Together Women Rise Advocates Defend Foreign Aid
Written By: Susan Wright, Rise Advocacy Co-Chair
Together Women Rise advocates are fully engaged with our partner, RESULTS, to fight the suspension of U.S. foreign aid and the dismantling of USAID. We know that many Rise grantees are facing disruptions or elimination of programming as a result of the administration’s actions. We need to continue to counteract this stoppage of U.S. foreign assistance that threatens the millions of people who depend on food, medicine, health services and other support from USAID, as well as other programs such as Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance.
Since the new administration began its action on foreign aid, RESULTS members and their allies, including Together Women Rise advocates, are rising to the challenge: 95 meetings to date with Members of Congress (MOC) or their staff that reached 87 offices, 56 for House members and 31 for Senators, as well as numerous letters to the editor and countless individual emails or calls to MOCs.
For example, Rise and RESULTS advocates met with staff of CA Senator Alex Padilla on March 13 to discuss the destruction of vital health and education programs for which Senator Padilla has been a strong supporter. We had a frank exchange with the Senator’s foreign policy advisor on how we could most effectively support restoration of USAID and funding for these programs in the future. He asked us to mobilize advocates to reach members of Congress who are aligned with the current administration on budget cuts as well as the destruction of USAID, to persuade them with local examples of the harm such cuts can bring to their own constituencies, including effects on farmers, universities, employees of contractors, etc.
We must redouble our efforts to reach out to these officials. All Rise members, not just current members of the Advocacy Group, are needed in this effort! Our goal is to reach all MOCs in the first 100 days with compelling stories, information that supports the case for reinstating priority health and education programs, and specific requests for funding levels for 2026.
Are you ready to advocate?
- Take action now
If you only have 5 mins, you can still make an impact. Please follow these links to the RESULTS Action Center to: - Contact your Representative
Be sure to make the message your own by changing the Subject line and adding a few lines to the text; it will be much more likely to be taken seriously. - Become a regular member of our Advocacy Group with RESULTS!
If you missed our March 18th Advocacy webinar and/or want to use RESULTS tools for your action, here is the link to the recording. Our next advocacy webinar will be held on April 15 at 8:30 pm ET /5:30 pm PT. Join HERE.
Here are some sources of data you can use when advocating:
Thank you for your commitment!