April 5, 2018 Advocacy Alert



REMINDER: Thank Congress for Older Americans Act Increases
Our Grassroots & Social Media Tools Make it Easy!



 

As we said in last week’s Alert and detailed in our March 22 Legislative Update, the final FY 2018 spending levels for the Older Americans Act are amazing—undoing years of erosion to some programs with significant increases. Although we will have to push for FY 2019 bills to maintain these improved levels and increase the subtitles that saw only modest increases, we first must pause to thank Congress for these significant increases.
 
Congress could have easily taken the more than $138 million added to OAA in FY 2018 and invested in other worthy federal programs—but your ongoing advocacy ensured that they didn’t.
 
Members of Congress love positive public attention when they do the right thing, so let’s take the time to show our gratitude before we start asking for another round of increases in FY 2019 (our campaign will launch next week!).
 
Please make sure that your agency, your providers, stakeholders and clients all weigh in with your congressional delegation now! We’ve got everything you need to make that easy, with an easily adaptable grassroots alert for your agency to distribute, as well as social media images and content for everyone to use.

Here’s our #OlderAmericansAct suite of tools and resources to assist your advocacy:

How to Take Action:
Please take the following actions before week’s end:
 

  • Send an Agency Letter to Your Delegation
    You can use n4a’s template letter to fax or email your agency’s letter to your Senators and any Representatives in your PSA. Email this letter to any state/Washington, DC staff that you know; you can find fax numbers and email addresses at www.congress.gov.  
     
  • Take Your Appreciation Public
    Use our social media toolkit to make public your gratitude to Congress. Make sure to tag your Senators and Members of Congress in the tweets or posts, so they see your thank you. Find their social media handles on their websites.
     
  • Encourage Your Grassroots to Take Action
    Ask your grassroots to give their thanks as well. Use our template alert that you (and they) can customize, as well as a social media toolkit with ready-made images and messages. Please engage your provider networks, advisory boards and committees, and other stakeholders (including clients and caregivers!) to reach out. n4a will be sharing these grassroots materials across the Aging Network and with other national allies so that this effort is successful, so please, share widely! 

We know it’s been a long year of advocacy to get to the end of our FY 2018 advocacy, but it was worth it. Please take these final steps to ensure that we start our FY 2019 appropriations advocacy off on the right foot, with a Congress that feels appreciated for their recent funding choices!
 

--
If you have questions or concerns about this Advocacy Alert or n4a’s policy positions, please contact Autumn Campbell at acampbell@n4a.org and Amy Gotwals at agotwals@n4a.org.


Financial scams and fraud often increase during the holiday season and older adults are a prime target. Find out how older adults can protect themselves with the 2024 Home for the Holidays campaign!