Meet the Millennium Campus Network
My name is Will Herberich, and I’m the Executive Director and President of the Millennium Campus Network. Thanks for giving me a chance to be a part of your blog discussion; I hope that I can clear up some of your questions about the advocacy campaign that we recently organized on foreign assistance reform.
First, a little about myself and the MCN: two years ago I was leading a student group at Tufts University, and found myself becoming increasingly frustrated. While we had some minor successes, I didn’t feel that we were doing much more than spinning our wheels. I wanted to reach out to other, similarly-focused organizations, but didn’t have a means to do so. The MCN was born out of that frustration, with the stated goal of providing an infrastructure for student anti-poverty groups to work together, learn from each other, build skills, gain much needed resources and dramatically improve the quality of student organizing all over the country. In the two years since, that idea has grown into an organization of thirty-seven member organizations from four MCN Districts: Boston, New York City, Washington D.C. and Chicago.
We’re fortunate to have several ONE groups in our network. If you are interested in joining the MCN and are based in one of those four cities, please go to our website, www.mcnpartners.org, to find out how.
The advocacy campaign that we organized was designed to show Senator John Kerry that there is grassroots support for bills like S.1524, a proposed piece of legislation still being drafted that would reform U.S foreign assistance policy for the first time since 1961. In a time when healthcare, the war in Afghanistan, and financial regulation dominate discussion in Congress and the media, it’s important that legislators like Senator Kerry understand that there is a powerful constituency that is prepared to advocate for the poor.
In addition to thanking the senator for his record of support for anti-poverty legislation, the campaign urged him to use his role as Chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee to make sure that any reform included the Millennium Development Goals as targets, which would make the MDGs official American policy.
The two groups that have been discussed on this blog, ONE Brandeis and ONE Boston University, were integral parts of this campaign’s success. I’m proud to have them in our network. The STAND UP event was the culmination of a month’s work by these groups and others across the MCN. Student groups tabled on campuses, dorm-stormed, recruited friends, and did whatever they could to get as many postcards signed as possible. The MCN merely provided the postcards; these groups did all the real work — and almost none of it was done at the event itself, but rather in the month preceding it. In total, the campaign netted over 250 handwritten letters and more than 1,500 postcards.
As members of the growing movement to fight extreme poverty, I hope we can remember what this is all really about: helping the poor. Though it’s easy to get wrapped up in competition, the success of groups like ONE BU and ONE Brandeis mean that our movement is gaining strength. Ultimately, we’re all playing for the same team.
I’m so impressed with the work that all of you are doing, and honored to be your colleague. I hope to be able to meet many of you at the Power 100 Summit this January! If you have any further questions/comments, I would urge you comment on this blog post, and I will respond as soon as I can.
Thanks,
William Herberich, Millennium Campus Network
December 3rd, 2009 at 11:14 am
Huh.
Well, this answered absolutely none of my questions regarding the authenticity of Brandeis’ points, but again managed to imply that I’m only frustrated because I somehow want to win… which is interesting since I’m not the campus leader, nor even an officer at Missouri State anymore.
While my first instinct is to put up a string of obscenities at such an implication, since I have never cared in the least about where we ranked in regards to other schools, I must point out that my ultimate concern is the poor, and that is why I’m so perplexed by this.
Because the message this sends to schools that are acknowledging a competitive side is “have these guys send you postcards. Show up at a rally with thousands of people. Distribute postcards. Be a top ten school.” In short, this makes schools wonder why they should be working hard when they can postcard their way to the top. I say that because it made several people at Missouri State wonder that, and we are an ultra-motivated group…
Luckily, I was able to remind most of my team that it’s about helping the poor, and so even if some group gets a blue-light special on points, we should still keep working extra-hard.
December 3rd, 2009 at 11:57 am
I really liked hearing about MCN, I didn’t really much about it before. Great organization!
It would be awesome if Brandeis ONE could do a blog post for everyone, giving tips on how to engage so many students at once. I think all the schools in the Campus Challenge could benefit.
December 4th, 2009 at 6:57 pm
Anne, thanks for your comment. I asked Allyson Goldsmith and Quinn Lockwood, who run ONE at Brandeis, to put together a list of some of the strategies that they use to mobilize people on their campus. In my mind, the number one reason why they are so successful is that they’re relentless. I’m sure that these strategies aren’t new to you, but I’m always impressed with how aggressively they push people to get involved. Here’s the list they gave me:
o We table in a very visible area such as the student center or dining hall when they have high volumes of people in them.
o We create a Facebook event so people know that we will be tabling, and have our members update their Facebook status about our campaign.
o While tabling we make it personal, and target people to we know and get them to come over with their friends (it is much harder to ignore people you know, and people you know are also more likely to do what you ask them to)
o While tabling be aggressive, and don’t be afraid to yell about what you are doing-it will attract attention and people will be interested in it
o We send out emails on various listservs to engage other campus constituencies
o We bring postcards to class for people to sign before class starts. Also with the professor’s permission, it helps to make an announcement in class that relates to what you are doing and your goals.
o We often “dormstorm” (go through dorms knocking on doors and ask the people to sign the postcards).
Brandeis was one of the founding groups of the MCN, and have consistently been the most successful when it comes to mobilizing on campus. As I mentioned before, the MCN coordinated the campaign on a district level, but did not do any of the work when it came to rallying people on specific campuses. ONE Brandeis, ONE BU, and other student groups on campuses in Boston were responsible for that. I really hope this answers your questions about any ethical issues involved in this campaign; let me know if there is anything else I can provide.
December 4th, 2009 at 6:58 pm
Ann, sorry for the typo on your name there.
May 4th, 2010 at 8:08 pm
The strategy is quite complex and funda is to generate money and develop popularity.