How to Set Up a Hotline!

[qwlauren35]

My apologies for posting this in a few places - I want it to get as much visibility as possible.

I'm in the process of setting up a hotline for Baltimore City Residents to call in and get information about campaign activities. It's NOT CHEAP, but I fundamentally believe that Baltimore City residents with no Internet access deserve the opportunity to participate in this campaign.

While I'm not going to give out the number here (it's 10 cents per hit!), I'm happy to be contacted for the number by anyone in the greater Baltimore area: [e-mail].

Here's how I did it. Go to Verizon.com small business section and ask for a Message Board. It is a special "call forwarding" feature that gives you 3 minutes to present your message, and has no voice mail. The cost is around $54 PLUS ALL INCOMING CALLS!!! We had a lot of snafus, but it should really only take 2 days to set up... if you can make sure they know what you want!

On our hotline, we're going to put information about the website (for those who didn't know), the local, unofficial office location and meeting times, phonebanking opportunities, open meetings, voter registration training and public events where people will be canvassing, registering and/or "doing visibility". There will also be a phone number for those who want to get involved in specific events or want bulk materials for an event. I'll probably also give out my number to let people call in with events that they want posted. My focus will be Baltimore City, but I'll probably include activities within a 5-10 mile radius. We'll probably update it weekly.

If you think your area needs something like this, please get together with some people and put it together. As I said, it's not cheap. But if we're truly going to be "grassroots", then the non-Internet roots deserve a chance to get involved.