Tides Foundation Capacity Building Grant Application, 2015

KENTUCKY
COALITION to
ABOLISH the
DEATH
PENALTY

P.O. Box 3092 ¢ Louisville, KY 40201-3092 ° 502.636.1330 ¢
shekinah.lavalle@kcadp.org * www.kcadp.org

TIDES FOUNDATION CAPACITY BUILDING GRANT APPLICATION

The Kentucky Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty is seeking a Capacity Building
grant of $7,500 that will supplement funding already dedicated to expanding our list of
known supporters who can be active in urging legislative repeal of the death penalty
with their elected state lawmakers. In 2014 we had an extraordinarily good year for
fundraising and were able to sustain staff and programs within our budget for 2015. To
date we have received about $30,000 in donations for 2015 which can be applied to the
2016 budget year. With this $30,000, we expect to end our fiscal and calendar year with
about $60,000 - $65,000 in the bank, enough to sustain current efforts for 2016. Current
efforts are not enough and so we need to do even more.

The list of supporters must grow so KCADP can engage more Kentuckians for two
purposes: a) to actively oppose the use of the death penalty; and b) to become new
donors whose contributions help sustain the organization. To do that we need a $7,500
Capacity Building grant to be used for greater outreach to the conservative community;
to increase the number of persons we reach and engage through social media including
Facebook; and to increase the funds available for this work by using a portion of the
grant to challenge others to match it. If received, money would be spent in calendar
year 2016. By adding the number of socially and politically active supporters to our
database, we also increase the likelihood that a percentage of this group will be willing
financial contributors. The same may occur with people who “like” our Facebook page
as a result of our “boosting” posts, but success using social media for fundraising is
questionable.

Working with Conservatives Concerned About The Death Penalty, KCADP has found
Kentucky conservatives willing to join in efforts to repeal the death penalty. To continue
doing this effectively, KCADP is requesting $5,000 to contract with a person to identify
and approach conservative individuals and groups about becoming supporters of repeal
in Kentucky. This would build on the recent success seen in the formation of Northern
Kentucky Concerned About The Death Penalty. This group has its own Facebook page
and is known as a project of KCADP. Eastern, central, southern and western Kentucky
could be fertile areas for similar growth if we have someone dedicated to making that
happen. This $5,000 would pay for 200 hours of time at $25/hr for someone to open
some more doors in the social and political conservative community. The goal here is
two-fold: to have a minimum of two more area groups identifying as conservative with
members willing to express opposition to the death penalty publicly; and to have
volunteers with each of these groups identified who will grow them. Ideally four such
groups will form.

KCADP also proposes spending $1,500 dollars to increase the number of those
engaged through the use of our social media, especially Facebook. On an irregular

Working Together to End the Death Penalty
schedule during the past year KCADP would “boost” a Facebook post so it reaches a
wider Kentucky audience. In nearly every instance, this resulted in more people clicking
the “LIKE” button for the page, adding to the number of persons who would see our
posts without having to “boost” them. This also means that there are an increasing
number of persons available who may contact legislators and urge them to repeal the
death penalty. Or who may take action should there be an execution scheduled and
KCADP asks supporters to contact Kentucky’s governor about a commutation. We have
had no “boost” budget. This $1,500 would be sufficient to spend an average of $30/wk
to attract more Kentuckians to our cause by putting posts before them that highlight the
broken nature of the system, the risk to executing the innocent, the higher cost of the
death penalty over other possible sentences, the fact that not all victim family members
support use of the death penalty and any number of other issues related to repeal. One
sure source of these posts is the list of articles the 8" Amendment Project staff
distributes to our network.

Success here is measured by the addition of the number of new people “liking” the
page, not just the post, though that helps also. We are almost at 1,500 page “likes”
today. A reasonable goal is to have 2,000 page “likes” by the end of 2016. “Boosting” 1
— 3 posts on average per week, we believe, will produce that kind of significant result.
An added benefit to growing the number of supporters is the interaction caused by
“boosting.” These posts then appear in other news feeds where people may not be
supportive and they make that known by commenting on the post. That provides an
excellent opportunity for us to respond and we do now. These responses then reach
another new audience that educates people on the issues of innocence, cost, broken
system and others. This can result in those on the fence becoming supporters and
those supportive of the death penalty rethinking their position.

Finally, KCADP requests $1,000 for use as a challenge grant to ask for donations from
our grassroots supporters. Beginning in late 2014 KCADP has used matching grant
challenges successfully to bring in some donations from others who have either never
supported us financially or have not supported us financially recently. Besides the
obvious benefit of having more money to fund Coalition activities, this giving invests
supporters more deeply in the cause which can result in their taking action by contacting
legislators and urging support for repeal at opportune times. The measure of success
here will be if the match is made.

For more than 25 years, the Kentucky Coalition has helped created a climate that
weakens support for the use of the death penalty. Working with other organizations and
individuals KCADP has had a significant role in passing legislation to limit its use and
has blocked legislation to expand its use. There have been only three executions since
1976, no executions in the past 7 years, only one new death sentence since 2010 and
currently a court-ordered “moratorium” is in place while Kentucky works on devising a
protocol that meets the law here. Bills introduced in our General Assembly were
sponsored by a Republican in the House and a Democrat in the Senate, with co-
sponsors from both parties. These bills will be introduced in 2016 by the same bi-
partisan group of lawmakers.

Increasing the number of conservatives actively outspoken about the need to repeal the
death penalty, increasing the number of supporters on Facebook who can be invited to
contact their Kentucky lawmakers and increasing the amount of money available to
sustain the ongoing work of the Coalition are all means to keeping Kentucky as a low

Working Together to End the Death Penalty
use state that is ready for repeal. National strategists can point to Kentucky as a state
that is trending away from the use of the death penalty evidenced by what juries and
judges are doing when death cases are brought to them. Using funds as proposed
above leads to informed Kentuckians unwilling to sentence to death even if qualified to
serve on a jury in a capital case.

So, to summarize, we are asking for $5,000 to contract with an individual who will
expand our presence among social and political conservatives willing to support repeal
of the death penalty with the goal of find at least two more areas of the state where an
active group can be formed as has already occurred in northern Kentucky; but hoping
for four new groups.

We seek $1,500 to spend an average of $30 weekly on “boosting” Facebook posts to
garner an additional 500 page “LIKES” which means having an additional 500
supporters who are available for contacting legislative and executive branches of
government regarding limiting or repealing the use of the death penalty in Kentucky.

Finally, KCADP proposes using $1,000 of the $7,500 request as a matching grant to
raise an additional $1,000 from grassroots supporters.

Success will look like this: two new conservative groups are formed and actively
supporting repeal of the death penalty; the number of persons liking the Facebook page
will grow to 2,000; and the Coalition will raise $1,000 from grassroots supporters to
match the $1,000 challenge grant. In addition, we can measure success by the number
of new supporters from the conservative community become financial contributors. No
more than 15 percent of those currently in our supporters’ database contribute
financially, so if 15 percent of new supporters contribute that would be a success by our
current standards.

Working Together to End the Death Penalty