LINC provided strategic technology assistance to individual groups

Gihan Perrera with Miami Worker's Center Central File Server

The past year has seen a cultural shift in low-income groups' use of technology. Instead of simply being on the receiving end of LINC's efforts to inspire their use of technology, groups have integrated technology into their strategic thinking and now seek our advice about how to use technology to achieve an end. For example, WRWAN members conceived of a centralized source of information on progressive state legislative proposals that members could use to develop their own campaigns. They asked LINC how this information could be available online and LINC responded by developing an online database that all members can access and contribute. WRWAN has also asked LINC to explore with members how audio and video can be used on the web to support its campaigns.

The trust that we have won over the past several years means that groups rely on the LINC Circuit Riders' judgment in evaluating how and when to take advantage of other technology support opportunities. Knowing the Welfare Law Center's broad knowledge of welfare issues and organizing, these groups also seek our guidance on how to relate to broader organizing efforts now underway. This experience confirms our view of the genius of the Circuit Rider model's reliance on Riders who blend both technology and organizing skills.

The following examples demonstrate how LINC's technology assistance has strengthened organizing. The following are examples (the attached list identifies all the individual groups served this past year):

Community Voices Heard (CVH): New York City's CVH has achieved national prominence for its effective work to expose the failures of New York City's workfare system, to develop a Transitional Jobs Program, and to build an active membership. CVH works on the national level as a member of the NCJIS Organizing Committee. It recently received the Ford Foundation's Leadership for a Changing World award. LINC's intensive technology capacity-building has helped power CVH's ambitious organizing. In three short years LINC has helped CVH increase its technology capacity from two stand-alone computers to a networked system with ebase, individual email accounts for members and staff, and a website with its own domain (www.cvhaction.org).

Jarrett Alexander and Dirk Slater giving a presentation on CVH's database at the New York Foundation

During the past year our efforts have been concentrated on achieving CVH's goal of strengthening its database capacity. CVH's database had been served by an older computer that had trouble meeting the demands placed by heavy staff database use. Staff recognized that they needed a secure and reliable database and decided to purchase a new high-powered computer that would be dedicated to serving the database exclusively. We assisted with the computer purchase, installed it, trained the organizer with overall responsibility for database maintenance and updating, and trained other staff on database use. We provided refresher training to staff on using the internet in organizing. We improved CVH's ability to backup its files by transitioning from use of time-consuming and expensive zip drives to use of a CD burner to create back-up disks. We planned a project to provide board members with refurbished donated computers running Linux, a free operating system.

Our efforts to train members and staff on how to use databases and email in outreach efforts paid off handsomely with CVH staff, members and volunteers staging two well-attended events and engaging in new member outreach. In February 2001, CVH's effective use of listservs attracted over 200 people to a CVH-organized forum on the future of welfare, featuring CVH leaders and national experts Frances Fox Piven, Mimi Abramovitz, and Peter Edelman. In May 2001, CVH used its database, email, and fax capacity to turn out 600 people, primarily low-income residents, to a New York City Mayoral Candidates' Forum where low-income people presented their views on workfare and new directions for city welfare policies. In an effort to promote this effective integration of technology and advocacy as a model for others, LINC prepared and widely disseminated a case study of the experience (attached).

In early 2001 we helped CVH integrate voter registration information into its database so that it could generate lists of households to visit in its door-knocking outreach campaign. We also helped CVH obtain a $3,000 special grant from the Needmor Fund to help fund some of LINC's work with CVH in 2001-2002.

Working for Equality and Economic Liberation (WEEL): Montana-based WEEL, a group formed to deal with the state's implementation of the 1996 welfare law and an early LINC group, coordinates the Western Region Welfare Activists Network (WRWAN) and is fast becoming an important voice for low-income women at the national level. WEEL is dedicated to getting women affected by poverty involved in the political process, thus giving them a voice in decisions affecting their lives, and WEEL is becoming a model for others seeking the same. WEEL representatives are increasingly present at national welfare strategy meetings and were instrumental in working with Montana's congressional delegation, including the new Senate Finance Committee chair, to win the refundable child tax credit. At home, WEEL helped win groundbreaking legislation establishing a pilot project to provide a caregiver's allowance that enables a parent of a young child to care for her child rather than leave the child with another in order to go work. The new program will provide parents the same subsidy as is given for infant child care in informal home-based child care placements.

WEEL's growing technology savvy, developed with LINC's assistance, has made its campaigns more effective. Relying on the ebase database provided by LINC, WEEL was able to turn out a crowd for Helena Mayoral and City Council candidates' forums. WEEL has joined with Montana People's Action and Women's Opportunity and Resource Development in the Montana Income Support Coalition. The three coalition members have combined their databases as part of an ongoing get out the vote campaign targeting women voters. WEEL's newsletters promoting its campaigns, including those on family formation and child care, go out more efficiently, thanks to the database. WEEL's website (www.weelempowers.org) is an important outreach and education tool and, at our suggestion, now includes a "Be Informed" section that contains Montana Benefits Eligibility guidelines. LINC consulted with the website developer and with staff on website content.

As coordinator of WRWAN, WEEL credits the coalition listserv with making it possible to work efficiently with colleagues in other states and to save on mailings and telephone calls.

During the past year LINC made two site-visits to network the Helena and Missoula offices to assist with computer purchases, install a network, train staff on using a database and maintaining the group's computer systems, and identify a DSL provider. We have also consulted with TechRocks regarding its support for WEEL, which includes training staff to maintain the website and planning to build the site into an online campaign center with alerts and the ability to send faxes and emails to legislators. The WEEL-LINC partnership demonstrates the results that can be achieved by pairing sustained technology development and effective organizers.

Grass Roots Organizing (GRO): This new statewide Missouri group was recently founded by Robin Acree, former lead organizer for St. Louis-based ROWEL, another LINC group. In the past year the LINC Senior Circuit Rider made two visits to GRO during which we developed a technology strategy for its upcoming campaigns on food stamps and transportation equity, and trained members on how the Internet can be used in organizing and on how to train other GRO members. GRO is active both in broad-based social justice coalitions in Missouri and in national coalitions, including the National Welfare Engine and GROWL. Acree's prior work with LINC through ROWEL convinced her that from the start GRO had to build its technology capacity. Consequently, Acree has worked to provide all GRO Board members with email access and in the group's early days instituted a Board Technology Committee. Email capacity recently allowed GRO to respond rapidly and join with an advocacy team in submitting recommendations to the state on Electronic Benefits Transfer (EBT) policies. LINC will soon work with GRO to provide Board members with donated computers installed with Linux.

Beth Kelly and Arif Mamdani install a new hard drive at PUFF

People United for Families (PUFF): PUFF is a young grassroots group in Denver, Colorado that works on welfare issues at the city, county and state level. PUFF, an active participant in WRWAN, has also participated in NCJIS events. During site visits, LINC staff conducted an assessment of PUFF's technology needs that included visits to Board members' home to assess their ability to access the internet and email. We installed ebase, trained staff, and networked the office so that all staff could access email and the internet. Staff use of the email and the internet has increased dramatically compared to their sporadic use under the old system which limited access to one staff member at a time.

With its expanded capacity, PUFF has used email effectively and strategically. Much responsibility for Colorado's TANF system has been devolved to the county level, challenging PUFF to develop mechanisms to pull together and engage groups on common issues in various counties across the state. Email has played a key role. PUFF is active role in the Colorado Welfare Activists Union, a statewide coalition, and the coalition's listserv has been crucial to its success in reaching out to rural groups, even those with less than reliable email access. More importantly, the listserv has served as a connecting force, providing a forum for dissemination of information and discussion that then carries over into phone calls.

Welfare Rights Organizing Coalition (WROC): WROC, a statewide organizing and advocacy group founded in the 1980's, has been a leader in efforts to improve Washington public benefits programs and recently has sought state legislation to ease time limit requirements for TANF families and to secure access to education and training. WROC is helping to insert these issues into the national reauthorization debate through its active participation in WRWAN and on the NCJIS Organizing Committee. On a local level, WROC is part of the Statewide Poverty Action Network, the Campaign for Economic Justice, and the Children's Budget Coalition. Its growing appreciation of technology's power has led WROC to publish an online newsletter (at www.wroc.org). With LINC's assistance, WROC has incorporated email and listservs in its extensive campaign work and has begun an email discussion list for its members. Email is integral to WROC's participation in coalitions, allowing WROC to send information to coalition members, ask questions and engage in discussion, and, when events break, to send out information quickly to mobilize coalition members. In response to the request of WROC staff who have recently been overwhelmed with the high volume of email they receive, LINC will be advising them on strategies to deal efficiently and effectively with email. In the past year we converted WROC's database to a customized ebase system and trained staff. We provided telephone advice that led to both the Seattle and Olympia offices obtaining high speed DSL internet connections. The Olympia office now uses this DSL connection to access the Seattle office's database.

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