Of course, I'm preaching to the choir here (or at least I hope I am), but it is important that people actually sign up as CASAA members.
You join CASAA in one of two ways: (1) participate in one of our CQRC campaigns, or (2) sign up here: Registration (An easy link to share will take you directly to that signup: bit.ly/weareCASAA )
It's free (but we're always grateful to receive any spare change you want to throw our way). We don't spam you. We don't share our email list with anyone.
And with that said, here's why it's important that you actually sign up (assuming you haven't already):
1. It adds to CASAA's numbers and our credibility. This is very important when CASAA is talking with legislators/regulators. A bit better than a year ago, we were around 8,000 members or so . . . we now have about 54,000, and I'm hopeful that we'll stay on track to break a 100,000 this year. And even that is an incredibly small number when you think about it. Legislators and regulators need to understand that there is an organized consumer voice, and it is growing by leaps and bounds . . . that it would not be wise to dismiss us.
2. It extends CASAA's reach. This is hugely important. When an issue arises, we need to be able to reach the people who are affected. I'll talk about local stuff in a minute, but right now I want to focus on state-level advocacy. If we start off with a good base of members in a particular state, when we do issue a Call to Action, we're operating from a position of greater strength. Our numbers grow during the campaign, but they grow far more dramatically when we start with a strong base. More people are reached, more people participate, and more legislators notice.
3. Being a CASAA member (i.e., in our database) ensures that when something comes up that affects you, you get notified by email. Now, yes, you can watch the forum and see what pops up, but since many of these matters are incredibly time sensitive, you may not find out until it's too late. And for local actions, we often don't post much (if at all) on the forums or on social media.
4. Once you are in our database with your name, email address, and physical address (again--don't worry--we keep all that information private), it allows us to better focus our efforts. For example, some of you may have received special emails this year, emails that say something along the lines of, "Hey, YOUR senator is on the ABC Committee, so it's vitally important that YOU respond to this Call to Action." We know that legislators care about two things--votes and money. Well, we don't have the money, but we do have the votes. A legislator is going to care far, far more when he/she hears from an in-district constituent. Fact of life. Our database allows us to make sure that we can put our members in touch with their representatives.
5. Local Alerts - I alluded to this in No. 3, but I'll expand a bit here. We've started doing local alerts again. Not as many as we'd like given how busy we are at the state and federal level, but we're making a concerted effort. There are a few groups that issue local alerts that we rebroadcast, but we wind up preparing most of the local alerts simply because no one else is doing so in an organized, intentional fashion. We generally do NOT social share most of our local alerts. Frankly, we have too many state/federal issues going on, and local issues are . . . well, local. Social sharing and posting on the forums is casting way too big of a net. Instead, we email our members in the affected area. (Yeah, we can do that, either by city, ZIP code, or voting district.) Email is the best way of communicating these issues for two reasons: a) it's targeted to the people in that geographic area, and b) the timeframe for responding to these local alerts is typically short, sometimes even the day of the hearing. If you're not in our database beforehand, then you won't get the email unless one of your friends forwards it to you.
You join CASAA in one of two ways: (1) participate in one of our CQRC campaigns, or (2) sign up here: Registration (An easy link to share will take you directly to that signup: bit.ly/weareCASAA )
It's free (but we're always grateful to receive any spare change you want to throw our way). We don't spam you. We don't share our email list with anyone.
And with that said, here's why it's important that you actually sign up (assuming you haven't already):
1. It adds to CASAA's numbers and our credibility. This is very important when CASAA is talking with legislators/regulators. A bit better than a year ago, we were around 8,000 members or so . . . we now have about 54,000, and I'm hopeful that we'll stay on track to break a 100,000 this year. And even that is an incredibly small number when you think about it. Legislators and regulators need to understand that there is an organized consumer voice, and it is growing by leaps and bounds . . . that it would not be wise to dismiss us.
2. It extends CASAA's reach. This is hugely important. When an issue arises, we need to be able to reach the people who are affected. I'll talk about local stuff in a minute, but right now I want to focus on state-level advocacy. If we start off with a good base of members in a particular state, when we do issue a Call to Action, we're operating from a position of greater strength. Our numbers grow during the campaign, but they grow far more dramatically when we start with a strong base. More people are reached, more people participate, and more legislators notice.
3. Being a CASAA member (i.e., in our database) ensures that when something comes up that affects you, you get notified by email. Now, yes, you can watch the forum and see what pops up, but since many of these matters are incredibly time sensitive, you may not find out until it's too late. And for local actions, we often don't post much (if at all) on the forums or on social media.
4. Once you are in our database with your name, email address, and physical address (again--don't worry--we keep all that information private), it allows us to better focus our efforts. For example, some of you may have received special emails this year, emails that say something along the lines of, "Hey, YOUR senator is on the ABC Committee, so it's vitally important that YOU respond to this Call to Action." We know that legislators care about two things--votes and money. Well, we don't have the money, but we do have the votes. A legislator is going to care far, far more when he/she hears from an in-district constituent. Fact of life. Our database allows us to make sure that we can put our members in touch with their representatives.
5. Local Alerts - I alluded to this in No. 3, but I'll expand a bit here. We've started doing local alerts again. Not as many as we'd like given how busy we are at the state and federal level, but we're making a concerted effort. There are a few groups that issue local alerts that we rebroadcast, but we wind up preparing most of the local alerts simply because no one else is doing so in an organized, intentional fashion. We generally do NOT social share most of our local alerts. Frankly, we have too many state/federal issues going on, and local issues are . . . well, local. Social sharing and posting on the forums is casting way too big of a net. Instead, we email our members in the affected area. (Yeah, we can do that, either by city, ZIP code, or voting district.) Email is the best way of communicating these issues for two reasons: a) it's targeted to the people in that geographic area, and b) the timeframe for responding to these local alerts is typically short, sometimes even the day of the hearing. If you're not in our database beforehand, then you won't get the email unless one of your friends forwards it to you.
