EMAIL DETAILS

Dear Ron, Hunter, John, Sally, Stephen, Pierre, and c3 Board Members Lukas
and Mike,


First - a big congratulations. Mike Signer got married this past weekend
(in the midst of our Partners training, sadly for me) - and has definitely
just made the best decision he will ever make in his life. Please send a
hearty congratulations to Mike!


Next the update:


*220,000 Twitter hits last week. A Facebook audience of over 3.5 million
people* – counting our direct followers and their friends for our main and
advocacy pages. 16 op-eds, 6 television hits, 8 radio hits, and 19 print
mentions in March alone – including national coverage in places like CNN’s
Situation Room. That’s what tripling our communications team this year has
achieved.


We also just *won three Pollie awards – the actual Oscars of the political
world ( http://www.theaapc.org/ ).* We won a silver for best Public
Affairs Television ad, and a bronze for best web video, for “Tell ‘Em Joe
Sent You” (You can see it with a nice message from the One Campaign here:
http://one.org/blog/2011/12/09/tell-em-joe-sent-you/) And we won a gold
for our “Oil Money Funds Terrorism” mailer:
http://www.operationfree.net/wp-content/uploads/2011/10/bakesale1.pdf


Our competition was every single political consultant for any campaign or
public affairs issue in America. We won with two ads we created in-house.


I wanted to share with you an update, including:

· *Invite to our annual conference May 3-6*

* Pro-Bono Brand Consultant*

· *Updates on our Program*

· *Challenges I’d like your help on*


*MEETING IN PERSON MAY 3
*

Our next meeting is a joint meeting of both boards just before the Greg and
Derry Craig VIP event kicking off the Annual Conference. It will take
place the late afternoon of May 3 in our offices, and we'll go over
together.


*ANNUAL CONFERENCE*

We would love for you to join us for our annual conference, which will kick
off on the evening of Thursday, May 3, at Greg and Derry Craig's home.
Michele Flournoy will join us as our speaker, and I'll be contacting each
of you about serving on the Host Committee and helping this be a successful
fundraiser. I also hope that you can join us for some of the conference
itself, particularly May 4, our speakers day, May 5, for the real policy
nuts and bolts, or May 6 for the politics and communication.


The agenda is here: http://www.trumanproject.org/conference+agenda/2012


*BRAND CONSULTANT*

As part of our metrics process, we wanted to survey what key external
stakeholders thought of the Truman Project and members of our community -
our efficacy, their efficacy, etc. We found a top-notch consultancy that
was willing to do this as a pro-bono project because they thought so highly
of our concept and wanted to see for themselves (Mike Breen also used to
work in that industry and pulled some strings).


We gave the consultant the names of our Board Members. He will pick a few
of you to speak to - not all, but a sampling - as part of this process. We
will be reporting out the findings at the next board meeting.


*PROGRAM UPDATES*


*Political Work Continues to Soar: *We finally broke through to the party
leadership that they need help on veterans and military issues, and can
actually run campaigns on national security as a winning issue. That has
resulted in soaring work in this area for the c4.

* *

· *Presidential:* The White House sees us as a go-to for many events;
we seem to be sending veterans to President Obama’s events every week. Just
last week, President Obama met with two of our veterans in Maine, and
invited two others to his Rose Garden energy announcement. The
Presidential campaign came to us this month saying that security was going
to be one of their top issues and asking for our help. Truman Members are
in roles from Campaign Speech Writer to Surrogate Director to Director of
Veterans for Obama. Truman Members have raised over $1 million for the
campaign, and a number are on the National Finance Committee. We also have
many members running states for the campaign.


· *Congressional:* The DCCC asked us to provide national security
training for all their candidates at their annual retreat, which we did
last year. We are now doing ongoing training with red to blue candidates
(all trainings are public and do not violate campaign laws). The DCCC also
asked us for a Security Briefing Book, which they will provide to all
candidates, and for 10 Innovative Ideas that candidates can make their own.
*These will be released April 16 at a public event on Capitol Hill; you
will each get a copy as well.** * We have trained 15 State Parties in how
to outreach to veterans and the military – and as we train, more requests
are flowing in.


· Through our *Adopt-A-District program*, Truman Members are assisting
more than 50 campaigns on everything from having a strong military and
veterans’ platform, to serving as policy director for Senate Candidate
Elizabeth Warren, to running for Congress themselves.


*Communications is growing for Truman; I need to do more:*


We’re rolling out a new website in May, to showcase what we have become. It
will be centered around a publishing platform, so that we can have a much
louder "voice" as an organization and a community.


Tripling our communications staff has allowed us to have far more media
hits, as mentioned above. As Ron mentioned at the last meeting, I've been
less present in the media – my main job has been to fundraise and run the
ship, and our VP, Mike Breen, has had the more open schedule to represent
Truman in the media. We hope to gradually change this balance by next
year, but it requires me having fewer items that fill my day so I can be
available to press.


We’re also using social media far more. We’re lucky, in that our community
is extraordinarily close, connected, and active – they function as a real
community, rather than as a “list”. So when we ask our list of a few
thousand followers to “share” a tweet or facebook message, we get
participation rates at levels that are literally exponentially higher than
most lists. The numbers are still too low for a Kony2012 – but with a
potential audience of 3.5 million right now (counting "friends" and their
friends), it is a focus of this coming year


We have monthly policy and messaging calls that provide 30 minutes of
policy discussion and 30 minutes of how-to message for candidates and
members of the Truman community – our first call on Iran had 115
individuals join, and over 100 stay the entire hour.


We also continue to run fifteen minute Tuesday calls with Hill and
Administration communications leaders to help them have weekly messaging.


*Leadership Development:* We trained our East Coast class of political
Partners this past weekend, one of four regional trainings we do to bring
160 campaign leaders and communicators into the Truman fold each year.
They were phenomenal. We're bringing more and more young electeds into our
community, rebuilding a group the DLC once had.


Our Veterans Leadership Academy starts next month, hand-picking 35 veterans
from key states to learn how to make the transition to civilian leadership
in policy, politics, and advocacy. This is a much broader community than
the elite Fellows – but no less important, as they are picked for their
potential to be community leaders and opinion shapers in key communities
around the country where politics must change for good policy to pass.


*MY CHALLENGES*

We have lots of happy news and happy talk I can share – but frankly, what I
really need is your help with the challenges of Truman, as well as your
help amplifying our successes. I have been struggling with a few issues on
which I would particularly appreciate your thoughts, and will be trying to
talk with you about these issues in the coming months.


1) *Brand building.* We are very well-known in pockets – the
Administration, the Presidential campaign, Congressional staff, foreign
policy rising leaders in their 20s-30s, etc. But despite the quality of
our work and high demand, we are almost unknown among Members on Capitol
Hill, the broad donor community, and the press. How do we change this, and
where should we focus? That is the reason we have this external survey,
and something I want to discuss at the next Board meeting.


2) *Expressing a clear point of view:* We started as a leadership
development organization, and that remains the foundation for all of our
work – so for that reason, we do not want to enforce strict party
discipline on policy positions when members disagree. But we cannot brand
build without a point of view, and if I am on the media more, I’ll need to
take stands which will be seen as standing for Truman, regardless of legal
language. How do we navigate these waters and take positions on issues of
the day? How have Heritage or CAP done this effectively? What is our
model?


Of course, I'll also be talking with you one on one to hear areas where YOU
think we need help, that may be blindspots for me. And I'm always here for
you when you have a thought to spare!


Best

Rachel


--
CEO and President
Truman National Security Project and Truman Educational Institute

Office: 202-216-9723
Cell: 202-320-2918

www.TrumanProject.or