CPL Newsletter

State Director & Vice President of all State Operations Message

Dear Alum:

Since our last alumni newsletter, there have been a lot of happenings here in CPL-Arizona and in the other states we operate in as well.

The Wisconsin office opened in early July with the hiring of Tracy Williams-Maclin as state director.  Tracy comes to CPL with a wealth of experience and expertise standing behind her.  Some of her previous positions include serving as the Senior Program Officer for the Greater Milwaukee Foundation; Director of the Office of Multicultural Relations for Cardinal Stritch University; and Assistant Director & Program Manager of Education and Training for the Milwaukee Urban League. A past fellow and graduate of the Harvard Kennedy School of Executive Education Program, she most recently completed the NYU Women of Color Policy Network Fellowship. She earned her Bachelor's of Science from Northern Illinois University and her Master's of Science in business management from Cardinal Stritch University.  In addition to being engaged in a number of projects and Boards dedicated to social justice, she serves as an adjunct professor at Concordia University.  We are thrilled to have Tracy on-board and invite you to meet her if you're ever in Milwaukee.

Our recent graduating class of Fellows produced two very successful fundraising events in Phoenix and Tucson.  Christine Pelosi, daughter of Nancy Pelosi, was an excellent keynote speaker on August 5th at the Wyndham in Phoenix, with over 100 people in the room.  And Congressman Grijalva had some 60+ guests in Tucson sitting on the edge of their seats as he shared his views on the impact of the conservative right movement.  All in all, our Fellows raised almost $20,000 that will be doubled by a matching grant and applied to our scholarship and sponsorship fund.
Approximately one-third of you, our alumni, showed your support with donations and encouraging Fellows to complete their PPLPs (remember those!).  Thank you for not only supporting this fundraising project of our Fellows…but for supporting our Fellows!

As mentioned in the last newsletter, CPL implemented the first of its long-term tracking process which will be on-going.  We began with two and five year graduates of the Political Leaders Fellowship in all of our states.  Here are some of the highlights from the survey:

38% work full-time in progressive political, organizing, advocacy or policy work Nearly 50% have been actively involved in electoral campaigns (federal, state legislature and local) as a volunteer 1/3 of the alumni who participated in the survey serve in either elected or appointed leadership positions 67% are considering running for an elected office in the near future and 25% have run for office since graduating 81% say that the Fellowship had a high or very high impact on their political and leadership skills

At present, we are recruiting for Class V of the Political Leaders Fellowship; upgrading curriculum for our Local Progressive Candidate Training Program; and developing new programs that we hope to introduce in 2011 - including advance training for graduate Fellows.  We'll keep you posted.

As always, thank you all for your untiring support.