Kentucky Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty
REPORT FOR Grant #TFR1302565
The Tides Foundation granted KCADP $20,000 of the $80,000 requested in November
2013 for our non-lobbying efforts for death penalty repeal. The progress report indicated
that none of this money was spent prior to the due date of that report, May 15, 2014. One
correction needs to be made regarding that statement. An $850 payment was made to
secure the booth at the Kentucky State Fair for 2014.
This final report accounts for the expenditure of the $20,000 by October 31, 2014.
Our total expenses for calendar year 2014 were $58,481 approximately $5,000 monthly.
The greatest expense is for the salary, payroll taxes and health insurance of the Outreach
Coordinator (OC).
The grant narrative indicated the money requested would be used to pay the salary of an
OC and for event and fundraising activities needed to create a climate for repeal. The OC
would seek to build relationships with more victim family members and Kentucky
exonerees, all of whom could become involved in our educational and legislative efforts.
Not all the activities described in the narrative were completed because funding was
limited.
But the following was accomplished. We learmed that the joint Judiciary Committee of
the Kentucky General Assembly planned to dedicate an entire meeting in August 2014 to
listening to persons who supported and who opposed the death penalty. Staff from the
state legislature contacted us to identify persons to testify. This August 1 meeting was
well attended and because of the work of the OC there were victim family members who
oppose the death penalty present and also one Kentucky man exonerated and released.
One victim family member, who is Secretary of our board, testified before the committee.
In time for the opening of the state fair in late August, the OC had lined up some of our
partners to staff each of the eleven days of the fair with volunteers from their
organizations. Fair expenses, not counting staff time, were approximately $1,500. The
2014 attendance at the fair was down significantly enough to be in the news, and so the
traffic to the booth was less than normal. Nonetheless KCADP added 322 new supporters
to our list and met hundreds of others who stopped at the booth for conversations. An
average of eight persons a day staffs the booth, giving us an opportunity to work with
those who are members of the following supporting organizations: Kentuckians For The
Commonwealth, Kentucky Council of Churches, ACLU of Kentucky, Catholic Diocese
of Lexington, Friends Society (Quakers), NAACP of Louisville, Murder Victim Family
Members, Catholic Conference of Kentucky and other Coalition supporters filling in as
needed. This strengthens bonds with partners and builds relationships for future working
together on repeal.
At the end of August, the OC organized a booth at the City of Louisville’s Worldfest, a
two day event that attracts the diverse ethnic and cultural communities of the city. Victim
family members, an exoneree and other volunteers staffed the booth and signed up an
additional 86 supporters for the eNews and mailing list.
Kentucky Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty
REPORT FOR Grant #TFR1302565
In late September, Gary Drinkard, an exoneree who works with Witness to Innocence,
visited various churches and college campuses telling his story and encouraging
participants to become actively involved in repeal work in the state.
The OC and others took Gary to Bardstown, Hopkinsville, Northern Kentucky, and
Louisville for presentations at 6 events. The tour attracted slightly over 300 persons and
resulted in adding 39 supporters to our list. This did not match our goal of 20% of
attendees. It is still a challenge to figure out just why one tour will have a significant
number of person sign up and another does not.
Obviously there are variables. Different presenters may have a more convincing story;
attendees vary politically in different parts of Kentucky. Also some attendees are there
because they want extra credit and will sit through it to obtain that without any real
interest in the subject. Nonetheless, it continues to be problematic for us.
Fundraising using a new strategy — letters from persons other than Coalition leadership —
describing personal experiences that led to their own opposition to the death penalty and
asking known supporters to join them in helping fund the work of the Coalition.
The OC worked with two victim family members to draft a letter, and then later in the
year with an exoneree to draft another one. As a result, fundraising in calendar 2014 was
significantly increased. Not including grants from Tides and others, contributions related
to the fundraising letters and the announcement in November that an anonymous donor
would match up to $4,000 resulted in contributions for the last six months of the year of
over $30,000, $5,000 more than raised in the entire 2013 calendar year. When grant
money and a special fundraising effort around a visit by Sr. Helen Prejean are included,
the income for calendar 2014 was $63,000, more than we anticipated earlier in the year.
We leamed that these letters are effective and will continue the use of this fundraising
strategy in 2015. Witness To Innocence tours will also continue as we work with one of
our strongest partners, the ACLU of Kentucky, to highlight this failure in the death
sentencing scheme. ACLU has generously paid for fees associated with these visits and
the KCADP is now organizing the sites for presentations. The goal is three tours covering
various targeted areas in the state where we hope to find supporters who will be in touch
with their lawmakers about the issue.
We believe the $20,000 for salary, travel, event costs and the cost of printing and mailing
fundraising letters was well spent and produced outstanding results so the Coalition can
continue to build in the number of supporters and in making Kentuckians in general
aware of the need to repeal the death penalty statute in our Commonwealth.
