The Public Policy Institute

Pre-Campaign Activities

Before the campaign was launched, the six convening partners met on numerous occasions in order to build capacity for the campaign and to establish a level of understanding around operating principles.

Operating Assumptions

The convening partners first formally agreed to the following "operating assumptions":

Collaboration across constituencies contributes to strong campaigns.
Effective campaigns require resources, and there is a commitment to seek the necessary resources acknowledging that community-based organizations and consumer organizations have fewer financial resources than providers; fundraising strategies will not interfere with funding for core operations of collaborating partners.
The areas in which coordination or economies of scale make sense is common research, message development, national or regional fundraising, and any other needs specifically identified by the steering committee.

Ground Rules

The partners then agreed to the following campaign "ground rules":

We will establish clear campaign goals and operating principles.
We will communicate these goals and principles broadly to campaign members, potential participants, policymakers, media and the broader public.
We will establish clear decision-making protocols with a relatively small "executive" group authorized to make key decisions that is able to move promptly when time demands are tight.
All decisions about policy and strategy must be made by authorized campaign committee (no individual deal-making).
Parties are committed to full information-sharing and disclosure on matters that materially affect the campaign.
Respect for and recognition of the contributions of all partners is a key element of a successful campaign.
We will need a budget and a written workplan with roles, responsibilities, and timelines laid out; the plan should address legal/policy work; media relations; outreach and public involvement; legislative strategy; etc.
We will implement regular coordination meetings to monitor and adjust workplan.
We will establish a protocol for public statements and media relations with the recognition that press often operate on deadline and want a consistent relationship with a limited number of spokespeople.

Workplan and Agreements

Over a period of several months, the MIRACLE Campaign developed a detailed coordinated work plan.

MIRACLE Campaign Workplan
MIRACLE Campaign's Memorandum of Agreement

Key Pre-Campaign Activities

The key pre-campaign activities for the MIRACLE campaign were:

Building and maintaining a powerful diverse campaign coalition and a civic committee able and willing to speak with one voice.
Developing and implementing a grassroots outreach and leadership development program for each coalition member to use with their own members.
Tracking constantly changing policy developments and coordinating strategic public responses and activities.
Recruiting elected and appointed policy makers to champion and implement various options for restoring immigrant health care.
Implementing a public education campaign including developing a storybook and other traditional earned media activities aimed at shaping public opinion in support of immigrant health care.
Identifying and soliciting additional funders to support the activities of participating partners similar to model used by The Blue Cross Blue Shield Foundation of Massachusetts. Separately, PPI, MIRA and Voice and Future Fund/SEIU 615 were able to procure funding from BCBSMA Foundation.

• What is the MIRACLE Campaign?

• History

• Pre-Campaign Activities

• Grassroots Activities and Materials:

- Campaign Materials

- Public Events

- Endorsers & Sponsors

- Policy Analysis

- Story Book

• MIRACLE Campaign Blog

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