Subject: RE: Truman update and congratulations
From: "Sally Painter" <[email-masked]>
To: "Rachel Kleinfeld" <[email-masked]>, "Hunter Biden" <[email-masked]>, "Pierre Chao" <[email-masked]>, "Pierre Chao" <[email-masked]>, "Stephen Bailey" <[email-masked]>, "Ron Klain" <[email-masked]>, "Ron Klain" <[email-masked]>, "Driscoll, John" <[email-masked]>, "Lukas Haynes" <[email-masked]>, "Mike Signer" <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 4 Apr 2012 09:04:21 -0400

Dear Rachel,

Very impressive and such a breadth of work.  Congrats to you and the team

s

 

Sally Painter

Blue Star Strategies

(+1) 202-833-1268  direct

(+1) 202-822-9088 fax

[email-masked] <mailto:[email-masked]> 

888 17th Street NW, Suite 800

Washington, DC 20006

www.bluestarstrategies.com <http://www.bluestarstrategies.com> 

The information in this transmittal is privileged and confidential and is intended only for the recipient(s) listed above.  If you are not the intended recipient(s) for the delivery of this transmittal, you are hereby notified that any unauthorized distribution or copying of this transmittal is prohibited.  If you have received this transmittal in error, please notify me at (+1) 202-833-1281

 

From: Rachel Kleinfeld [mailto:[email-masked]] 
Sent: Tuesday, April 03, 2012 4:55 PM
To: Hunter Biden; Pierre Chao; Pierre Chao; Stephen Bailey; Sally Painter; Ron Klain; Ron Klain; Driscoll, John; Lukas Haynes; Mike Signer
Subject: Truman update and congratulations

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.org