Organizing Kit
Develop a mission statement. What is the focus of your group or chapter? Use NYADP's as an example.
If you are a student, find a faculty advisor.
Learn about your state's attitude toward the death penalty. Contact your state abolitionist organization. Ask what projects your group could work on.
Recruit new members. Flyer in your community in an eye-catching and interesting manner. Include a contact e-mail for people who want more information. Announce when meetings are held.
Collect signatures on petitions. Set up an informational table in a central location. Play music to attract attention. Get an email address for each signer. Send bi-weekly announcements and updates to a list of these addresses. You can set up a free e-mail list on Yahoo groups. Mail signed petitions to NYADP.
Visit other political and/or progressive organizations in your school or community. Introduce your group to them and pass around a sign-up sheet for people who want more information. Arrange to meet with the president of the other organization and make a brief introduction. Bring informational material with you.
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Whether you are a student activist, a community member, or just interested in learning more about the death penalty, there are many ways to become involved with NYADP.
- Join New Yorkers Against the Death Penalty.
- Become involved in an NYADP chapter near you.
- Start up a chapter or student group. Need help? Follow the steps highlighted at the right.
- Get local businesses or community organizations, small or large, to sign resolutions. Materials are available - a fact sheet, resolution form, and suggested script, as well as a Spanish fact sheet and Spanish resolution form . Experience in other states is that this is a very important way to get the attention of state legislators. This strategy has worked elsewhere; it will work for us.
- Host a speaker at your school, house of worship, or community center. NYADP has an impressive list of speakers, including family members of murder victims, family members of inmates, exonerated death row inmates and NYADP Executive Director, David Kaczynski, whose brother is the "Unabomber," Ted Kaczynski. If you would like to organize a speaking event please contact us and we will assist you.
- Support victims' rights. Invite the Journey of Hope, a speaking tour of murder victims' family members, to your school, community center, or house of worship.
- When the death penalty is in the news, write 'letters to the editor' in your local or school paper. Write articles in local newsletters. Need help getting started? Use the death penalty facts we have collected.
- Lobby organizations to pass resolutions of support for a death penalty moratorium. Hundreds of New York organizations, unions, and houses of worship have signed on. Resolutions are a fundamental part of our campaign. To get started, try our step-by-step guide on resolution gathering and supporting materials. Please contact NYADP if you are interested in gathering resolutions. We are especially interested in students who want to lobby other student groups.
- Show a movie about the death penalty. Suggest a book on the death penalty to a reading group. If you are a teacher integrate discussions and books on the death penalty into your syllabus. Students can write papers on the death penalty. View our list of resources
- Sign up with the For Whom the Bell Tolls Campaign, an international campaign in which groups of concerned peoples gather together and ring hand bells on the evening of an execution. This attracts attention to your group, especially if you are a student organization. Participants can hold candles and pass out flyers. Contact Laura Porter, NYADP Staff Organizer, to learn about Bell tolling programs in your area.
- Connect to an inmate on death row and become a pen pal.
- Make a donation to NYADP. Mail donations to NYADP/40 North Main Avenue/Albany, New York 12203.
- Organize tabling in a central location where you can collect signatures on the petition and pass out information. Play music to attract attention. Flyer your community with fact-sheets on the death penalty.
- Organize an art show with paintings and other works done by inmates and victims of violence.
- Organize a death penalty awareness week, with a series of different types of events: teach-in, debate, movie showing, art show, and/or musical program. Contact NYADP for speakers.
- Ask your faith leader to deliver a sermon the death penalty. Provide him/her with a fact-sheet on the death penalty.
- During services, ask the minister to say a prayer for those executed, their victims, and the inmate's family. Include this prayer in your newsletter.
- Create a task force on capital punishment at your house of worship
- Reach out to neighboring houses of worship to explore how projects might be done cooperatively.