[Lnc-business] Discussion of LNC goals for 2016 and the 2016-2018 term

[James Lark]

Dear colleagues:


I hope all is well with you. I am writing to initiate a discussion of 
LNC goals for the rest of 2016 and the 2016 – 2018 term. I wish to 
devote time to discussion of this topic during the upcoming meeting in 
Las Vegas. While it would be nice if we were able to approve goals for 
either 2016 or the term during the meeting, I do not consider it 
necessary for us to do so.

In what follows, I offer some comments and suggestions about selecting 
our goals for 2016 and the 2016-2018 term, in addition to comments about 
some projects and outcomes I would like the LNC to consider.I hope you 
find my comments to be helpful.(Those of you who served on previous LNCs 
with me may recall that I sent similar messages concerning goals for 
those terms.)

Allow me to emphasize that the purpose of this message is to initiate a 
discussion of goals.While I have enclosed below some prospective goals 
for your consideration, I have not offered suggestions concerning the 
specific strategies, tactics, and resources required to achieve such 
goals.I believe we should prepare a list of reasonable goals for 
consideration, determine the ones for which suitable strategies and 
tactics exist (given our resource constraints), and then select and 
prioritize the goals we deem most appropriate.

I. Assumptions and Preferences

In offering these comments I have the following preferences and use the 
following assumptions:

1)I believe the LNC will conclude the 2016 fiscal year in the 
black.However, for various reasons I prefer to be conservative regarding 
revenues for the rest of the year.Thus, for the purpose of this 
discussion I shall assume that for 2016, revenues will exceed expenses 
by no more than $100,000.

2) While I anticipate that membership will continue to increase this 
year, I do not anticipate a major increase during the rest of this 
year.I believe it is not unreasonable to assume the LP will have between 
15,000 and 17,000 sustaining members by Dec. 31, 2016.

3) I have a very strong preference for selecting goals involving matters 
over which the LNC has the ability to control or to influence 
substantially. For example, the quality of LPHQ service to our members 
and the suite of goods and services available to our members are matters 
over which the LNC has effective control.

Although I have this preference, I have suggested below membership and 
fundraising goals for the 2016-2018 term; these goals are in some sense 
exceptions to this preference. That is, to a substantial degree our 
membership and fundraising levels are influenced by events outside our 
ability to influence substantially, much less control. For example, the 
selection by the Democratic and Republican parties of two truly horrible 
candidates for president could cause significant increases in our 
membership and donations.  Similarly, an endorsement of the Libertarian 
Party and/or the Johnson-Weld ticket by a prominent celebrity with no 
previous connection to the libertarian movement could help us greatly.

4) At the risk of belaboring what may be obvious, I believe it is very 
important for the LNC to ascertain to the extent possible the 
preferences of our members and affiliate organizations. In particular, I 
hope my fellow regional representatives are soliciting information about 
such preferences from their regional affiliates.

5)As far as I am aware, the LNC has not established a process for 
working with the Johnson-Weld campaign to select and achieve goals of 
mutual benefit.If such a process has not been established, I recommend 
that Mr. Sarwark (in consultation with the Johnson-Weld campaign 
management) establish a select LNC committee to work with the campaign 
concerning such goals.



II. Goal Categories

For the purpose of exposition, I shall use the list of categories below; 
they are listed in no particular order of importance. I hope you find 
this categorization method to be helpful.I realize there are other ways 
of categorizing our activities; you are welcome to recommend other ways 
for our consideration.Please note that these categories are not mutually 
exclusive; many goals can be included under several categories.



1) Financial Resources

This category concerns issues associated with raising funds for our 
operations. Specifically, we should determine our financial needs in 
relation to our goals for the year and term, and identify the means by 
which we obtain funding for those needs. As part of determining goals in 
this category, we should consider the following:

* How much do we need for the 2016-2018 term to accomplish our goals?

* How do we attract new donors (including those who are not LP members)?

* How do we encourage current donors (including LP members) to increase 
their donations?

* How do we recognize and reward donors for their generosity?

* Are our current methods of fundraising appropriate?

* Should we increase the amount we allocate to a reserve fund (e.g., a 
"rainy day fund")?

I believe we should enable our donors to select more easily the budget 
categories (or perhaps specific projects) they want their donations to 
fund.While LP.org already provides special webpages for the building 
fund, the Legal Offense Fund, and ballot access, it may be helpful to 
provide a larger menu of choices (e.g., affiliate support, youth 
outreach) to which donors can direct their donations.


2) Member and Affiliate Support

This category involves several areas of activity. I consider these 
issues to be of particular importance:

* Do we have an acceptable level of performance in providing service to 
our members? In what ways can we improve our service?

* In what ways can we improve our support to our affiliate 
organizations? This support can occur in many ways, such as funding 
ballot access activities and/or outreach activities, providing advice on 
improving organizational structure (e.g., filling potentially dangerous 
lacunae in organization bylaws), and providing legal advice on dealing 
with government regulations (e.g., the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act 
(BCRA)).

Based upon the discussion concerning a current e-mail ballot, I believe 
it would be appropriate for the Affiliate Support Committee to develop a 
plan for providing financial assistance to state affiliates to help fund 
outreach projects.


* How do we help our members become better activists and candidates? In 
particular, what educational and training programs should we sponsor?

* In what ways can we improve the process of recognizing and rewarding 
our members?

* In what ways can we improve /LP News/, LP.org, and our social media 
webpages to provide useful information to our members?

 From what I understand, the work performed by Andy Burns (State 
Affiliate Development Specialist) has been very well received by many 
state affiliates.The LNC should consider in what ways the program 
supporting Mr. Burns can be improved.


During my service as national chairman (the 2000-2002 LNC term), 
executive director Steve Dasbach and I considered the possibility of 
funding a "regional director" to assist the state affiliates of New 
Jersey, New York, and Pennsylvania. We thought a "regional director" 
might be able to take advantage of economies of scale to improve the 
ability of these affiliates to respond to prospect inquiries, to 
generate media coverage, to monitor important legislation, and in 
general to make the affiliates more effective in their efforts. The LNC 
may wish to consider a similar idea.

I am considering whether to provide financial support to fund "field 
organizers" to assist with building Libertarian groups on college 
campuses, perhaps as part of a broader program to provide assistance to 
affiliate organizations. The LNC may also want to consider the 
possibility of funding "field organizers" as part of its support to 
affiliate organizations.

Incidentally, the LNC has funded such programs in the past.For example, 
Joe Knight of New Mexico served as a "field organizer" to assist in 
building campus organizations during the early 1990s. If I remember 
correctly, by 1993 the LNC had discontinued the program.I believe the 
LNC decided that the program did not produce results that justified the 
cost. I believe the LNC also funded a position of "field organizer" for 
Marla Bottemiller during roughly the same time period. Again, the LNC 
eventually chose not to continue the program. I suspect the position was 
not continued for the same reason the campus field organizer program was 
not continued; however, I do not know this with certainty.

Please note that some state affiliates would like to see a "unified 
membership program" reinstituted. For example, the Libertarian Party of 
Virginia has passed resolutions at our state conventions that encourage 
the LP to reinstitute such a program.



3) Membership Recruitment and Retention

This category involves issues of how we recruit new members and retain 
current members. Of course, our ability to recruit and retain members 
depends upon many factors, such as the success of our candidates and the 
quality of our service to our members. Some questions for our 
consideration include:

* Should we target specific population segments for recruitment efforts? 
For example, should we emphasize outreach to college students, owners of 
small businesses, members of certain demographic groups, etc.?

* In what ways should we seek new members? These ways could include 
direct mail (both postal and Internet), advertising in various media 
(including radio and cable TV ads, YouTube videos, Google ads, 
billboards), and sponsorship of information tables at conventions of 
various organizations.

* In what ways can we improve our literature and website to facilitate 
our recruiting efforts?

* In what ways can we improve the process of recognizing and rewarding 
our members? (This issue is common to several categories.)

As you may know, I am involved in various ways in libertarian outreach 
to high school and college students. In addition, some of the funds I 
have donated to the LNC are under my control as the campus outreach 
coordinator. Also, I am a member of the board of directors (and member 
of the board of advisors) of libertarian organizations that promote 
outreach to college students.

Thus, I may have conflicts of interest with regard to the approval of 
LNC goals involving campus outreach.Should I believe such conflicts 
exist, I shall bring them to the attention of the LNC and refrain from 
voting on such matters.


4) Influence/Impact

This category involves issues of how we can influence the political 
landscape, and how we can increase the impact of our activities.Some 
questions for our consideration include:

* In what ways can we improve our influence with various news media and 
information channels?  (I use the term "information channel" to describe 
entities such as blogs.) For example, should we issue more press 
releases? Should we devote more effort to finding interview 
opportunities for LP members and candidates?Should we invest more 
resources in “social media”?


* In what ways can we improve our ability to mobilize our members and 
friends to support specific projects? For example, if we need to 
mobilize our members to support/oppose a specific piece of legislation 
in Congress, how can we best achieve this? (One important aspect of this 
may involve how we recognize and reward those who respond to our calls 
for action.)

* In what ways can we establish and improve relations with "libertarian 
movement" organizations (e.g., Cato Institute), "friend of the family" 
organizations (e.g., National Taxpayers Union), and issue-oriented 
organizations (e.g., Marijuana Policy Project)? For example, should we 
make a greater effort to obtain speaking invitations for LP members at 
conferences sponsored by the aforementioned organizations? Should we 
invest more resources in sponsoring information booths at such conferences?

* In what ways can we benefit by working with other organizations on 
specific projects, such as promoting good legislation/defeating bad 
legislation in Congress?

* Should we consider participating in litigation to achieve specific 
results? For example, should we consider additional challenges to 
campaign finance regulation? Should we participate in litigation 
concerning "Top Two" legislation?

I believe an important component to our increasing our influence/impact 
is for the LNC to improve its capacity for strategic thinking and 
long-range planning. In particular, I believe we must do a better job of 
anticipating opportunities for the LP to make a positive impact on the 
political landscape.


5) Candidate Support

This category involves issues of how we can best support our candidates 
at all levels.Some of the questions in this category include:

*In what ways should we support the 2016 presidential campaign?For 
example, should we establish a goal of assisting the Johnson-Weld 
campaign to achieve approval ratings of at least 15% in public opinion 
polls?


* What programs should we sponsor to train our candidates and campaign 
personnel? These programs should include not only training in the "nuts 
and bolts" of running successful campaigns, but also helping candidates 
to develop platforms that are both Libertarian and appealing to voters. 
(Note: It may be appropriate for us to outsource certain types of 
training to organizations such as the Leadership Institute.)

* In what ways should we publicize our candidates, both inside and 
outside the LP? In what ways should we recognize and reward our candidates?

* In what ways should we support our elected and appointed officials?

As part of candidate development and support, I believe we need to 
develop and maintain a high-quality repository of information about 
prior campaigns, both to provide information about what ideas have been 
tried and to compile a list of "best practices" for campaigns.


6) Operations Issues

This category includes various issues involving the operations of the 
LNC and our responsibility to conduct the affairs of the Libertarian 
Party. Some of the issues we should address include:

* What are our goals for the 2018 national convention in New Orleans, 
Louisiana?

* How should we evaluate prospective national convention sites for 2020 
(and perhaps 2022)?

* Do we need to review our internal rules and procedures? For example, 
do we need to conduct a review of the Policy Manual?

* Should the LNC adopt a more formal (or perhaps, more extensive) 
committee structure to assist us in our efforts?

* Should we conduct a formal evaluation of the LP Bylaws, with the 
purpose of offering suggestions for improvement to the 2018 Bylaws 
Committee?

* Should we evaluate the current organizational structure of the LPHQ 
staff? (Of course, such an evaluation would require the participation of 
Wes Benedict in his capacity as Executive Director.)


III. Suggested Goals

Allow me to suggest that we consider adopting goals along the following 
lines. They are listed in roughly a descending order of importance. 
Please do not hesitate to offer comments and suggestions about the goals 
we should consider.

G1: The LP will have at least 20,000 sustaining members as of July 1, 2018.

G2: The LNC will take action to see that each state has an operational 
affiliate party by July 1, 2017. I suggest that "operational state 
affiliate" be defined in the following manner:

* There is a properly maintained website for the affiliate (perhaps the 
website is paid for and maintained by the LNC).


* There is at least one LP member in the state who actively serves as an 
official contact for the affiliate in its dealings with the LNC, and 
there is at least one LP member in the state who actively serves as a 
contact for the affiliate in its dealings with the state government.


* LPHQ has a copy of the current bylaws and associated documents for the 
affiliate, along with a copy of the relevant laws of that state 
regarding political parties and ballot access.

(We may wish to add to the definition something along the lines of 
"Inquiries to the affiliate receive a response in a timely manner.")

G3: The LNC will raise at least $3.5 million from July 1, 2016 until 
July 1, 2018.

G4: The LNC will develop and approve new and revised outreach 
literature, to be available no later than Sept. 15, 2016. Some of the 
literature (e.g., issue pamphlets) should be available in the form of 
PDFs that can be downloaded from LP.org.

Note: I believe the LNC should pursue this goal as part of a more 
general process of literature development and evaluation. In a separate 
message I shall send you some suggestions concerning this more general 
process.

G5: The LNC will sponsor a series of seminars/workshops in 2017 at 
various locations around the country.The workshops could be structured 
largely along the lines of the "Success '97" seminars (instruction on 
the basics of affiliate development and candidate development) or the 
more recent “LP Activist Training By Libertarians, For Libertarians” 
events (see comments below).Note: Approval of this goal should be 
contingent upon the degree of interest demonstrated by our members and 
affiliates.

According to Carla Howell (LP Political Director), the aforementioned LP 
activist training sessions in Alexandria, Virginia in October 2015 and 
Burlingame, California in February 2016 went well.She indicated that 29 
people attended the Alexandria event and 22 attended the Burlingame 
event; she said that feedback concerning the events was very positive.

I have enclosed information in an appendix below concerning the goals 
adopted by the LNC for the 2014-2016 term.


IV. Additional Considerations

In addition to the suggested goals, I hope the LNC will accomplish the 
following during the next several months:


*  Assist the Johnson-Weld campaign to achieve approval ratings of at 
least 15% in public opinion polls.


* Develop a well-maintained calendar of the events at which it is 
desirable to have an LP presence (e.g., speaker, information booth, 
literature distributed to attendees, advertising in conference program). 
For example, the calendar would include the dates of the national 
conferences of "friend of the family" organizations. Presumably the 
calendar would also include information as to event location, contact 
information for event coordinators, etc.

* Utilize /LP News/ and the website more effectively to recognize and 
reward quality activism. For example, I would like to see an article in 
each issue of /LP News/ that recognizes an outstanding effort by an LP 
activist, affiliate organization, and/or candidate. Similarly, I would 
like to see a regular series of articles on the website that recognize 
such outstanding efforts.

As an aside, I realize the effort required to identify and recognize 
great work can be substantial. Moreover, I realize that such recognition 
can actually cause problems. (Some members may believe the honorees do 
not deserve such recognition. Other members may feel slighted by the 
fact that their efforts have not been recognized.) However, all things 
considered I believe we shall benefit by including more material in our 
"house organs" about the successes of our members.

* After analyzing the results of the 2016 elections, develop and approve 
a plan by Feb. 15, 2017 for dealing with ballot access issues during the 
2017-2020 time period.



I shall greatly appreciate any comments and suggestions you have 
concerning LNC goals and projects for this year and this term. In 
addition, I would be grateful if Wes Benedict and his staff colleagues 
would review this message and offer their comments.

I consider it likely that I have omitted some issues you will deem 
worthy of discussion.(This message is already rather long; I didn’t want 
it to exceed the length of /War and Peace/.)Hence, I may send a revised 
version of this message in the near future, along with a revised list of 
goals for consideration.

Thanks for your work for liberty, and for your consideration of this 
message. Best wishes to you in all your endeavors; I look forward to 
seeing you in Las Vegas, if not before.

Take care,
Jim


James W. Lark, III
Dept. of Systems and Information Engineering
Applied Mathematics Program, Dept. of Engineering and Society
University of Virginia


Advisor, The Liberty Coalition
University of Virginia

Region 5 Representative, Libertarian National Committee


P.S.:  Thanks to Carla Howell and Bob Johnston for the information they 
provided me.

-----


APPENDIX:

Note:The following goals for the 2014-2016 term were adopted by the LNC 
during its meeting on Sept. 20-21, 2014:

1)1000 candidates in 2016

2)Take action to see that each state has an operational affiliate by 
June 1, 2015

3)300 candidates by 2016 trained in “Who’s Driving” or something equivalent

4)Updated issue-based outreach literature

5)38-state, party-status ballot access as of December 1, 2016

6)200 elected Libertarian officials in December, 2016



The LNC modified Goal 2 during its meeting on Nov. 14-15, 
2015.Specifically, the date by which the goal was to be achieved was 
changed from June 1, 2015 to May 29, 2016.In addition, the following 
definition of “operational affiliate” was adopted:

*The affiliate has a website that is actively updated

*Calls to the affiliate are responded to within three days

*The affiliate has a bank account.

Regarding Goal 1, Bob Johnston (Candidate and Affiliate Support 
Specialist) has indicated that as of this moment there are 543 
candidates for 2016, and that this number may increase.

As far as I know, Goal 2 was not achieved. I do not know how far we are 
from achieving the goal.

It is not clear whether Goal 3 was achieved, because some of the 
training took place at state and local affiliate events.The number of 
candidates trained at these events may not have been reported to LPHQ.

Goal 4 was not achieved, although some progress was made.


We shall not know until later this year whether Goal 5 has been achieved.

Regarding Goal 6, Mr. Johnston has indicated that there are at least 142 
LP elected officials as of this moment.


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