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Thrivent Builds Publicity Newsletter Archive
February 2008
- Guidelines for inviting active candidates for political offices
- Which elected officials should I contact … and how?
- New letter to editor template now available – check it out!
- Great idea from Thrivent Great Lakes Region: Lutheran church volunteer sign-up poster
- January Media Watch
- What's new on www.thriventbuilds.com: Thrivent Builds Worldwide
- Feedback
- Newsletter Archive
Guidelines for inviting active candidates for political offices
Thrivent Financial and Habitat for Humanity agree that inviting government leaders to Thrivent Builds events is an important part of our advocacy, yet sensitivity is required during an election year. It is appropriate to forgo inviting incumbents or challengers in particularly divisive races, or any candidate close to election day. To help you make decisions on the appropriateness of inviting government leaders to your events, here are the current Habitat for Humanity International policies on inviting active candidates for political offices to events:
- Incumbent (current holder of a political office) — can be the sole invitee or can be invited along with all the other candidates for his/her office. Cannot actively campaign or give political speeches at a Thrivent Builds event, nor can the event be a fund-raiser for this candidate.
- Non-incumbent (running for office but not the current office holder) — can be invited only if all other candidates for the office are also invited, i.e., cannot be the sole invitee. Cannot actively campaign or give political speeches at a Thrivent Builds event, nor can the event be a fund-raiser for this candidate.
Which elected officials should I contact...and how?
Thrivent Financial's government relations staff has developed an easy to use One Stop Guide to Elected Officials web-site where you enter a ZIP Code to access names and contact information of the elected officials who represent the area. Please use this resource to make inviting government officials easy!
New letter to editor template now available – check it out!
The Thrivent Builds Marketing & Communications Team has developed a new letter to the editor template (Word, 37K) to assist all Thrivent Builds Habitat affiliates with volunteer recruitment, appeals for additional financial support and announcement of an upcoming event. Click on the link above to review the template.
Letters to the editor can be a very effective way of communicating. They allow you to speak directly to the community, including influential decision-makers and potential donors and volunteers. We hope to provide you with another Letter to the Editor template during the last half of the year. If you have ideas for the content of that template or have other questions, contact cheryl.winget@thrivent.com.
Great idea from Thrivent Great Lakes Region: Lutheran church volunteer sign-up poster
To make it easy for churches who commit to a specific build day on a Thrivent Builds home, Greg Ulmer, LCSS-TB in the Eastern Great Lakes region, modified the Thrivent Builds Volunteer poster from www.thriventbuilds.com/resources so he would have a version that was ready to be used as a sign-up on a church bulletin board. Greg worked with Nicole Doebert in the Alliance Strategy Office to be sure the poster was compliant and followed logo usage guidelines. This poster can be put up by a Thrivent Builds Congregational Champion in their church a month or two prior to the build day to get publicity and help encourage volunteers to sign up for a particular day.
This poster (PDF, 1.53MB) allows a Thrivent Builds Congregational Champion to insert
- The location where the home is being built - either a specific address or just the city
- The date they are building
- Up to 20 volunteer names, which is typically the most any affiliate needs for a given day
January Media Watch
A hearty thank you goes out to all of you who have been hard at work getting stories into the media about the Thrivent Builds with Habitat for Humanity alliance in 2008! We started off the year well with over 150 media hits in January, including 16 stories in the nation's top 200 highest circulation newspapers. Those stories alone reached over 2 million readers!
Thrivent Builds leaders in Pennsylvania and Minnesota did an amazing job in January. In each state, there were over 25 Thrivent Builds with Habitat for Humanity media stories reported during the first month of the year. These stories were a mix of dedications from the 2007 Thrivent Builds Homes program and announcements of the 2008 Thrivent Builds Homes sites.
Martha Reitz, LCSS-TB in the Pennsylvania region, offered this feedback about her region's success at media outreach: "The Habitat affiliates in my region have great relationships with their local media, especially in the smaller communities. This makes a huge difference!"
Martha discusses media on her monthly calls with local Thrivent Builds leaders and keeps brand awareness and media outreach as a focus. She also clarifies whose responsibility it is to handle media outreach. In Martha's region the Habitat affiliates usually take the lead with their know-how and positive relationships with the media.
January Media Honor Roll: States with over 5 media stories in the month of January
- Alabama
- California
- Colorado
- Florida
- Illinois
- Minnesota
- Missouri
- New York
- Pennsylvania
- Wisconsin
What's new on www.thriventbuilds.com: Thrivent Builds Worldwide
Thrivent Builds Worldwide
The entire Worldwide Trips section of the Thrivent Builds Web site has been revised to reflect:
- program changes for 2008, including changes to the benefits of Thrivent Financial membership
- information and trip costs for the Thrivent Builds Worldwide Gulf Coast Community
- new program names to help better explain the types of trips available: Destination of Choice and Communities
- open trips available for team members to join
- information on how to lead a trip
Feedback
Is this newsletter helpful to you? Do you have additional ideas for articles you'd find helpful? Please send your feedback to Nicole Doebert.
Newsletter Archive
If you would like to read previous issues of the Thrivent Builds newsletter, simply access the Newsletter Archive from this link or from the left navigation bar.