In 2007, Amazing Grace was released on the big screen. Months before it hit the theaters, I watched the movie at an advance showing. In the darkened theater I felt proud, but more immediately, I felt revolted. I could now see scenes of the slave trade with my own eyes, horrifying images from history brought to life. I recall a particular scene where workers on a slave ship go belowdecks just before arriving at port, haul out dozens of bodies, and throw them overboard. All of these people had died during the long trip and remained in the cabin, their bodies decomposing until shortly before arrival at port, when workers disposed of the “expired cargo.” The lack of humanity displayed in the film is striking; the injustices and utter inhumanity of slavery are driven home with a visceral punch. Then the credits fade, the screen goes black, and a message appears, a message that gives a clue as to what I was doing at that advance screening: Please call your senators and representatives and ask them to support the Wilberforce Act. The message remains on screen with the number for the US Capitol switchboard, urging you to make a difference in fighting modern-day slavery. The tie-in to the movie Amazing Grace was the capstone of a strategic advocacy and lobbying effort, and it would ultimately provide our group working on the issue with a large media platform, allowing us incredible success when it came to passing landmark legislation aimed at ending modern-day slavery.
Looking back on it, the whole chain of events that led to the passing of the Wilberforce Act was full of coincidences, but the path to success was also marked by the hard work of many individuals. It all started in early 2006. I was at a meeting for Hope Lab, a health-focused R&D group that aims to improve the health and well-being of adolescents and young adults. Hope Lab was founded by Pam Omidyar, the wife of eBay founder Pierre Omidyar, and my dear friend and colleague Pat Christen was the CEO. Pat and I had worked together at the San Francisco AIDS Foundation, and she invited me to meet Pam and learn about Hope Lab. After the meeting Pam stopped me and asked my opinion on a different matter: what did I think about doing some advocacy work on human trafficking and slavery? She had been funding some smaller groups across the country and wanted to talk about expanding the effort.
After thinking it over for a bit, I gave her my honest answer: I believed people just didn’t think slavery was a problem anymore. In order to do any good work on the issue, you would first have to build a whole public education and awareness campaign around it. It wouldn’t be enough to just advocate for new policies; you would have to create the crisis yourself, make people really aware of the issue. This would not be an easy task; it would be hard and expensive and complicated.
Pam, undeterred, invited me to a meeting with some of the groups she was currently funding. All of the groups were operating on a very micro level: they were running hotlines and working with very specific groups of people in very specific locations. They were doing good and important work, but they were not ready for a full-on lobbying effort; they were not ready to take it to DC. The resources just weren’t there. They didn’t have funding, they had no policy expertise, and there was little to no political sophistication among them. What did impress me was their dedication, their ability to make what seemed like an old problem very current. They had the gift of storytelling, especially two groups: Free the Slaves and Polaris. Free the Slaves had been working on the issue the longest and had written books on the subject. Polaris, while newer, had set up a trafficking hotline that allowed them to connect with real-time stories of modern-day slavery. Those stories gave them of-the-moment flavor that was very powerful and real. Such storytelling can be a very effective way to create momentum for policy solutions, but they didn’t have the skills to craft that policy. My conclusion was that it was not really a movement, and it would take substantial time and resources to create one on this issue.
* * *
About three months later I was approached by a film company with a proposition that could make Pam’s goals achievable. The year 2007 was to be the two-hundredth anniversary of an antislavery act that was passed in the British Parliament, and this company was making a movie about the act and the men who campaigned for it. They explained to me a little bit about the plot and the characters of the movie, and I was fascinated. The movie focused on a man named William Wilberforce, who was elected to Parliament when he was just twenty-one years old. After becoming an evangelical Christian, he became a fierce abolitionist. The Slave Trade Act of 1807 was his great achievement; it abolished the slave trade throughout the British Empire. Working with Wilberforce on the act was a man named John Newton. Newton had served on a slave ship as a young man but then also converted to evangelical Christianity and campaigned against his former employers. Newton eventually became a priest and wrote the poem that is now called “Amazing Grace,” from which the movie took its title.
The movie company wanted our affiliated PR company, Venture Communications, to create a PR campaign that would excite activists to see the movie and stir interest in the issue. The Sheridan Group was brought in to design a way to capture moviegoers into a grassroots network in order to take some action on the issue of modern-day slavery. The movie company wanted buzz and a constituency to increase ticket sales, but they were also willing to extend that reach to advocacy—a very smart and effective idea. The movie would create a teachable moment, a way to raise awareness of a historical problem, and we could then capture informed and moved moviegoers and attempt to enlist them in our advocacy network. Right away, I knew this could be a perfect moment—the film would create the public education that I had told Pam we were lacking. If people were moved by the story they had seen, we could inform them that slavery was still an issue in the modern world and that they could help end the problem by contacting members of Congress. Now I was really intrigued; I loved the idea of taking on something that was so important but totally lacking in public or political recognition. We could bring people along from information to action and then to activism. These kinds of opportunities are rare, but I saw similarities to the beginning of my work with the AIDS lobby, and I wanted to prove we could build another transformational movement.
* * *
Before I could go back to Pam and really get the project started, I needed to do some research myself to try to understand the full scope of the issue. I had learned a little from my meetings with Pam’s various groups, but I needed a deeper understanding of the issue if I was going to mobilize an advocacy campaign, and I needed a hook, line, and sinker combination to really get the process started.
Our research discovered some nascent work in policy on this issue—in 2000, the Trafficking Victims Protection Act (TVPA) had been passed with bipartisan support. The TVPA required, among other things, that the United States produce an annual report on the human rights practices and extent of human trafficking in foreign countries. Additionally, the TVPA authorized protection for immigrants who were victims of severe trafficking and created the T visa. The T visa allows victims of trafficking to remain in the United States while they assist in the investigation and prosecution of human trafficking cases. Victims may apply for permanent residency after their T visa has expired. The bill promoted protection and assistance for victims of trafficking both in the United States and around the world, and contained the authority for the Department of State to set up an office on human trafficking and slavery. The office had begun to create policy and regulations giving the US government power to monitor the extent of the problem worldwide and even look into sanctions for those countries at the forefront of the problem.
We also discovered that the authority for this office technically expired in 2007 and required reauthorization by Congress. Here was our hook: Congress would rewrite and pass this bill in honor of the Wilberforce anniversary, and we’d use the bill as the focus of the grassroots network we had been hired to develop. The “line” followed immediately: we would have people ask their members of Congress to support the act after they had watched the movie. Now we needed the sinker—an effective campaign that would absorb the grassroots into a DC-based lobbying effort. Effective advocacy work requires that you give people a clear request that they can make: for instance, “Tell your members of Congress to pass this bill.” This is a concrete action people can take, as opposed to a limp message like “Tell your members of Congress you’re worried about human trafficking and slavery.”
Armed with a better idea of the overall scale of the issue, I went back to Pam with the resources of the film company behind me and asked her to underwrite the sinker part of our plan: a coalition. Pam decided that Humanity United, a foundation Pam had started to find solutions to global atrocities like genocide and slavery, would handle our contract. Pam introduced me to Randy Newcomb, who was the CEO of HU, and so it was HU that became our client—they agreed to sponsor a coalition of provider groups, if we could bring them all together.
* * *
Clearly our first step was to contact all the different organizations Pam had been funding on the issue. They were a pretty diverse group, some of which were highly religious, and some of which were completely secular. They had been working in different areas of the country and all around the world, focusing on different specific groups of people, and they didn’t know each other well at all. In the rare case where they did know one another, there was a simmering animosity that you’ll find with organizations that are in coopetition with each other. The smaller the movement and the budget, the fiercer this coopetition can be (more on coopetition a little later). Yet despite their differences, we were able to get them all to agree on one thing: the current policies were just not doing what needed to be done, and this was the moment to try to change that. Additionally, Pam was the biggest funder around on this issue. If she wanted them to work on policy in coalition, they were in no position to argue or object. Most were willing and excited to begin this level of work.
Our idea was to sit down with Pam’s grassroots organizations and do a rewrite of the TVPA that would really focus on the current state of the problem of slavery and human trafficking. We wanted to get the opinions of the people on the ground and the people actually doing the work to combat these problems, and then transform those opinions into a series of amendments that we could bring to Congress to get the bill reauthorized. This is a habit I developed during my time with the AIDS lobby, and one that has served me well to this day: write policy only after you’ve seen or been given witness to a problem and its solution from as close to it as you can get. It soon became evident that our goal was to get the government to fund programs that actually assisted in solving the problems experienced by victims, as well as strengthening sanctions and punishments for offenders.
Now we had a plan, and we had the money to get the plan started, but we soon ran into another issue. None of the people in Pam’s groups had any experience with advocacy. They didn’t know how the process worked, and they didn’t know how to use it to their benefit. We didn’t have the type of senior-level talent that you usually need to run an advocacy campaign like this, but I knew there was a way to piece it together. If we could attract a few knowledgeable people to our cause, we could harness the energy of the more inexperienced people and really make some changes.
At that point there weren’t really many people working on the issue of trafficking at a macro level. Pam was doing her best, but she was a philanthropist, not a political activist. The first person who came to my mind was Melanne Verveer. She had been chief of staff for Hillary Clinton during Bill Clinton’s administration and had overseen Clinton’s global initiatives on women’s rights. She had been instrumental in getting the TVPA passed in 2000 and was a co-founder of Vital Voices Global Partnership, an NGO that focused on supporting women leaders and fighting human rights abuses around the world. Human trafficking is particularly an issue for women and girls, and so Melanne had become very invested in the issue; I knew we needed her on our team. Melanne was already familiar with some of the program providers so we were able to capitalize on her credibility. After getting Melanne on board, we approached Holly Burkhalter, a human rights expert nominated by President Bill Clinton and confirmed by the US Senate to serve on the board of directors of the US Institute of Peace, who also had experience lobbying. Holly would prove to be an incredible asset; she was really down in the trenches, and in tough moments she was able to convince her colleagues to give us the benefit of the doubt and press on. These two women were essential in our efforts to convince the other players that joining our coalition would be to their benefit. We slowly started to present the idea of the coalition to the inexperienced and somewhat skeptical remaining groups, and they eventually agreed to join us.
* * *
Oddly enough, we soon began attracting a wide variety of celebrities to our cause as well. Through my previous experiences with Bono, I knew the power celebrities could bring to a cause, so I welcomed them into our odd little group. Singer Ricky Martin was one of the first people interested in our coalition. I didn’t know it at the time, but he had established a foundation that worked to denounce and expose human trafficking, with a special emphasis on children and youth in Latin America. This was a cause close to his heart: in 2002 on a trip to India he came face-to-face with children who were being sold into prostitution. He had already testified in front of Congress once about the existence of modern slavery, and I was happy to have him add some star power to our cause. Ricky was our star witness at the hearings for the act, and he also brought an invaluable amount of press to our overall campaign.
The night before the hearing I went to the Park Hyatt hotel to brief Ricky on the substance of the bill and to practice the testimony. He was warm and engaged and seriously committed to this issue, but like I always did with Bono, I wanted to be sure he was prepared for some of the downsides of standing up on issues like this. Michael Jackson was in the news at that particular moment for his exploits with children that bordered on molestation, or at the very least were highly inappropriate. I warned Ricky that the underbelly of this issue, especially in regard to sex trafficking of young girls, could attract a creep factor to the tone of questions or comments he may receive. He looked genuinely horrified, like he didn’t fully understand what I meant. We discussed it for a few minutes and then I finally said, “You have to be totally comfortable in your own skin on these matters. You can’t appear to be ambivalent on the issues and the gravity of them. If someone were to ask, ‘Why does a famous singer care so much about these girls?’ you’ll need a simple, straightforward response.” There were rumors that Ricky was gay, but he had not yet come out publicly, and his staff and agent weren’t prepared to raise those questions or inadvertently trip him into an area he wasn’t ready to talk about. I was aware of this and wanted to be sure we had minimally prepared him if motives or his personal life were brought up. We crafted our response based on his experience in India and the horror he felt and saw in those children’s eyes. The prepared answer was pretty simple: I’ve been around long enough and lived in the real world. I know victims when I see them. I’ve seen bullying, abuse, and victimization. I can recognize terror in an innocent person’s eyes. When you see it, you know it, and it is impossible for a moral person to turn away. He never needed to use the answer, but he had it. And it worked. Talking obliquely with a celebrity about his or her own motivations and personal life can be tricky and uncomfortable, but in the end it’s your job to be sure your allies and advocates are prepared.
Two other celebrities ended up working with us to develop public support for the reauthorization: American actress Daryl Hannah and English actress Julia Ormond also gave us immense support. Daryl had made a documentary about sexual slavery in which she went to brothels in Southeast Asia in disguise, and Julia had founded the Alliance to Stop Slavery and End Trafficking after witnessing trafficking in Eastern Europe in the 1990s. While neither woman did any day-to-day work with the coalition, they were involved in some very important strategic moments: Hill meetings, press interviews, and outreach.
Daryl Hannah surprised us all in an interview she was doing at our behest when she revealed her own personal story: as a young actress she had been seduced into a human trafficking ring, and then was able to escape. She and three other friends trying to make it in LA were invited to a party in Las Vegas all expenses paid: car, hotel suite, food, drinks. After the weekend ended they were asked if they wanted to go to an audition at a smaller hotel outside of town. Daryl and her friends thought it was their big break. Upon arrival, they were locked in the hotel room. Their host from the party arrived to inform them that they’d piled up a $25,000 bill in Vegas and they’d have to work it off before he’d let them go. When the man left the room, the women figured out an escape: using nail files and things in their makeup kits they cut the screen in the bathroom window and escaped. They ran to a nearby gas station and called the police.
We benefited greatly from the work those two women did to help promote our campaign.
* * *
We had created a true hodgepodge of a coalition, but it was time to get down to work. The movie already had a release date, and if we were going to be able to use their money and outreach, we had to be ready with the bill in time. We had a sixteen-month window in which we needed to get all of this done, and we needed every second of it. Sometimes it felt like we were still putting the wings on the plane as it was taking off.
When it came time to actually write the amendments to the bill, we started to discover some complications in the organization of our coalition. Pam had been working with a variety of different groups, and they had never had to work together before. It was one of our operating principles that every member of the group was to be a co-equal partner, regardless of their past relationships with HU, but that didn’t automatically mean that everyone was united. This can be one of the flaws in single-funded coalitions: the members are totally subject to the funder’s decisions. In this case, Pam made it clear that she would put more resources behind any program that embraced advocacy. Suddenly all these separate micro groups had to work together and start to think at a macro level.
The diversity of the groups led to some interesting conflicts, especially around the issues of sex trafficking. Many of the religious groups were quite evangelical, and sex trafficking was a huge focus for them. We often found ourselves reminding those groups that labor trafficking was also a huge issue and trying to keep them from focusing entirely on one aspect of the issue. Further complicating things was the fact that some of the other groups were actively fighting to legalize prostitution. A key player at the Sheridan Group in all of this was Sara Guderyahn, a young staff member who had joined us after a very successful internship. Sara was referred by my best friend, who had employed her as a babysitter for my godchildren. Yes, Washington is a small world, and a humble job can sometimes lead to big things.
Sara had just completed her graduate degree in political affairs at American University. Young, bright, and enthusiastic, she worked hard and stayed with projects and tasks until she got them to completion. She had the traits of a great progressive lobbyist and needed a chance to show them off and build some experience. At the Sheridan Group, she was put under the watchful mentorship of Nancy Stetson, a senior-level advisor for foreign affairs and international development. Nancy was old-school—tough, disciplined, unyielding in excellence, and encyclopedic on all things related to policy and international development. They were an amazing team paired with an amazing coalition, but there was little commonality among any of the groups. That tension created the energy and the vibrancy that drove this effort to success. Sara, her first time in the jump seat, did a really fantastic job of putting in the wing bolts of the plane as we were taking flight, to harken back to that airplane theory of change and getting the left and right wing to work together.
Getting everyone to work together was good practice for what we would face when we got into the legislative process. Legislating is by definition an act of compromise; it is a fatal error to think you can use the legislative process to get 100 percent of what you want. In this case the hard and sometimes frustrating moments of this coalition yielded compromises that directly benefited our lobbying on Capitol Hill. When right-wing members met with religious groups, they got a bill that came with the endorsements of groups they trusted, and the same was true on the progressive side. While it was hard work keeping things amicable, it truly paid off down the line.
Despite these hurdles, all of the groups of the coalition were composed of people who cared deeply about the cause, and that led to some truly inspiring moments. As we began to educate them about advocacy and policy, things started to come together, and everyone really pitched in. We asked each of the program providers to give us data and stories. When we expanded the reach of the act to new areas (such as the diplomatic corps) or went deeper on program challenges (like immigration and law enforcement undermining victims who wanted to come forward), we needed solid examples of how these programs and services would do better with the amended provisions and what the ill effects of the current law were doing to the lives of real people.
I knew we were working with some dedicated people, but I remember one moment when it became incredibly clear how much effort some of the younger members were putting into the process. I was talking to some of the members of Polaris, an organization dedicated to working directly with victims, and they mentioned that they had spent their Saturday night working on an amendment while simultaneously fielding calls from their trafficking hotline. They were the first stop for many victims—the stories were fresh and raw and tragic, and they reminded us of why we were writing the bill. That combination of on-the-ground work and policy writing was what made this coalition so powerful; they may not have known much about policy when the coalition was first started, but they were completely committed to the cause. Great policy is written when it starts and stays close to the programs and people who are doing the most effective work to solve the problem. Often there is too much distance, perhaps even no connection, between advocates who write policy and program providers who serve real people. We had no such issue, and it showed in the quality of policy work we were able to produce.
* * *
It meant more than a few late nights, but we were able to hit our deadline; by the time Amazing Grace was being released in theaters, we had presented our bill to Congress. We were able to ask moviegoers to write to their senators and representatives and support our bill by name: the William Wilberforce Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act. The coalition had come up with twenty-six amendments to the original bill—twenty-six places where things could be improved to really focus on the issue at hand.
When I first started looking into the issue, I had been told by many groups that the original TVPA had promised them $15 million, and they didn’t know where it had gone. We discovered that a lot of that money had just never been appropriated, and so they hadn’t been able to use it. Apparently the advocates for the original bill didn’t understand that authorizations were just purchase orders and that an entirely separate process is needed to actually get the money. Once you have a bill that authorizes a program or service, you then need to go through another process to get the cash, and you have to go through the process every single year in order to renew your funding. The previous effort didn’t know they needed to take the second step, and so they had never gotten any money. This is a common but fatal error; just because the bill passed doesn’t mean you have won the fight. We wanted to address that issue in the WWA and make sure that the previous programs were reauthorized and actually received their money. Many of our amendments focused on that aspect—the TVPA had some great ideas about how to address the issue of human trafficking, but there were some major gaps that needed to be filled. Looking back, I can identify three of those amendments that I think really made some of the most important changes to the original TVPA.
One of the most important things we heard from our coalition members was that there was a real lack of integration. Different groups collected different data, and there was no way to see the bigger picture. It seemed inconceivable that we were trying to solve such a global issue without sharing information. We wrote up an amendment to specifically target this issue: the WWA requires the creation of an integrated database that contains data from all of the federal agencies involved in combating human trafficking. Having this massive database would allow for an analysis of global patterns in human trafficking as well as the identification of issues as they emerged.
Another important change we wanted to make to the TVPA was to address the issue of labor recruiters who recruit foreign laborers to work in the United States under false pretenses. We heard many stories from coalition members of people who had been recruited to work in the United States and did not realize that they would be working under forced labor conditions. The TVPA did not provide the ability to prosecute these recruiters for their exploitative actions, and so we wrote an amendment for the WWA that clearly designated this as a crime, punishable by up to five years of imprisonment.
The third important amendment related to how we could help US citizens who were victims of trafficking. This amendment ensured that when programs to help US citizen trafficking victims were created, the government would consult with NGOs like our coalition members to help determine what kinds of services the victims might need. These programs would allow for communication between different assistance providers so that victims could easily be referred to services they might need. For example, victims might need shelter and also trauma counseling. These new programs would allow them to get the help they needed.
* * *
By the time President Bush signed our act into law on December 23, 2008, twenty-five and a half of our amendments were still intact. You may be curious about the half. Well, our twenty-sixth amendment attempted to add two new layers into consequences for members of the diplomatic corps found engaging in trafficking behavior: criminal consequences here in the US, and sanctions against their home nation, revoking certain privileges extended by the US while they are residing here. The State Department hated the second prong, as it was difficult to enforce and carried the potential for retaliatory actions by other nations against US diplomats. We conceded that half of the enforcement provision, but kept the other half. The combination of young, inexperienced, passionate people and senior-level experts had paid off. Our coalition had had an incredible impact on the new law, and as a result it extended greater protections to human trafficking victims in the US and abroad, and provided US officials with additional tools to help ensure that traffickers were brought to justice. We had come a long way from my first conversation with Pam, and thanks to the publicity provided by the movie studio, we had brought an issue from the sidelines to the forefront of public knowledge. Great timing, hard work, and some luck paid off in the form of generating a groundswell of support to radically improve a historic bill.
While being ushered through the White House to the West Wing, I caught a glimpse out the window of the visitors staring through the perimeter fence. I imagined I saw my twelve-year-old self, fanny pack fastened around my waist, gripping the bars and straining for a glimpse of the important work going on inside, excitedly announcing to my parents that I was going to be in there one day, helping the country. It was a surreal, full-circle moment for a twenty-six-year-old just starting a career in advocacy.
Our group of fifteen advocates was led to the Roosevelt Room to wait for the bill-signing ceremony. I looked around the table and reflected on the journey that led to this moment.
Just two years ago, almost to the day, I had walked down the hall to my desk after a meeting with Tom, president of the Sheridan Group. As a new and junior employee, that was not a regular occurrence. I had been handed an opportunity (Tom referred to it as a sink-or-swim moment) to lead on a report for Free the Slaves. My charge was to find out everything I could about the group’s work and then to launch and lead a coalition of service providers focused on developing a policy agenda to end modern-day slavery. While I had studied international policy as an undergraduate at American University, what I knew about human trafficking could fill exactly one page of a notebook.
I went back to my desk and sat down. My first thought was, No way I can do this. I gave myself exactly five minutes to panic, and then I picked up the phone and called a friend who was working on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. “I’m coming over, and I need to know everything you know about human trafficking and what the United States is doing to end it.” That began the first of seventy-six interviews over the next sixty days. I talked to staff on Capitol Hill, service providers in the United States and around the world, and survivors of human trafficking.
This was the first of many times I found myself on my learning edge—one side of the edge made me want to run to Tom and beg him to have someone else take on this work, and on the other side I found myself charging forward, not knowing when I was in way over my head. One moment was the night before a key coalition meeting when it seemed everyone was at odds over one or more policy recommendations. I got calls from members threatening to leave the coalition and withdraw support from the bill. I recognized it was a moment to leverage strategic expertise. Tom was able to help me navigate an incredibly tough and anxious coalition meeting the next day, and my key takeaway was that it was okay to ask for help and support.
But most challenges to pass this legislation came directly from Capitol Hill. In fact, it seemed likely from the very start it would be an uphill climb. It was 2008, and just as we made it through committee, one of the chief sponsors, Joe Biden, accepted the nomination for vice president. Overnight we lost one of our biggest and most strategic champions. Members only wanted to talk about economic recovery or election strategies. While we made it past committee markup, we could not get the floor time to pass the legislation. And then, a Hail Mary opportunity presented itself—ironically interconnected with the thing that for months we were competing with—the bailout of the auto industry.
Postelection, Congress was talking about a legislative session expressly to consider and pass the auto bailout plan. Our bill was far enough along and had enough bipartisan support that there was a rally opportunity to bring the bill to the floor during this unorthodox December session. The TVPRA passed on December 10, 2008.
Sitting in the Roosevelt Room, celebrating the efforts of so many, I hoped that these new policies would truly be the first step to ending modern-day slavery in this country and around the world. At that moment I felt gratitude, above all things. I was grateful that Tom was willing to take a risk on a young leader just starting my career, grateful for the support I sought and received from people who had decades more policy and political expertise, and grateful that I had a cause to fight for that was so much bigger than my own fears or insecurities.
Our work on the reauthorization of the TVPA was a clear case of betting on the little guy—we had to bring all of the different coalition members together to address a big issue, despite their different opinions and skills. It is a good example of understanding unique windows of opportunity that may open without planning and can close without notice if you’re not paying attention and nimble enough to act. It is also the story of an incredible visionary and philanthropist who put her heart and her wallet in the right place at the right time. Philanthropists can frequently be adversaries to advocacy, as they often believe and are advised that advocacy can’t be funded. Pam knew advocacy was critical, and she proved that private money well spent can make a huge difference when a partnership with government is formed. If you ever find yourself in a similar situation, here are some of my recommendations.
This whole idea would not have come together had Pam asked me about trafficking legislation a few years earlier. The whole movement clicked because of the combination of Pam’s questions and the movie company’s desire for publicity. Had either of those come at a different time, the idea would not have succeeded. Moments like these are rare, but when you stumble upon one, you need to make the most of it. I had met Pam through a mutual friend years ago, and all of this started from a casual chat we had at a completely unrelated meeting. Sometimes your network will provide you with exactly the coincidence you need to get something started. Don’t throw that away.
Many of the groups in our coalition had fundamentally different opinions, especially on issues related to sex trafficking. As we began to form the coalition, this often caused conflict, but we were able to get everyone to work together. It can be a challenge to ask people to put aside their ideological differences, but in this case the overall issue was so important that it was evident everyone needed to work together to create the amendments and get the bill passed. Because we had put in the hard work of making a bipartisan strategy in forming the coalition, we were able to effectively move our bill through Congress.
When we started working with the coalition members, they were all operating at a very micro level, working with a specific population on a specific aspect of trafficking. While that kind of work is important, getting bills passed is a much broader effort. You need to be able to see the big picture and connect all of the smaller aspects together. In order to have a successful coalition, we had to teach the coalition members to see the bigger picture and to really think about what could be done to improve the TVPA. Ultimately, our resolutions were successful because they addressed these greater issues.
Policy: Working with the top nonprofit program providers, we confronted the challenges of serving victims of trafficking and slavery with effective and smart policy solutions. Once we had the ask, we were able to easily and simply engage the use of Amazing Grace and moviegoers into the campaign. We could not have done that effectively unless we did the policy work.
Politics: The ability to effectively use the movie to muster constituents around the country gave us a pop. Most members of Congress were unaware of the issue, so it seemed to come out of nowhere to them, but they couldn’t ignore the messages. I would also say it helped that this issue had service providers that were rooted in the faith community. They helped us keep the issue alive after the movie, and they appealed to faith-based Republicans for support. Progressive Democrats didn’t need a whole lot of convincing once we made the problem clear and current, but adding Republicans (and especially the conservative Christians) got us a bipartisan appeal that was a winner.
Press: The movie had a bunch of PR money and attention as it came out, and we rode that wave effectively. However, once the movie left theaters, we needed to sustain the validation of public attention, and we did that using celebrities like Ricky Martin and Daryl Hannah. But I think one of the more effective press actions we took was to use the organizations, their memberships, and their stories to try to gain attention. In this coalition we had the church community engaged—churches can be great pathways to public validation and attention. When pastors wrote op-eds or letters to the editors, whole communities (elected officials included) paid just a little bit more attention. A good press strategy looks at the small hits, like a local letter to the editor, and large hits, like a New York Times feature, with equal strategic measures. We played the whole field and did so successfully.