PEACE AND SECURITY INITIATIVE

UPCOMING EVENTS

The next community-wide meeting of the Peace and Security Initiative will take place on Monday, December 10, 2007 in Washington, DC.

Please save this date!

MEDIA RESOURCES

At the December 5, 2005  community-wide Peace and Security Initiative (PSI) meeting, media access and coordinated media strategies were identified as priority capacity needs.  The Ploughshares Fund provided a grant to Lynn Fahselt to identify free and inexpensive resources to address these needs.

Click below to access the results of her work:

Media and Communications Resources for the Peace and Security Community

Within this resource, you will find links to:

• Up-to-date media contact list for the top 100 US newspapers (p. 9)
• FREE Strategic Communications Plan Generator with FREE feedback from a communications strategist (p. 11)
• A communications toolkit addressing strategic marketing, advertising, branding, media relations, etc. (p. 17)
• FREE tools to evaluate a communications campaign in progress or already completed (p. 19)
• A how-to guide on raising money with e-mail (p. 23)
• Training, technological best practices, free customized software and online infrastructure to link organizations, individuals and resources (p. 25)
• Tips for placing op-eds and letters to the editor with direct e-mail links (p. 28)
• 10 tips to get more media coverage of reports and studies (p. 28)
• Lists of News Services to create an echo effect for a news story (p. 29)
• Resources for better messaging, writing and positioning (p. 32)
• FREE media monitoring services (p. 34)
• FREE media databases and news contact resources (p. 36)
• Practical, how-to advice to jumpstart your blogging program (p. 40)
• Using the Internet for effective grassroots advocacy (p. 41)
• Training and online workshops (p. 49)
• Research tools to find funding opportunities (p. 52)

. . . and many, many other resources!

Please ensure the following people within your organization are aware of and use this resource:

• Executive Directors
• Communications/Media staff
• IT and Web staff
• Development staff
• Online and offline campaign staff
• Research and analysis staff

The PSI's Implementation Team hopes that you find this a valuable and useful resource.  If you have any questions, please contact Lynn Fahselt (contact info on the first page of the resource).

COMMUNITY SURVEY

The purpose of the Peace and Security Community Survey was to assess the community's assets and gaps in designing and implementing strategies and activities to promote disarmament, arms control, international treaties and peace efforts. The results demonstrated that the field has areas of strength as well as particular needs that must be met through better targeted and additional funding.

RECOMMENDATIONS
While the NGO community has rich assets in providing high quality analysis and policy recommendations, there are several areas that should be enhanced to improve the effectiveness and impact of the community.  Addressing these needs would enable robust public policy debate in the United States, ensure a full hearing for analyses and policy recommendations, and lead to positive changes in national security policies.

Three key activities required for effective policy change are:

• Promoting alternative policy approaches directed at national decision-makers
• Using the media to raise the profile of appropriately framed issues with the public
• Engaging grassroots activists to ensure constituent pressure on decision-makers

Focusing on three key needs identified by the community would ensure that NGOs are better positioned to achieve policy impact by working collaboratively to leverage each other’s assets.

Increase Grassroots Funding – There is a disproportionately low percentage of funding provided to the grassroots community as compared to policy and advocacy organizations ($5M out of $48M in total funding).  Community based organizing is needed to expand the peace and security community’s political power and ability to effectively influence outcomes. Growing the grassroots in key geographies would support efforts to change policy in Washington, D.C. by providing the necessary external pressure and political capital to catalyze change.

Unleash Promise of Technology – NGOs must upgrade and improve their computer capacity and leverage the power of the Internet.  Doing so will enable the community to better collaborate across sectors, diversify funding sources through e-Fundraising, and increase its public reach through e-Advocacy and e-Activism.

Generate Effective Media and Messaging Capacity – Less than half of the NGOs have dedicated media staff and programs.  Resources are needed to develop effective messages and expand the experts available to speak to the media.  This would work to counter the current media saturation with conservative spokespeople and encourage public debate on key issues.

Click below to access the complete survey results (pdf):

Peace and Security Community Survey

NEXT GENERATION RESOURCES

In Strengthening the Peace and Security Community: A Collaborative Planning Document,  the peace and security community identified the cultivation of young people as the next generation of leaders, activists and experts as an important priority.   The Peace and Security Initiative (PSI), partnering with Student Pugwash USA, conducted a survey to help identify existing resources and gaps in how our community recruits and retains young people.

RECOMMENDATIONS

Increase Financial Support for Attracting Young People
Respondents cited limited budgets and organizational capacity to adequately recruit and manage young people as factors in lowering the likelihood of retaining young talent in the community.  Additional funding for NGOs to support intern stipends and young professional benefits would help organizations directly.  Better funding of fellowships—particularly the successful yet under-resourced Scoville Fellowship Program—and other community opportunities to help young people would also help in this regard.  Moreover, these recommendations should be implemented in concert to increase the impact of each individually.

Enhance Community Resources and Collaborative Efforts to Recruit Young Talent
Community-wide collaboration to harness the wealth of existing resources would go a long way toward coordinated efforts to recruit young people from diverse backgrounds.  Collaborative efforts would also provide support to keep this new talent in the community over the long term.  Community-wide resources to develop include guides for fellowships, internships, and employment listings; identifying “best practices” to help groups manage interns while enhancing organizational capacity; and increased links to peace and security programs at colleges and universities.

Develop Professional Opportunities for Advancement in the Field
Many groups provide limited opportunities to advance the careers of young people, so a community-wide effort to develop professional opportunities would help keep new talent in the field.  Mechanisms must be created to allow young professionals to showcase their own skills and to develop professional relationships to deepen their commitment to the broader field.  Initiatives include creating mentorships and networking opportunities specifically for the peace and security community; identifying publishing outlets for young people; and developing resources to help groups create a career ladder within their organizations.

By working collaboratively and making smart and immediate investments in existing and effective mechanisms, we can improve the sustainability of a vibrant and talented peace and security community.

Click below to access the complete survey results:

Next Generation of Talent Survey

Click below to access a resource that identifies internship, fellowship and networking opportunities for young professionals in the peace and security community:

Next Generation Opportunities

GRASSROOTS MAPPING RESOURCE

Identifying the strengths of the peace and security community is critical to building momentum for policy change through collaboration. This resource attempts to address a need that emerged during the 2005 annual Peace and Security Legislative Strategy Retreat for basic information to help potential partners more easily find one another.  With a better understanding of grassroots activities and interests, stronger relationships can be built between grassroots organizations and other sectors of the community (e.g., think tanks, advocacy organizations, etc.)  This map of the community can serve as a tool for efforts to mobilize citizens to action and to create highly effective collaborative campaigns.

What is this resource and where did it come from?
This resource emerged as a next step from the 2005 annual Peace and Security Legislative Strategy Retreat’s working session focused on nuclear weapons and crafting integrated legislative and grassroots campaigns.  The Peace and Security Initiative (PSI) took the lead in surveying the peace and security community to identify its assets in mobilizing citizens to action.  This resource should provide a better sense of which resources to share across the community, the strengths of the grassroots, and issue specific interest.  It is important to note that some of the organizations that responded may not be traditional “grassroots” organizations, but they responded because they believe they can be of help in mobilizing citizens to action.
   
How can this resource be used? 
This resource helps identify individual organizations by specific program issues and by geography.  Detailed information is provided to understand the structure and resources of each organization and to identify people within an organization for collaborative efforts.  It also provides other sectors with insight into who is interested in resources (e.g., issue briefs, access to experts, etc.) and hopefully will work to enhance coordination across sections of the peace and security community (e.g., think tanks, academics, advocacy organizations, grassroots organizations, media experts, funders). Finally this resource can also be used to develop pathways to new alliances through affiliated networks to other communities of the organizations profiled here.

Click below to access the Grassroots Mapping Resource:

Grassroots Mapping Resource

COMMUNITY PRIORITIES

The Peace and Security Initiative (PSI) seeks to foster an environment in which organizations are encouraged and enabled to work together in new ways and with new tools.  Organizations within the peace and security community (NGOs and funders) are polled in the autumn to identify those issues that have the highest potential for effective collaboration in the following year. 

Please note that the identified “Community Priorities” refer to those opportunities where appropriate collaboration across different sectors of the peace and security community (e.g., think tanks, advocacy organizations, and the grassroots) can result in increased impact on policy outcomes.  These “Community Priorities” will be supported by the PSI in different ways while taking into account the nature of the issues and efforts already underway in terms of collaborative action.  The priority issues chosen by the community are not the only issues ripe for collaborative action.  Our hope is that by engaging in the collaborative processes surrounding the priority issues, members of the community will be able to apply similar practices to other urgent issues as well.

Note: The four documents below also serve as a resource for identifying potential partners on a variety of peace and security issues (see appendices that list by issue those organizations who consider the issue a priority).

Click below to access the 2008 poll results (Microsoft Word):

2008 PSI Priorities for Community Collaboration

Click below to access the 2007 poll results (pdf):

Peace and Security Community Priorities for Collaborative Action in 2007

Click below to access the 2006 poll results (pdf):

Peace and Security Community Priorities for Collaborative Action in 2006

Click below to access the 2005 poll results (pdf):

Peace and Security Community Priorities for Collaborative Action in 2005

ISSUE BRIEFS

The peace and security community's strategic plan calls for the development and refinement of the ideas, solutions and policies that further disarmament.  The PSI responded by facilitating the production of a set of issue briefs that will serve as a community-wide resource.

This effort includes connecting its members to the resources and information they need to do their own work – and to reinforce one another’s work – more effectively.  Many members of the community have said they need a better understanding of key security challenges across a range of issue areas (not just in their own area of focus). 

More than 20 experts in the peace and security community were asked to contribute to the suite of briefs.  The briefs attempt to capture some of the best thinking in the community about solutions to critical security challenges; they are not attempts at presenting the consensus views of the community.  An effort was also made to apply some of the communications guidance from the U.S. in the World handbook (www.usintheworld.org) to the briefs, in order to make our community’s ideas more accessible to non-expert audiences.

What are these issue briefs?

The issue briefs represent an effort to:

• develop a simple, easy to access, but comprehensive set of issue briefs on a broad range of major issues that are of high interest to the peace and security community (as described in “Strengthening the Peace and Security Community: A Collaborative Planning Document,” which laid out the strategy for the Peace and Security Initiative);
• provide analyses and recommendations that could inform all sectors of the community (e.g., advocacy organizations, grassroots groups, media experts, funders, etc.)

In order to make the briefs more “usable,” they are all structured in a similar way, with the following sections:

• 1 page Executive Summary
• The Challenge
• The Opportunity
• Current U.S. Policy
• Suggested Actions
• Further Reading [this section exists when contributors provided references]
• Contributors

How can they be used?

We invite organizations to adapt and adopt these issue briefs.  They are meant to serve as a “meta-resource” for participants in the Peace and Security Initiative and for other related working groups and organizations.  With this in mind, the papers are written without citations – and they can be quoted without citation.  As such, persons and organizations are free to paraphrase and/or pull direct quotes from the text without citing PSI or the contributing authors.

We urge organizations to adapt these issue briefs for op-eds, talking points, issue alerts, fact sheets, recruiting new allies, etc.  Please keep in mind that these are not consensus-based documents.  Therefore, we have included diverse points of view and suggested actions.

What topics are covered and how do I access the briefs?

Click below to access the issue briefs covering the following topics:

Safeguarding, Reducing, and Dismantling Nuclear Stockpiles

Preventing Nuclear Terrorism

Preventing Failed States and Promoting Human Security

Regulating the Global Arms Trade

Adjusting Security Spending

Preventing Chemical Terrorism

Challenging “Preemption” as a Strategy for Addressing Serious Threats to National Security

What was the process for creating them?
We sought input from over 20 members of the peace and security community to either draft a paper or for expert feedback. Initial drafts were distributed at community-wide PSI meetings and community members were given numerous opportunities to provide substantive feedback. Additional editorial input was solicited from the PSI's Communications Working Group and a professional copy editor, including on how to apply communications guidance based on the U.S. in the World communications handbook -- www.usintheworld.org.  Over the last year, and in the midst of competing priorities, we have overcome the challenge of reconciling conflicting feedback while appropriately articulating different approaches to issues.

Can I still offer feedback?
We are still happy to accept suggestions for the “Further Reading” section of each brief.  Please send your suggestions and we will do our best to update the brief in a timely manner.  Bearing in mind that these are not consensus documents, that many people have already weighed in on them, and that you are free to excerpt from them for your own purposes, we are not expecting to receive extensive feedback on the substance of the briefs or on their policy prescriptions.  But if you wish to weigh in on such questions, please send your comments as well.