gro missouri's 2014 annual report

8/10/2019 GRO Missouri's 2014 Annual Report

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Show me Solutions

Not About Us! Without Us

Celebrating 14

ears of justice

making!

2014 Annual Report

GRO Wins Real Resul

for Real People.


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Friday, October 13, 2000 GRO-Grass Roots Organizing was incorporated by six women concerned about

welfare reform. And, GRO became a membership-driven group with a mission to create a grassroots voice to

win economic justice and human rights for all Missourians. GRO provides a unique brand of organizing from a

rural setting and perspective. GRO leaders use their voice to demand real results.

In 2004 Missouri Voters Issues Project (MO-VIP) was launched. The electoral program was later renamed

GRO-The-Vote (GRO-TV). Building and showing voting power on issues we value for the people has become

a part of the fabric. GRO led a statewide volunteer-driven initiative petition campaign to reinstate Missouris

2005 Medicaid cuts in 2006 and 2008. GRO volunteers collected just shy of what was needed to go to a vote

of the people.

In 2010, GRO members realized the dangers the excessive force used by the police and formed People for a

Taser Free Columbia, and placed the rst of its kind measure on the citys November ballot. The law was de -

feated but if passed it would have halted Columbia police ofcers and others from deploying tasers within the

city.

GRO leaders have attended power meetings to negotiate with the Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke,

then-Comptroller of the Currency John Dugan, FDIC ofcials, Presidential Adviser Elizabeth Warren and have

met several times with the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau Director Richard Cordray to ensure consum-ers are protected and to make protable corporations pay their fair share.

Missouri groups joined forces and pooled resources in an all-out effort Missourians for Responsible Lending to

Cap the Rate on payday/predatory lending and Give Missourians a Raise Raise the Wage campaigns for

low wage Missouri workers via a joint direct democracy volunteer driven initiative petition in 2012.

This year GRO worked with organizations in the Missouri Organizing Collaborative on an Early Voting initiative

petition that would have allowed Missourians to vote six weeks early in federal elections. While the petition did

not qualify to be on the November ballot, GRO and the Missouri Organizing Collaborative got over the 60,000

voter signatures promised the campaign.

GROs Story

Not About Us! Without Us!Demanding Fair Treatment

Ferguson and the state of Missouri got the attention of the world unfortunately

after an ofcer gunned down and killed a young unarmed black man named

Michael Brown. The targeting and violent acts toward communities of color

must end. GRO kicked off the year with understanding how the criminal injus-

tice system discriminates and unduly doles out punishment for young black

males and the poor. Citizens deserve condence that government serves ALL

people.

It is more than talking the talk of cultural sensitivity and racial justiceactions

speak louder. We stood in solidarity during local community events, provided

training, and actively support justice for Michael and other victims of police

brutality across the country with demands delivered to the federal Department

of Justice. Since this spring we have participated in the Columbia Community

Task Force to reduce community violence. We support a local Ban the Box

initiative, equal pay for equal work proposals, and we are aggressively con -

necting, recruiting and developing leadership from the grassroots and commu-

nities of color.


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Not About Us! Without Us!Building Grassroots MovementRealizing that movement requires more than pas-

sion, which we have a surplus, our base building

is essential. Membership recruitment and small

donor development is a high priority. With Center

for Community Change and National Peoples

action technical assistance we have set plans into

action.

The GRO ambassadors program successfully

trained and stepped up the member leader skill

sets and role in advancing the organizations work

this year. Civic Summer- 2014 goals were met to

efciently integrate raising dollars within the over-

all execution of the organization and to train more

grassroots leaders in small donor giving.

Weve expanded our eld reach and increased

visibility geographically, held effective communitydialogues and improved electronic communica-

tions to our supporters, experimented with new

organizing methods and technologies and have

successfully attracted a diverse constituency to

represent the organization. Not About Us! Without Us!Accessing Afordable Healthcare

GRO is outraged by Missouri state lawmakers continued refusal to prioritize

and accept Medicaid expansion and to address issues of human dignity in the

state legislature. Expansion is both the right thing to do and the smart thing to

do. Expansion saves and creates healthy lives, saves and creates millions in

revenues, and saves and creates thousands of health sector jobs.

GRO volunteers have knocked on hundreds of doors in central Missouri this

year, told dozen of heartfelt personal testimonials, put on and supported sev-

eral community education opportunities, earned media events, and ralliesin-

cluding marshalling for the clergy led shutdown of the Missouri Senate May 6.

With community health partners GRO folks also helped to attract a Federally

Qualied Health Center in Mexico last November.

Not About Us! Without Us!Tackling Income Inequalities

Wages and job creation are stagnant. The income gap is a gorge! Were telling the stories of racial discrimina-

tion and economic injustice, while lifting up our voices for real solutions for low wage working class Missourians

to obtain upward mobility. That is why we joined the raising the wage and the workplace ght (paid sick days,

end wage theft, ability to form a union). GRO joined rallies, met with policymakers and provided real stories.

And with faith allies we got the Missouri lifetime ban on Food Stamps eliminated for people with drug related

felony convictions. As well, we helped expose the human impact of the family support division ofce closings

alongside state workers, fought and won a sidewalk on Clark Lane to protect pedestrian access to work and

services and pushed back when the Columbia City Council ignored the need for creating affordable housing

and approved yet another luxury student apartment development!


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Not About Us! Without Us!Ten Years GRO-ing the VotePutting people frst! Our overall long term strategy is to move real people driven issues and to change the

political dynamics here in Missouri. That is why we have prioritized our non partisan civic engagement work

called GRO The Vote (GRO-TV). GRO-TV encourages broad based participation in all aspects of our democ-

racyopposing the structural racial and economic divide that status quo, large institutions and big money inu -

ences often perpetuate.

Representing under-represented!GRO volunteers have successfully been registering and mobilizing thou-

sands of Missouri voters since 2004 (registered 14,000 + to date). Our people continue to perform dignied

work to re-enfranchise those often discouraged from our electoral process! This year, we have conducted door

to door registration, held voter educational workshops and door-to-door community canvasses, held Get Out

the Vote phone banks using the Voter Activation Network and worked on both local and state initiatives in the

hopes to hold our elected accountable to the will of the people.

On November 4

Vote NO Constitutional Amendment 6.

Winning democracy! NO PHOTO ID Voting Requirement!

Missouri voters will not be voting this year on whether we

should require photo identication to be able to cast a ballot

in our elections. The voter id referendum was dropped in the

state house during the nal week of the legislative session. The

intent would be to suppress voting among minorities, students,

seniors and voters with low incomes. As advocates we have

stopped the suppression effort for several years nowbut, un-

fortunately the ght is likely to continue.

Engaging elections!As part of the Missouri Organizing Col-

laborative we helped gather 64,000 signatures for a REAL Early

voting initiative in the spring 2014. Unfortunately, even though

the MOC did our part the campaign ran short on enough valid

signatures to put the six week early voting measure on the November 4 ballot. And a SHAM early legislative

referendum will be on ballot! The conservative majority legislature didnt have to collect one voter signature

to get it on the ballot! Constitutional Amendment 6 only allows Six days NOT six weeks, NO weekend earlyvoting, NO specied voting locations, and the power given to the legislature each year on whether they want

to fund Early Voting or not.

Exposing money! We assisted with the No on Amendment One August Missouri Primary Election voter

eld mobilization efforts. The campaign resulted in a too close to call statewide recount and an extremely

narrow loss for our family farmers to the big corporate farming

industry. The so called Right to Farm measure was backedby big Agra business and reduces local family farm control.

Each time GRO takes on corporate power, were more deter-

mined to organize even more people! The best tactic we can

take to get their organized money and their bad inuences out

of our democracy.


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Not About Us! Without Us!Expanding Retirement SecurityThe polls are inAmericans love Social Security and want to expand itnot cut it! March 29-30 in St. Louis,

our ambassadors from Missouri and Illinois (as young as 22 and as old as 90) came together for two days to

deepen knowledge and skills around retirement security. Our 3-legged stool of retirement interactive training

debut by GRO ambassadors Lisa Goldschmidt, Jeannie Coley, and Myra Lewis was prominently featured. The

training was shared locally and across the country.

GRO delegations met on several occasions with US Senators and US Representatives staff in DC and at Mis-

souri district ofces. Highlighted home care workers and the need for a federal tax credit for the often uncom -

pensated and truly dedicated majority women caregiver and domestic workforce. Conducted postcard cam-

paign, neighborhood canvasses and marked the anniversary of Social Security in August with birthday cake

and song.

GROs Budget


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Not About Us! Without Us! Paying Fair Share

As individuals we do not get to pick our tax rateneither should

corporations with billion dollar prots and multi-million salaried

CEOs! With state and national partners we have exposed the

shell companies using off shore tax havens, kept major US

companies from moving their headquarters out of America to

avoid taxation, and have educated and advocated at both the

federal and state levels to close corporate tax loopholes.

We conducted several creative grassroots postcard campaigns to

our US Senators including recipes for recovery and a turkey day

themed card, released both national and Missouri specic re-

ports, held local tax fairness media events, sent diverse delega-

tions to meet with lawmakers staff and sent letters to the editors

of Missouri newspapers asking for tax structure reforms.

Not About Us! Without Us!Winning Consumer Protections

GRO demands regulators regulate! Weve met with most of them including Richard Cordray Director and the

staff of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau or CFPB. They heard us! And the CFPB are currently in the

process of considering rule making to address payday loan industry abuses across the country. Coordinating

with other heartland groups we exposed the payday lending storefronts bad practices. We pressured the big

banks and regional banks enough to nally get out of the predatory payday lending business completely. And

in August we held a Shark Week online petition with other states resulting in 10,000 signers.

The Missouri Public Service Commission (PSC) is tasked with the job of protecting utility customers. Our folks

reached out, and on September 3 the Commissioners voted 4-1 in favor of moving forward with a rule against

payday loan stores as utility company pay stations.


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To my GRO family:

Congratulations! GRO 14years fighting for the Peeps &10 years of GRO the VOTE!

Way to go! Organization forBlack Struggle for standing up

and 14 Lillard Award!

100% of my love!

Jen Hill


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2014 Show Me Solutions: Not about us! Without u

Fair treatment for all we are demandingGrassroots movement were commanding

Making corps pay their fair shareAssuring folks have good healthcareFighting against voter suppression

Demanding we have strong consumer protectionShare the wealth with working poor

And, retirement security for even more

gro missouri's 2014 annual report

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