Text of a Stand for Children flyer:

A Uniquely Effective Grassroots Voice for Children

Why Stand for Children in Massachusetts? Right now, Massachusetts is moving backwards in its commitment to its children. Faced with tough fiscal times, local aide has been cut three times over the past year alone, leaving towns and cities scrambling to make ends meet. As a result, teacher positions are being slashed; class sizes are rising; music, arts, and sports are being eliminated or have become entirely fee-based; and grants for child care and after-school slots have dramatically decreased.

Because they cannot vote or make their voices heard in the State House, it is the children of Massachusetts who are suffering.

Stand for Children began organizing in Massachusetts during the summer of 2003 to address the urgent needs facing Massachusetts children and provide a vehicle for people who care about children to make their voices heard by local and state decision-makers.

Because their goal is to win voter support, elected officials invest more in children's programs when they hear from a grassroots citizens' lobby one comparable in strength and credibility to the many other groups competing for scarce public resources. That is why Stand for Children's effective grassroots voice is so important.

What is Stand for Children?

Stand for Children is a highly effective, member-driven child advocacy organization. Rather than help one child at a time, we make a much greater impact by successfully advocating for funding for schools, child care, and other effective programs that directly help many, many children over time.

History and Successes:

Since 1999, Stand for Children Chapters, local, citizen-led child advocacy groups have won 45 local and statewide victories that have helped more than 275,000 children and secured more than $184 million for children's programs and services.

• Thousands of young children are being taught by more skilled, consistent child care teachers, because we have created and won funding for initiatives that reduce turnover of qualified teachers and encourage less-qualified teachers to get additional training.
• Hundreds of middle schoolers are out of harm's way in the critical hours of 36 pm, because we successfully advocated for funding for more enriching after-school programs.
• Thousands of low-income children are pain-free and able to concentrate in class, because we recruited dentists to provide free care and won funding for an educator to teach parents how to prevent dental disease and infection in the first place.
• Thousands of Stand for Children members across the country have won lasting change for children in their own communities, because of Stand for Children's advocacy approach that effectively builds a strong local voice, finds winnable issues, and engages decision-makers to gain their support.

Strategy: Build Influential Statewide Organizations

Stand for Children's strategy for effecting the greatest change possible for children is to build statewide Stand for Children organizations capable of: 1. Effecting significant changes for children in multiple local communities. 2. Playing a key role in passing state legislation and/or ballot measures. 3. Influencing the decisions of federal officials from those states on key national issues. 4. Sustaining themselves financially at a level of significant scale.

Stand for Children's main vehicles for effecting change are its local Chapters. Chapters are local, citizen-led child advocacy groups. Members build Chapters and choose unifying, achievable local issue priorities by following Stand for Children's proven advocacy approach and a focused, strategic sequence of steps.

Stand for Children's field staff recruit Chapter leaders. Staff then train and coach those leaders to do three very important things:

• Build a strong, organized membership.
• Identify a unifying, achievable solution to a broadly and deeply felt concern for children.
• Engage decision-makers in a highly effective, respectful, and powerful way that wins their support for the Chapter's solution for children.

After there are multiple Chapters in a state, staff also coordinate Stand for Children's statewide advocacy initiatives.

Massachusetts Stand for Children

Massachusetts recently joined Stand for Children as the organization's fifth staffed state joining Oregon, Idaho, Tennessee, and South Carolina. In addition to a current base of 270 members throughout the state, development of locally-based chapters is currently taking place in several communities during the fall of 2003. We are in the process of Determining which communities to focus our initial chapter-building efforts, but due to strong community interest, we know that Framingham, Medford, Randolph, and Lexington are likely areas of activity.

Stand for Children: A Remarkable Investment

In the past year, Stand for Children's national budget was just over $1.4 million. During that same period, Stand for Children secured $117 million for children's programs and services. This means that, through our effective advocacy, every dollar invested in Stand for Children last year resulted in more than $80 in funding for children's programs.

Stand for Children's main expense is staff and other costs related to Chapter and member support, such as telephone, travel, and trainings. Currently, Stand for Children raises 15 percent of its revenue from membership dues and member contributions, 50 percent from private foundations, 32 percent from major individual donors, and 3 percent from socially responsible companies. Stand for Children does not accept government funds or any other source of funding that would prevent us from speaking up effectively for children.