August 21, 2009

To Our Loyal Friends and Supporters:

Please accept our apology for not writing to you very often this year. It might appear as though we've been missing in action.

But there's an important reason you haven't been hearing from us. As you know, every year the animal rights legislative machine cranks up a notch forcing us to spend more of our time fighting for the right to keep our pets, our lifestyles, businesses and professions. Even though we manage to win most of the battles, the extremist groups behind these bills continue to win the public relations wars simply by forcing us to play defense. We understand this dimension of the battle and decided not to allow ourselves to be sidetracked this year.

Instead we decided to focus our time, expertise and resources on developing new programs and materials to raise public awareness and improve our ability to communicate our side of the story to the public. While defeating ill-conceived legislation is critically important, if fighting legislation uses up all of our time and resources, we’ll end up losing in the long run.

So this year, while NAIA Trust was actively fighting 74 bad animal bills, NAIA was busy expanding its communication ability, developing several new programs and expanding existing ones to get our message out.

Here's some of what we've done so far this year:

• Earlier this year, we joined with Kathy Grayson, a California dog handler who started the  Bucks for Billboards Campaign, an amazing campaign that placed 100 billboards in the L. A. area. We assisted by developing the website that goes with the project, and in the coming months we will be working to expand this great outdoor media campaign across the nation.
• We also expanded the NAIA Shelter Project's capacity to gather and present vitally important information about US pet ownership trends. Information from this project enables pet owners across American to develop fact-based opposition to misguided legislation.
• Later this year in Washington DC (November 1-4, 2009), NAIA will host its 15th national conference. The title is Propaganda, Reality and Public Perception: Dispelling Animal Myths in the Age of Images and Sound Bites. The topics are excellent, the speakers panel is extraordinary, and Congressmen, federal agency officials, and the media will be well represented.
• NAIA participated on state and federal policy and advisory boards and made presentations to audiences at numerous regional and national seminars and conventions.
• After several years without it, we've reinstated the NAIA newsletter, Animal Policy Review.  Our editor is an award-winning writer and subject-matter expert on our topics. The newsletter is sent to Congress as well as state and local lawmakers.
• NAIA researched and developed fact-grounded economic impact arguments against California SB 250 and AB 241, which were used by the California Department of Finance in their letters of opposition to the bills.
• NAIA has also created a new website that focuses on all facets of human-animal interaction, pet ownership, hunting, farming, research, rehabilitation, rescue, etc., which will go online later this fall.  Look for our announcement with a link you can explore in the next couple months.

So, although we haven't written you as often as before, we hope you'll understand. With so much work to do and such a limited staff, we needed to spend time building the organization for the future. We thank you for your previous support and look forward to working with you in the future. We're back!             

Sincerely,

Patti Strand, Chairman and National Director