How to Use Our Website & Other Resources

Retake Our Democracy’s website is designed to make it easier for busy people to remain informed, and to become engaged and active. Most of our subscribers feel the blog keeps them updated, but the goal is to help you find an activist niche, where with 1-2 hours a week you can have a clear impact.

Here are some suggestions for ways to take advantage of our website resources:

Use the search function on the right side of the home page to enter key words for an issue that interests you and you will find plenty of articles on the topic to review.
Under the Resources menu, we have a wide range of resources, including contact information for elected officials and ally organiztions., recommended books, video and publications, a media toolkit, and a guide for writing letters to the editor.
“About” in the menu bar offers information about Retake Our Democracy values, mission, priorities, and strategies, and information on our leadership.
Sign up for Action Alerts. During the legislative session you will receive daily alerts with bill summaries, speaking points and legislator contact information. In 5 minutes a day you can raise your voice for bills promoting social, economic, and environmental justice.
Share articles and posts with other friends who may have an interest in a topic. This can be the start of developing a personal affinity group–a group of friends with a shared interest in a social problem or community challenge, a group that could evolve from sharing articles; to meeting to discuss the articles over coffee; to an action group that spearheads community action or City Council or Roundhouse advocacy on that topic.
Write letters to the editor. Most publications are hungry for letters, publish almost all of them and we provide a tool for how to write effective letters that includes a list of the ten largest NM publications with contact info and guidelines for submission. This is an important strategy for educating others outside the Retake community and is a perfect activity for an Affinity Group, writing and editing together.
Check out the Personal Action Toolkit as it outlines how to move from interested in social justice to engaged and active in social justice.
Form an Affinity Group. Affinity groups are simply a small group of friends who commit to getting together weekly or alternate weeks with the focus being to participate in a sustained action. That could be writing letters to the editor, participating at the Roundhouse or working on a long-term research project in a Retake priority area. Forming an Affinity Group strengthens friendships, grounds them in activism and reinforces your commitment to sustained action.
Always review the Monday post as it provides summaries for the prior week’s posts and previews actions and events for the week to come;
Visit the the Actions & Events page on our website frequently….it includes many events and actions that are not profiled in our emails;
Like our Facebook page. We often post articles, actions, and commentary that do not appear in the blog, especially alerts that are just developing and if you see something you like, share it onto your Facebook page.
Comment on our blog posts. We encourage both praise and criticism and approve ALL comments. It would be great if we could broaden discussion of issues we raise and form more conversation among ourselves.