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Dear Board of Directors,

With so much sadness after last week’s shooting, I did want to share a few items that you may have missed. At the January retreat, we agreed on our budget rollout strategy and here is where we are one week later:

1. Military & Veterans Letters. As we discussed, we led with our military voice – the largest number ever with the release of two back-to-back letters: first a letter signed by 150+ three and four-star generals and admirals; and then 1,200+ veterans from all 50 states and every military branch. Big shout-out to John Glenn, Carey Campbell and the Outreach team.

2. Strong Media Hits. Despite the very crowded media week – with immigration, infrastructure, the tragedy in Florida, and Mueller indictments – Sidney Traynham and the Communications team did a fabulous job getting military voices in dozens and dozens of well-placed stories including:

* Articles appearing in MAINSTREAM press including the NYT, WP, Politico, Axios, NPR, Bloomberg Radio, and Foreign Policy and even trended as one of the top stories on CNN.com for several hours on Monday.
* We saw a strong military-forward narrative in key CONSERVATIVE outlets including WSJ, Fox Business, Newsmax, Washington Times, and Washington Examiner.
* An AP wire story landed in STATE/LOCAL papers around the country over and over again including USGLC target markets such as the Youngstown’s Vindicator, CBS in Waco, and NBC in Sioux Falls.
* And in the MILITARY PRESS, we scored strong stories in Stars and Stripes and Defense One.

3. Bipartisan Response from Capitol Hill. Not surprising, we heard strong opposition from Capitol Hill about the 30% budget cuts – everyone from Chairman Hal Rogers to Chairman Ed Royce to Ranking Members Nita Lowey and Elliot Engel. Senator Lindsey Graham was very tough in questioning OMB Director Mick Mulvaney during his testimony. Yet, Congress left for recess without resolving FY18 Appropriations so we await final resolution on the funding levels. Big thanks to Ariana Reks and the GR team for outstanding work on our Budget Analysis<http://usglc.org/FY19> which once again received huge kudos from Capitol Hill and the community.

4. Olympics Digital Campaign. ICYMI, enjoy our latest digital campaign: The Olympics of Foreign Assistance<http://usglc.org/olympics/>. It is so well done, thanks to the efforts of Jennie Bragg and Allison Taylor. Please have your teams continue to share on Twitter<https://ctt.ec/3w3TL> and Facebook<https://www.facebook.com/sharer/sharer.php?u=http%3A//usglc.org/olympics/> throughout the week.

More to share soon from our Chicago forum this Friday with Senator Tammy Duckworth and from Dallas next week with OPIC’s Ray Washburne.

Best,
Liz
Liz Schrayer, USGLC