This toolkit from the Leadership Conference Education Fund will provide you with the basic structure and strategies needed to plan and carry out an effective grassroots public education or advocacy campaign. It includes what you need to do to establish your goals, create a strategy, make a step-by-step plan, and mobilize the people, partners, and resources to make it all achievable.

One in seven Americans is living in poverty and one in three Americans is scraping by on low incomes. Services such as childcare, affordable housing, food assistance, and job training are more critical than ever to help families meet basic needs and strive for a better future.

Thank you working with Half in Ten over the last year to advocate for strong policies benefiting low- to moderate-income families. We urge you to deepen your commitment to improving the lives of struggling families by endorsing a goal to cut poverty in half in ten years.

President Barack Obama has proposed a tax package to extend the middle-class tax cuts for families earning less than $250,000. The package includes a 13-month extension of federal unemployment insurance programs and extensions of the improvements to refundable tax credits that benefit low- to moderate-income working families.

A Minnesota Without Poverty, or AMWOP, a Half in Ten partner, held an event in February 2010 to report on progress toward ending poverty in Minnesota by 2020. The organization used the gathering to build community and issue a call to action. This program template includes details on the planning process for this event, reaching out to press and local partners, and next steps. The template includes an appendix with the event format, the news release, an invitation letter, and a flyer for the event.

The federal unemployment insurance program is set to expire on November 30, 2010. If this happens 2 million jobless workers will lose their benefits during the holiday season alone, putting families and children at risk while hurting economic recovery.

Unemployment is at a historic high and jobless workers across the country are doing all they can to keep their families afloat. The unemployment benefits these struggling families receive kept at least 3.3 million Americans, including 1.5 million children, from falling into poverty in 2009 alone.

The program template, Nashville’s Poverty Reduction Initiative, is designed to serve as a resource to local groups working to get their mayors to endorse a poverty reduction goal.The template details Nashville’s successful effort, including the formation of a steering committee, holding a community poverty reduction symposium, forming action committees, formulating recommendations, and presenting a poverty reduction action plan to the mayor for implementation. The template also includes information on Nashville’s implementation process, their commencing work, and valuable resources for local groups hoping to achieve the same goal.

Last year’s recovery act included pivotal steps to enhance and transform the lives of Americans living in poverty. One such step was the creation of the TANF Emergency Fund, a $5 billion fund designed to help states meet the growing need for assistance and increase employment opportunities available to low-income families.

If Congress does not extend this critical funding stream by September 30, 2010, states will no longer be able to partner with the private sector to offer the successful subsidized job programs or the additional assistance families need to weather the recession. Write Congress today to pass legislation extending the TANF Emergency Fund.

Child nutrition programs provide many low-income kids with their only fully balanced, or sometimes only, meal each day.

If Congress does not reauthorize child nutrition laws this summer, millions of kids could miss out on improved access to food. Write Congress now to urge members to pass this legislation.