump into this pledge project the first thing you're gonna want to do is figure out who to approach right so I'd suggest doing it in this order first candidates you know if you already have a positive relationship with any candidates or elected officials definitely start there start with them taking advantage of existing connections it's not only smart you're also more likely to end up with signed pledges now at this point I want to put in a plug just like Kimberly did before the cross partisan nature of this work I think it's super important if you're a politically active person you may well have varying levels of positive relationships with many potential pledge signers some of them may be from across the aisle politically don't make the mistake of only approaching people who are on your side or in your party there can't be an amendment until we have broad cross partisan support we need to approach everyone but will be particularly need conservative and Republican support on this you know the majority of Americans over 80% by most on studies across all parties want this kind of reform but politicians have hijacked the issue into a partisan issue on Capitol Hill where at this point it's basically got installed so that's my little plug for being cross partisan and maybe getting out of your comfort zone a little bit so start by approaching candidates you know and then the second group to approach as candidates you are a constituent of people running for office are much more tuned in to potential voters for good reason we are a representative government approaching candidates and elected officials in your own district is just a really good idea so how do you find the candidates in many states you can find them on the Secretary of State's website you'll look for a tab that says elections are voting and usually there's amazing amount of information on there there are other useful websites as well for finding candidates you can use ballotpedia org then put in your state and then for finding elected officials you can use my rap's dot data made us and again those those websites will be on the recap okay Kimberly so the third group to approach the third group of candidates and elected officials is basically everyone else if you have the time and energy to reach out further than candidates you know and the candidates in your district consider reaching out to larger numbers of potential signers by sending group emails you can make up one email for Democrats one for Republicans and maybe another one for independents or other parties we haven't found the mass email approach to be the most effective but a few signers have come in that way so if you have the time and energy it's not that idea to try it out or to do that so once you decide who you're going to approach do some research so that you can personalize your ask it's not necessary to know everything about the person you are asking to sign but it is really important to know enough to personalize your email in some way so I'm going to talk about that a little bit more in a minute the next thing is tracking your efforts we use a Google sheets listing all the candidates and tracking who is approaching who you want to make your pledge outreach as personal and positive as possible so it's usually best not to deluge people with multiple random pledge requests from a lot of different people so assigning candidates to volunteers is a good idea at least that's how we've done it the spreadsheet is really useful and we use it not only to track who's approaching who we also trap contacts made follow-ups that have happened and hopefully sign pledges so American promise actually has recently set up a pledge database project to help chapters track pledge efforts so if you want to get involved in that or or see what that looks like you can contact either cold American promise who many of you already know okay so you're ready to reach out to your potential signer or actually maybe you reach out to a campaign manager or a staffer um elected officials and candidates can be really difficult to reach sometimes staff are often much more accessible sometimes what I've discovered is talking to a staffer is actually a better idea than trying to reach the candidate because they often have the job of vetting this kind of thing before the candidate or elected official even sees it so think about looking up a staffer um especially it's a higher level candidate or elected official who would have a staff before you start keep in mind one thing any candidate or elected official can sign the pledge completely on their own right now and so I'm going to share my screen again and show you how they do that just so that you have a sense of what their experience is going to be just a sec so they would download and print the pledge which I just had open trend is so they can sign it and then make a take a picture of it or a scam and then what they're gonna do is go to submit a signed pledges is obviously the American promise website so here they put in their name their district all kinds of information if you're if somebody's doing it for them like a campaign manager they would put their name in there and they would upload the scanned image of the signed pledge there and then if they want a social media graphic they which I'm going to talk about in a minute because I love those here they would put a photo of the candidate and a quote from the candidate and then they would submit so they can actually any candidate can do that just right now they certainly can do it after you send them the pledge and bring it to their attention so because they can do that it's a good idea to check the AAP website before you beat out just to make sure that your person hasn't already somehow found the pledge and signed it now at this point because of coded you're probably going to be reaching out to your potential signer by email that means you'll have to research who is the best person to contact if the only email you can find is the website email form you can go ahead and use that but it's much much better to send the email to an actual person if you can basically in your initial email outreach you'll be introducing the topic of why a constitutional amendment is necessary to reverse the effects of citizens united and you'll be inviting them to participate by taking the pledge we have a template email you can start with it's called candidate pledge making the ask and it's a letter an email to the candidate inviting them it's a great place to start so it also contains a lot of the helpful links that you'll want to send so I would highly recommend utilizing that template to or as a starting place and then utilizing your research personalize the email you might start with the template and then personalize it to the person you're reaching out to definitely mention the off the office they're running for and if by any chance one or more of their opponents have signed the pledge for sure you want to mention that in your outreach email so you'll want to include some links you'll want to in this email you want to link to the pledge itself as well as there's an AP pledge fact sheet which gives a lot of background information you might also want to send links to other supporting information ap has two really useful documents that are fairly recent one is a letter written by a couple of prominent Republicans supporting the movement and maybe either the pledge I think and the other is a handout kind of highlighting prominent Democratic support so sending the appropriate link depending on your person's party affiliation and help them understand a really important thing and that is it's good politics to sign this pledge to take this pledge so you want to again personalize as much as you can so they know that so that they can see that see let me share again and I'm going to show you another place on the website there's an extra step here so it takes me just an extra little second to see all the signers to click on there and you go to candidate database I'm going to let's say I'm looking for congressional candidates I'll click there and then right here I can put in n Emma for New Mexico and then it sorts by all the New Mexico signers so I'm gonna go back for a second go to candidate graphics this is what I love all these graphics these are what those graphics look like that I told you about they're very impressive so one thing that's not in that template is mentioning the Pledge signers graphics I would put that into your email and let them know about these and in a way I think that the graphics are one of the it kind of the answer to what's in it for me because as you can see they include a photo and there's right there the photo and a quote and they're just impressive I think most people are kind of interested in having these and so I think it's a good idea to point it out when you initially ask your candidate to sign the pledge as I said if any of your candidates opponents or as I prefer to say fellow candidates have signed the pledge then I'm just gonna scroll a little bit here so you see that there's lots and lots you might see somebody from your state so if any of your candidates opponents have already signed you definitely want to tell them about that um you also can let them know that you're reaching out to other candidates if you are doing that so you want to make it really interesting for your candidate you want to get them interested in signing stop sharing here okay one quick word about the subject line of your email I would stay away from using pledge in the subject line um I prefer to use something like invitation to show your voters where you stand or show your voters you care imagine that you're the one receiving the email and think about what would make you want to open it and pay attention to what's in in the email take your time with this initial outreach email they're much more likely to get a positive response if the email is personalized as I said and you know there's no need to rush and remember every contact you make is a plank in the bridge toward positive relationship building so there's that as well Kimberly do you think this will be a good point to see if we have any questions there's more information but I'd like to see if anyone needs to ask the question here yeah absolutely I think this is a great time so if you are in the audience and have a question please do submit it there are a couple of ways that you can do that at the bottom of your screen you should see Q&A as well as the option to raise your hand or you might have to click on participants to see raise your hand if you have a question know that somebody else in the audience has the question or someone who's gonna watch the recording has the question so you know help help your fellow Americans out and you know be bold and ask the question I can say right away had a question come in earlier from Michael Schwartz who asks how do you find the staff to contacts okay probably the best way is to look on the website of the candidate um sometimes that information is on the Secretary of State's a candidate listing you might have to do some sleuthing but that's where I would start look at the website or if there's a local office like a local campaign office you could make a phone call insert see who's in charge that way - awesome and Deb Fryman and Michigan asks how many contacts does it typically take to get a signature that's a great question and the answer is it depends the fastest I've ever seen and this was amazing is one of our volunteers sent out a pledge invitation email and two hours later the candidate called and signed the pledge you know I that's that's the only time I've ever heard it go that fast but it did happen and and then you know it can take lots and lots of contacts and then someplace in between so in on an average I'd say you probably need to reach out a couple three times at least generally you know yeah awesome you know as you're doing that again you're building a relationship there's then that's what everyone to kind of have that in the back of your mind the goal is not to get the pledge sign I mean you want to get the pledge sign but you want to get it signed so that they do what's in the pledge and then you want to sort of start forming that relationships that you can help them a great reminder and thus a great fruitful question we've got a few brave audience members with their hands up I'm gonna try to call on you Joan Devore I believe that if you unmute yourself we'll be able to hear you you're gonna let agreat know where you're calling in what your question is okay yes I was just messing with something no worries yep we can hear you okay actually another question came to my mind because the previous answer you said that within two hours that volunteer got called now does that imply that when we send an email we put our phone number in case they want to contact us as part of personalizing the email you can if you're open to a phone call that's what happened in this case yes and it can ask another quick question and you may be getting to this do you it I you may be getting to what we do when we get a pledge with respect to the AP pledge database but it sounds like you also recommend you know having your own local tracking take going on you know sort of maybe gathering more information about follow-ups and such before and rather than depending totally on the AP database that's gonna be just sort of the outcome being reported is that right you know I'm saying I think I do Joan I don't know that I can speak for the AP database per se but tracking at a local level is really great so that you have continuity so you know what was the last thing you did and you can you can really look like and in fact know what you're doing and and and be you know have that continuity um I forget the rest of your question I will be getting to the rest of this stuff about how to submit and the okay local detail tracking that's not going to be necessary to put it to the AP database another great question Joan thank you thanks Joe Nick next up Kathleen Smith if you you are able to talk to me take yourself off mute if you could let us know where you're falling and turn and what your question is I'm calling from southeastern Oklahoma and I have not seen the proposal the amendment will how do we get access to it so that I can know what it says Jim Brady let's take that one I was just going to offer it Kathleen that is a fantastic question thank you for asking Andy you definitely did service to your fellow audience members we got that question there QA as well and you know it sounds like somebody approached a candidate with the pledge and got that question back from their campaign staff so again thank you a fruitful question and the answer is that right now American promise is not proposing specific legislation like specific amendment language excuse me and the reason we're doing that is there are a couple one is that if you look at the history of amendments you know when this process really gets gets rolling as we hope the candidate footage will will make it where you know Congress is actively debating what the amendment should say the language is going to change so you know there are different bills that exist in Congress right now that proposed the amendment with with different language and and those are probably going to be the final amendment because as I say when the ball really gets rolling there's going to be a lot of rapid iterations and changing and the other thing is that by not being not having a specific language that we are tied to it gives us strategic flexibility right now they're one of those bills that exists in US Congress that proposes the amendment is worded in a way that you think it would actually be very friendly and welcoming to Republicans it's a lot about federalism and the independence of states but the nature that you know the political nature of it is that it has you know 200 plus Democrats as co-sponsors and only two Republicans and so Republicans aren't averse to putting their name on it because of the language but just because they don't want to put their name on something that has so many Democrats and so few Republicans and so by not being tied to specific legislation specific language you know we have the flexibility to talk with Republicans about introducing a new proposal that she is the same thing but you know we're able to start a you know a blank canvas with with fresh language so you know that's kind of some background into why we tie ourselves to specific values and outcomes that we want the amendment to achieve rather than specific language and so I think in that you know pursuing candidates to sign the pledge likewise it's about you know that the candidate is willing and you know in principle and you know in their heart supports an amendment that gives equal voice to all Americans and you know it's open to being part of that process of figuring out the language let me do that one thing to that is having which is really important there are actually as you alluded to a couple of bills in front of Congress right now so if you wanted to see some language and see some actual bills they are HJ r 2 and HJ r 48 that would give you a couple of versions of the language that is being installed on Capitol Hill but nonetheless it is there are bills they're out there that's a great point of Shari and I think once we wrap up this Q&A section I can send the links to those in the chat so Thank You Kathleen again for that fruitful question next up Sharon Torrance are you there if you take yourself off yet I think we can hear you okay east metro with twin seas and what occurs to me is I mean if we want to focus on lower level races and candidates and officeholders wouldn't it be more efficient or maybe productive to try to get a session at you know presentation to the board or to the Commission about American promise first and then after that maybe contact them individually for a pledge lining or however you want to term it I think this one they understand so my answer to that question is a great question thanks for asking it is yes and yes and both and all of the above that getting you know presentations about the amendment issue the necessity of the amendment and to cultivate people's understanding and education and then asking them to sign the pledge is great and just going straight in with the pledge is great too I think you know each of us has a different way of wanting to participate and this is one way you can actually just jump right in and start with the pledge or you can step back and really lay the ground so I applaud that an idea and super encourage you to follow that impulse is a great one great answer a great question and looking through the Q&A I see a question from and Shea in Massachusetts do you think it's a good idea to use our state Facebook page to find volunteers to help I am a pretty immediate response how about you oh sorry I would say yes totally yeah everything you can you know I mean I think the more the merrier actually people that's one of the things that I love about American promise is that it's so inclusive there really is almost always yes do that do that unless there's a strategic reason not to but absolutely bring in volunteers from wherever you can and find out what they want to do and have that conversation and bring them in absolutely you know and they thought that comes to mind for me is also using your Facebook page to just spread awareness among voters about who has signed the pledge I think that's you know something that those of us who are are active in civics you know often forget that there are so many Americans who you know don't don't get aren't aren't at that level yet where they're they're volunteering and you know even just stepping up their awareness to you know have an informed vote is is also great and and there's they're also you know they're still super valuable and we hope to have many many more you know voters aware of our you know in our network and tuned in than volunteers so we are you know obviously do you hope to have any volunteers sure I what do you think should we continue or you know take a few more questions now save it sorry one second okay so okay so you've personalized and century mail out to your candidate or candidates or elected officials sometimes you'll get instant satisfaction like that case that I described with the two hours your person will respond to your email they might contact you for help signing and submitting the pledge or they might even go on line and do it themselves more often you're probably going to have to do some follow-up I usually do my first follow-up a few days or about a week not a lot than after I send that email and remember I said it's a good idea to check the website and sort by your state to see whether your candidate has signed the pledge before reaching out to them I think it's also a good idea to do that each time you follow up because now they have the pledge theoretically and at any point they could just go on and become a pledge signer they may not even tell you so I would check that each time you're gonna send a follow up I'm gonna share my screen again and show you know I have in my notes I'm gonna show you how to do that but I already did so I need to do that if you have any trouble like sorting by state or anything else on the website or with this pledge project you can always email me my email will be on the recap and I'm happy to help you with it I love this work and I just really want to make it easier and more profitable but fruitful you know for each one of you that feels like jumping in so um email me if you if you need some help okay so more unfollowing up I suggest trying a phone call for your initial follow-up you could also use email but either way make sure to refer to the original email you sent that's the continuity I was describing before when you registered for this training you should have received a link to a czar called an issue arias best practices and it's called a guide to contacting your candidates and check that out because a lot of the details of what I'm about to share with you are in there and including a simple script that Kimberly and I were gonna use to do a role play in a few minutes so obviously every follow-up phone call or email is going to be different depending on exactly where in the process you are with that candidate try to approach every follow-up with the intention of having a real conversation I think that's important these are people you're dealing with individuals if the person you reach doesn't know what you're talking about it's possible they may just not have even seen the email you'll want to tell them a little bit about the pledge and let them know that you'll send a follow-up email with all the details check to see whether they are the person that you should send it to they may say no send it to so-and-so and then make sure you get contact information so that you can continue with your follow-up if they are interested but not ready to sign yet you have a great opportunity ask them if there's any way you can be helpful you can offer to send them more materials remind them that signing the pledge is a great way to let their voters know they care about representing them there are some some good talking points in the handout that I mentioned guide to contacting your candidates it's good to have that handy when you are on that phone call it also has some suggestions for how to handle tough questions which you could get basically the truth is no one knows the answer to every question so if you're asked a question you're not sure about don't worry at all you can turn it into a great opportunity to call them back and have another contact so you just tell them that you're not sure how to answer their question but you'll be happy to get back to them look into it and get back to them and then make sure you do that and you know there are tons of resources on the AAP website if you go to the main website and click on the resources tab it opens up a wealth of material and if there's time in the training here tonight I might kind of walk you show you some of that but there's just a lot of information available for handling those tricky questions and getting back to people if you call the person you sent the pledge to and they are receptive and interested or even ready to sign bingo offer to walk them through the pledge signing and submission process now if they want they can send everything directly to American promise as we as we discussed I prefer to ask them to send it to me and then I will send it to a piece for them and I encourage you to do this for several reasons number one it gives you a chance to make sure everything gets to American promise properly number two you have opportunities for follow-up which is great for that relationship building that I talked about or that I mentioned and number three very importantly you can help them fulfill the pledge by contacting them later when you hear about appropriate actions they can take so for candidates it might be bringing the topic up at candidate forms for elected officials or once a candidate wins their race and now they are an elected official it might be local resolutions I think Kimberly you touched on that a little bit and that's a whole nother area that's very wonderful work to do on public events candidates or elected officials might want to bring this up at public events where it makes sense to bring up campaign finance reform in the amendment or other problems with big money in politics so once they've gotten to the point of signing the pledge ideally they'll send you a photo or scan of it as well as a headshot of themselves and a quote or statement about why we need an amendment to reverse Citizens United or why we need to get concentrated money out of politics and those are for the graphics and they have a limit of 50 words for the quote just FYI sometimes gathering all this information can take a little more follow up I just want to encourage you to hang in there remember it is a process and you are actually establishing some relationship it might help to point out a signer who will impress them you can also tell them they could look at some of the graphics on the website to get an idea for unquote I had a number of people say well what should I write just say well there's a lot of graphics on there see what other people have said and so remember you want to keep track of any follow-up attempts so that your outreach and your follow-up has continuity so don't forget to do that anytime you have a contact with any of these people once you have everything together email it to pledge an American promise net that'll be on the recap and then keep checking the AAP website to see when the graphic shows up when it does alert the candidate and/or their staff on person and include a link to the graphics page so they can see what it looks like and download it from there you want them to see that graphic um if they submitted everything directly to American promise they'll probably receive that graphic and an email directly from AP but it's still good to track when it shows up on the website so you can contact them it's another opportunity to talk up the movement tell an I'm glad you are that they're on board as like as you can tell part of this work is laying the ground for future work with these people who are stating that they really support the movement so until your candidate has signed the pledge keep following up I would suggest about once a week if you can maybe you know less than that if you if you just don't have the time but um don't let too much time go by in between always be courteous helpful persistent try not to get discouraged most likely your requests have been missed forgotten or pushed aside by more urgent matters I can't tell you how many times I've been just about ready to give up and then when I finally get through to the person they're actually interested so hang in there and once again put yourself in their position they are busy trying to get elected they are not sitting around ignoring you so there are a couple of situations though where it does make sense to stop following up and these are those this is when you would probably want to stop they might tell you they have a policy of not signing pledges it happens sometimes it doesn't mean they don't support the amendment it doesn't mean they won't work toward the amendment a few of our most ardent supporters fall into this category they just don't sign pledges so for these people ask them if they'd like to be involved in the amendment movement in some other way besides signing the pledge you never know what might come out of continuing that conversation so the other time you might need to stop is if they tell you straight up they don't support an amendment in this case you can decide whether you want to continue the conversation one kind of final question I like to ask is how does the high price of campaigning affect your experience as a candidate or elected official my guess is that you don't necessarily enjoy having to raise that kind of money maybe they'll you know take the bait and have a conversation about that but always be respectful and curious you know be open to what they might say and never create animosity of course if necessary you can just agree to disagree in and thank them for their time it probably will be some of those if you're reaching out to a lot a wide range of people so after they signed the pledge yay you've succeeded you have a pledged signer it's great take a minute to enjoy the success don't forget tell someone celebrate take a break take a break and then jump back in because now that your candidate is a supporter and connected with American promise and the movement whether they win there or lose their election they might want to get involved in recruiting other pledge signers or obtaining co-sponsors for bills there's no end to the things that pledge signers can do to move the movement forward the pledge states I support and I pledge to use my office to advance a constitutional amendment so try to stay in touch on you want to help them keep their pledge so as someone who helped them find their way to the pledge you're in a unique position to reach out to them when those opportunities arrives here in New Mexico we're really just beginning to fully develop a post pledge signing outreach but I want to encourage you to really build that out and whatever way works best for you you get extra value from the pledge process when you build out that kind of outreach afterwards one great idea is to see if they are able to initiate a local resolution again Kimberly talked about that maybe you will have another training on the local resolutions at some point and that could be with a governing body or even with an organization you're developing relationship with that person could be the thing that helps to move them up what we call the champion scale hopefully moving them from a supporter to an advocate to a leader to a champion there's a guide on the AP resource library called amplification guide for signed pledges and that gives some other ideas for how you can help pledge signers fulfill their pledge I'm getting close to the end of this one really great thing to do once your candidate takes the pledge is to consider approaching that person's opponents inviting them to take the pledge a big part of the purpose for the candidate pledge is to make the amendment a hot topic hit candidates thinking and talking about the problem of huge amounts of money is influencing elections we want the topic to be widely discussed and debated by candidates and we want candidates to let the voters know where they stand so they can vote accordingly so that's a lot I'm share a lot with you it can be super fun to do this pledge work and it can be frustrating the thing is to jump in and try it American promise has a ton of resources to make it easy and I'm happy to help you at any step um I really encourage you to approach at least one candidate and/or elected official either one and it's a great feeling when someone says yes and you get to see their pledge and graphic and you know that you've helped them get on board you've helped the movement towards an amendment so Kimberly and I are going to do a short roleplay now so you can see an example of I think with the follow up the initial phone call looks like and then I think I'll be taking some more questions and if there's time we might have one of you guys do or a couple of you guys do a little play as well but Kimberly do you wanna are you ready to do the roleplay so Camberley going to be a campaign manager or staffer and he'll be already sent my outreach email and pledge to candidates my ap hat putting on my cap campaign manager hat ring ring ring ring ring ring ring hello this is Kimberly hi hi Kimberly my name is Ishwara and I sent an email to candidate Brown on July 9th and in that email it offers a easy way to let voters know that she supports clean cleaner campaigns and elections did you happen to see my email highest ROI based so much for following up yeah you know I did see it and I talked with a couple of their people here about it but you know candidate Brown is actually running for state Congress not US Congress so she can't propose an amendment okay that's a really interesting point I'm so glad that you did you know what I'm talking about it that you actually got that email and looked at it there's no problem at all with her being a state candidate or running for state office the reason for that is because as you probably No a constitutional amendment once it's passed in Congress at the federal level it has to be sent to the States for ratification and so we are considering the pledge that work that we're doing is a lot of it is pre ratification so we want to get education and support out state and even very local level so that once that amendment comes to the States we're ready to ratify so that's not a problem at all we're really excited to have her interested in this oh wow yeah I'm very like you followed up because Canada brown you know is definitely committed to clean campaigns and reform you know I it sounds like I should check in with our campaign attorney to make sure and you know signing a pledges is an important thing while Canada Brown is definitely on board you know we definitely want to make sure that we're signing a pledge she knows exactly what's entailed there you know I don't have the pledge in front of me could you tell me more about what is specifically being a pledge to and you know who else has has made this pledge I'd be happy to do that the pledge is actually quite short and I can read a couple of the lines to you and then I can direct you to well actually why don't I share share my screen with you assuming we're on a new call or just a phone call so the pledge basically says I support amending the US Constitution to guard against corruption and protect liberty federalism and the equal rights of free speech by limiting the undue influence of money in elections and government and it goes on to say I pledge to use my office to advance the constitutional amendment and it gives a few ways that that the candidate can do that so the pledge is very simple and I think it's right to run to buy your legal depart of course you know she's gonna want to make sure that it passes the and then actually since I'm showing you something here I'll show you something that I think is exciting and that is the graphics that pledge signers receive candidate Brown will get a graphic like this if she does sign and you can see Elizabeth Warren you can see a lot of high price high-profile candidates there um and all pledged signers are offered the opportunity to have graphic like this so do you have any other questions Wow completely for me you know I it after taking another look at it this does sound like something that you know candidate Brown will hopefully be able to sign as I say you know she definitely supports it in principle you know so just preemptively if you could tell me a bit about kind of next steps moving forward and you know if you'll forgive me my my inbox is just a nightmare so you know curious what we can do to make sure things don't fall through the cracks well given what you've said what I think would be the best thing is if you can keep following food and get a pass with the legal department make sure that it's okay with the campaign for assignment go ahead and have her sign it and you can get back to me or I couldn't get back to you in a couple of days or two or three days and I can walk you through the process of how it goes to submit it directly or you can just send all that material to me but why don't I follow up this phone call with another email Kimberly and tell you exactly what to do next that would be perfect that would be perfect thank you so much a sorry okay and it will be the email would be coming from my name issue or Isola huh so if that would be the thing to look for when you own personal email yeah Thank You Kimberly that's very exciting and glad we had a chance to talk I'm excited that the candidate is is likely to sign the pledge me too thanks so much and be in touch soon all right thanks beep okay so what is next do we want to do some more questions Kimberly is there are there more Cuban A's showing up there have been cues that knee days you know both from as you were you were speaking and that I you know also curious if people kind of having seen that role play you know I have have feedback you know if you want to nominate me for for an Academy and my theatrical performance many thanks but you know any questions about your own own work or will also try to get to how much time do we have I'm noticing that's getting close to the hour yes looks like we we do have a couple minutes I think we'll be able to address some of these questions oh yeah I love this question from William Maxwell when attending candidate forums or town halls is it appropriate to ask the candidate about the pledge in a public setting hi William you know you'd have to kind of judge that for yourself I think it's a great question it's very considerate to think about that you don't want I don't think you want to pin somebody or make somebody uncomfortable and so I think that you need to take that into account when you make the ask if there is if the opportunity exists who really open it open the question in a way that's going to be positive and instructive I think I would say yes go ahead and do it but if you are concerned about the person being put on the spot what I would do instead is to use that encounter to find out who in the campaign is the right person to talk to about this and get the contact information so that you can follow up afterwards what I've discovered is usually during those kind of public situations they're doing one-on-one talking with people and they really wouldn't have time to consider the pledge fully if they didn't know what it was so that's my answer to that one Kimberly do you have a different take on it nope I'm totally on board with you there and I I've been also looking through the QC we have a number of cues about kind of website resources I you know sent out some links earlier I'm going to send out one more right now via chat so that was the link to the pledge signers page that Aishwarya has been pulling up that's got the graphics on it and the question we got was could you share the location for searching for your candidates by state and so if you actually go to that page and at the top you click candidate database instead of looking at the graphics you look at it in a table format and be able to filter and and you know children by your state and see who in your state signed it so that was when we got there and you know the last question I think we'll get to is is there any basis upon which to prioritize local versus regional versus federal folks what do you think I'm sorry probably based on how much time you have again I think I would probably almost always if you know anybody or you have a connection with them start there whether they're local or federal or state if you know in your district that would be the next sort of level I think all of the above I mean it really depends on how much time you have and and how you want to approach it certainly the higher the level the better or the more impactful if you could reach out to a member of Congress and get them to sign that would be fantastic for the actual passage you know of the amendment but that ratification is also just crucial so and it's going to take a lot of Education and we want to keep this this issue hot and relevant so any level that you can do is agree totally agree couldn't have said it better myself and that brings us to the hour which is amazing time flies when you're having fun sorry thank you so much for sharing your expertise of us do you have any final words well I have a couple of just thank you um thanks again for coming to this training everyone I so appreciate it and I hope you've learned something useful I hope you'll jump in I'll pick a candidate send them a pledge follow-up you know there are so many good things about doing this and I invite you to step up and give it a try and please remember I'm happy to help at any step along the way and send me an email please put candidate pledge in the subject line so that I see and know that your email is about this and I'll do my best to get back to you thanks so much and have a great rest of your evening and thank you Kimberly awesome and you know I've seen the comments coming in people from the audience saying thank you glad that you guys found this helpful and informative and sending all the gratitude back to you for taking the time to learn about this and then going out and and make it a difference thank you folks night night