Dear Friend,
This month, I’d like to do something very unusual and take you on a brief tour of Focus on the Family Action.
You see, normally when I share this update with you, I focus on a particular issue battle that we’re engaged in or an exciting project that we’ve launched. But that’s always just a small picture of what your support is equipping us to do. That’s because every month there is a vast quantity of important work being done that space just doesn’t allow us to talk about.
So, to give you a fuller view of how your partnership with us is making an impact, let me introduce you to some wonderful people and programs that you might not be familiar with.
I wish this tour could be in person. If you ever get to Colorado Springs, we’d love to show you around our facility and tell you more. But in the meantime, consider this your “virtual tour,” and step right this way!
The heart of it all: taking action!
Let me start by taking you to our Issues Response department. This team has been extraordinarily busy of late, mobilizing our supporters for big legislative battles in Arizona, Colorado, Hawaii, Indiana, Iowa, Kentucky, Tennessee and Wisconsin. They utilize mailings, e-mail blasts, online petitions, radio ads and, when the timing is most urgent, occasionally even phone calls—all designed to urge pro-family citizens to take action. Although we certainly don’t win them all, we’re coming off a recent stretch of several big, consecutive wins.
Issues Response is really the heart and soul of Focus Action. In fact, it represents one of the big reasons Dr. Dobson and I started Focus Action four years ago. Focus on the Family was extremely limited, due to IRS regulations, in our ability to inform and activate friends like you on key legislation in Congress and the states. Now, with Focus Action, the only limitation is the amount of funding available. Thankfully, with your help, Focus Action has been able to do a great deal.
Peter Brandt is the senior director over this department. He joined Focus on the Family in 1995 and, a year later, led Focus’ first big state issue campaign—the first of hundreds, if not thousands.
Two of Peter’s key leaders are Sonja Swiatkiewicz, the campaigns director, and Mona Passignano, our state issues analyst. I’m sure you can see why Peter calls them by their first names only. But long last names aside, they are a key part of a great team that gets the word out to people like you in state after state. They’re also overseeing a huge voter registration project in this critical election year, and they’re preparing for this September’s Values Voter Summit in Washington, D.C.
Doing it right: sharp, savvy and accurate
As you can imagine, dealing with so many issues requires a lot of help from our resident experts on the issues. They are found in our Issue Analysis department. Carrie Gordon Earll is the senior director of this group; and if you’ve ever seen her on FOX News or CNN, you know that she epitomizes what we look for in our analysts. A 17-year veteran of public policy work here at Focus, she is sharp, extremely well prepared and able to deftly handle the toughest debate.
Her team of analysts specialize in a variety of issues, including abortion, marriage, abstinence, pornography, gambling and judicial issues. One of the busiest analysts lately has been Chad Hills, who focuses on gambling. At the federal level, Chad has been opposing expansion of Indian gambling. At the state level, he’s been helping to stave off pro-gambling measures in Colorado, Florida, South Dakota and Washington state.
The liberals in Congress have also been keeping Ashley Horne on the run. Ashley is our federal issues analyst, and she spends a good deal of her time on Capitol Hill, meeting with legislators and key Congressional staff members.
Mass distributing the pro-family message
One of Focus Action’s key partners is the Media department of Focus on the Family. Our job would be vastly more difficult without two of its outstanding channels of communication. Focus on the Family Citizen magazine is a full-color monthly that provides in-depth news coverage to more than 52,000 subscribers. The capability to dig deep comes especially in handy during election years. In the April issue, for example, Citizen featured a Focus Action cover exposé on Barack Obama and a detailed look at this fall’s top U.S. Senate races.
“Family News in Focus” is a daily news feature that airs on about 700 stationsaround the country. Its team of reporters and audio engineers produce seven versions of the newscast every weekday, plus a weekend edition. They also produce numerous programs that are targeted to a specific state—educating and calling listeners to action on urgent legislative matters in that state.
Even though “Family News in Focus” and Citizen are part of Focus on the Family, not Focus Action, we’re able to pay for airtime and space, which gives us great opportunities to assertively advance the truth about candidates and legislation.
Meanwhile, our online presence continues to grow, thanks in large part to Jennifer Mesko, who left the newsroom of The Detroit News to join Focus Action. “CitizenLink,” a daily e-mail update, now reaches more than 104,000 subscribers. But more important is the fact that these e-mails get read. And above all, readers respond. For example, before last fall’s vote on the so-called “hate crimes” measure, 4,500 “CitizenLink” readers used our Action Center to send nearly 10,000 e-mails to their senators. Five U.S. senators— who had previously supported expanding hate crimes to cover sexual orientation— reversed their positions and voted against it, leading to the eventual demise of that dangerous proposal threatening religious liberty.
In addition to getting our message out through these communications channels, Focus Action also gets a wealth of “earned” news coverage, thanks to the efforts of Focus on the Family’s media team. These veterans of the media world—people such as Monica Marti and Nima Reza—are able to pique the interest of reporters and editorial writers through well-worded news releases and personal phone
calls. Often the result is coverage of the pro-family viewpoint that otherwise wouldn’t happen.
A good example of their work is a recent news conference that our media team put together on behalf of a coalition of pro-family and Christian groups. The purpose of the event was to draw attention to a dangerous bill in the Colorado legislature that would force religious nonprofits (such as Catholic Charities and The Salvation Army) to hire homosexual employees. Our media team handled all of the tactical elements, from producing talking points to writing the news release. The result was tremendous coverage in the Denver media, and the bill was quickly withdrawn by the sponsor.
And thanks to the ingenious folks on our team, Focus Action is always developing new ways to get our message out. For example, Stuart Shepard, who developed the popular Stoplight™ online video feature—whose segments have been viewed more than three million times in the last few months—is now developing a daily video news feature that is about to debut as I write this. And one of our younger team members is developing a Facebook page for Focus Action—designed to utilize this popular forum to reach young people with a compelling pro-family message.
Covering the nation: from statehouses to Congress
Our work also extends to state organizations, thanks to the work of our Family Policy Council department. Led by the very capable Brad Miller, this team helps establish vigorous, professional groups that carry the pro-family message to the state level. The vast majority of these independent Family Policy Councils now have an “action” organization very similar to Focus on the Family Action.
In the last year, we helped establish and have associated with strong new organizations in Colorado, Idaho, Missouri, Washington state and West Virginia. And Brad’s team is working very actively right now in several states, including Alaska, Delaware, Kansas and North Dakota, helping new groups organize and meet the high standards we have for association.
Finally, in this critical election year, I’d be remiss not to mention the crossdepartmental team that shines the light of day on the candidates in key U.S. House and Senate races around the country. Over the next few months, this team will be sending out millions of letters, postcards and e-mails, not to mention radio ads, phone campaigns and more. I’ll let you know more about this as the election gets a bit closer.
As you can see, a lot more goes on around Focus Action than usually meets the eye. I hope you’re encouraged by this . . . and personally fulfilled as well. After all, your support is what makes it happen. God bless you for standing with us!
Sincerely,
Tom Minnery
Senior Vice President
Government and Public Policy
P.S. Please keep us in your prayers during these challenging days. Your continued giving is needed as well—even more, if possible, as we step up our activities leading up to the election. And, if your summer travels happen to take you through Colorado, we’d love to see you and give you a personal tour!
