!!! MEDIA:! Just as media can pump you up or deflate your program, you'll discover the power to make others famous or infamous.!! Through Ithaca HOURS local currency, housewives, small businesses, politicians, bigshots and little kids took their turns on national and global TV.!! I provided media with strategic lists of particpants to interview, to reinforce local loyalty to the program.! For example, the Italian couple interviewed on Italian TV about their pizza shop were seen by their relatives in Italy. !!! Keep in mind that, when speaking with media, if reporters like you they'll report favorably even if they! don''t favor your idea.! A reporter from a major newspaper was so relentlessly skeptical that I realized he had some personal problem.! So we got drunk and talked about his hard times.! He opened up, then wrote respectfully. !!! Send press releases for every milestone: membership goal, major endorsement, proven benefits and testimonials. !!! Reach out via social media and YouTube, but rely on! the neighborhood festivals and grapevine, meetings, regular media, graphs, flags, banners, movies, articles, unusual actions, testimonials, endorsements.! !!! And if it can't be a cartoon it can't be a social movement.! Simplifying your message to a cartoon reaches the broadest audiences.! I've included several of! my cartoons in most chapters. BENEFITS: !!!! Just as with commercial advertising, social change needs to appeal to our natural needs for love and sex, belonging, prestige, safety, adventure, family and pleasure. !!! Here's a sample list of why a neighborhood might welcome a new free clinic: !!! BENEFITS
TO NEIGHBORS
* Quick access to free primary care: !!! medical, dental, optical + referrals * Green jobs training * Youth programs * Fresh food and farmers' market * Meeting spaces * Recreation areas: basketball, volleyball, soccer * Picnic areas * Pageant areas, Flea market * Spinoff customers for !!! neighborhood businesses * Community trade and barter network * Safer streets: defensible space * Investment in land trusts * Volunteers for the above * Media sees neighborhood problems & solutions * Spirit of hope, power, fun NATURAL ALLIES: !!! Here's a short list of some likely and unlikely allies.! The full list is far longer. !!! artists (musicians, dancers, writers, painters), African-American organizations, alternative/holistic healers, anarchists, anti-poverty organizations, peace organizations, blogs, Chambers of Commerce, child advocacy groups, cities, civic associations, churches, mosques, synagogs, conservatives, college grads, consumer advocates: PIRG, counties, doctors, downtown business associations, festivals & events, food co-op, Greens, homeowners' associations, immigrant aid, conservatives, liberals, Libertarians, libraries, listserves, medical centers, medical societies, newspapers, neighborhood organizations, radio, service workers, Latino groups, small business associations, tax relief organizations, TV, unions.
LETTERS TO EDITORS: !!! Show confidence by writing concisely and authoritatively.! There's a tendency when attacked to defend at length, but be briefer than your attacker.! Simpler words reach more readers. Likewise, humorous and ironic (but not sarcastic) usually work better than raw anger.! Challenge clearly, promote clearly.! Blunt is better. Samples on my webpage.
2.! GIVE PEACE A CHANCE
! ! !Occasionally, Goliath and David share interests.! Crocodiles and lions declare truce at shrinking water holes. Little wrasse fish feed by cleaning barracuda teeth.! Lemons become lemonade.! Win/Win. !! So look for a way to convert an enemy into an asset.! Invite them to enjoy giving you power.! Win/Win can be rare, but it's worth a shot.! Saves your energy for the most urgent fights.! Such as when your antagonist is going to drain the town lake tomorrow. !!! Usually you'll collide with corporations that want what you have, because they want everything.! Yet it seems to me that the rich can get as much money from making the world safer and more beautiful for their children, rather than surrounding their children with wars, prisons and poisons. !!! Let's therefore invite them to help Americans reduce the cost of living, and of government, by investing in neighborhoods directly. Rather than merely servicing and controlling neighborhoods, institutions would gradually transfer economic power and land to them, through genuinely nonprofit mutual aid systems.! These allow neighbors to purchase high-quality, low-cost building supplies, insulation, paint, housewares, plants, health care, solar panels, food. Neighborhood land trusts and sweat equity stabilize housing prices and expand ownership. As living costs decline, discretionary income expands, feeding neighborhood enterprises.! !!! More about them in the JOBS chapter.
Some successful win/win examples.
1.!!! We wanted our local hospital to give discounts to members of our health co-op, and we wanted them to accept community currency.! The right time to ask arrived when the