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In 2005, the WCCF staff and our board of directors conducted a strategic planning process to enhance our effectiveness and strengthen our efforts to improve conditions for children and families. We established 10-year goals, developed more specificity about the strategic tools we need and use, and identified what additional staff resources and expertise we need to continue to strengthen our effectiveness in bringing about change. For more information on these goals, go to http://www.wccf.org/about_policy.php. Early on in our strategic planning, we recognized the need to increase the number of people statewide who are willing to get active to improve conditions for kids through policy change. Whether they are parents, professionals working with children and families, consumers of the public services we advocate for, local or state elected officials, or other individuals who care about strong families, we recognized how critically important thousands of voices throughout the state of Wisconsin are to WCCF's mission to ensure that every child grows up in a just and nurturing family and community. Historically, WCCF has turned to its paid membership to get them involved in speaking out for children and families. But because we want to engage a much larger constituency, we decided that appealing to members only was too limiting. So over the past year-and-a-half, we've reached out to a much broader constituency, expanding the number of individuals who have agreed to get active to nearly 2,500. As part of that move, we also started distributing this newsletter, the WisKids Journal, to all of the 2,500 people on our get active list, as opposed to the previous practice of distributing it only to members. These developments brought us to a crossroads on the status of paid membership at the Council. After discussions with board members and staff, we have decided to discontinue paid memberships in WCCF as of 2008. Our fall membership drive will be replaced with a fall fundraising letter, which will give our friends and supporters an opportunity to support our efforts to improve outcomes for children's health, education, economic security, and safety and healthy development. Although we will no longer have paid memberships, we continue on with our vital commitment to developing the capacity of individuals and groups to have a strong, informed voice in helping improve conditions for children and families. To that end, we will continue to focus on developing and expanding a constituency base of advocates for children through our Vision 2020 campaign to end childhood poverty, our community forums, advocacy trainings, and outreach through e-advocacy and e-newsletters. We have greatly appreciated the commitment that our members have shown to the Council over the years, and trust that as we move forward they will continue to be actively involved in the work that we all care about to make Wisconsin a great place to be a kid. | ||||
