17 Jun IPN Quarterly — Issue 5, Summer 2022
Welcome to the IPN Quarterly! You have made so much possible and we want to share a few success stories plus give you a peek at upcoming events and initiatives. Check out our refreshed IPN website right here and check out our new swag HERE. Don’t you want to rock an IPN shirt? Get yours now.
Big Impact
What a wild quarter it’s been. From protecting abortion access to advocating for gun safety to protecting our elections — we’ve been doing all we can to move our state toward progress and create a Nevada where everyone has the opportunity to succeed. As we race toward the end of our fiscal year at the end of June, we’re recapping all the great work we’ve been doing recently and hoping it’ll fire you up as much as it does us.
In the last few months, we’ve been dedicating ourselves to the non-partisan work to protect our elections, monitoring the polls throughout the primary, since the start of early voting, assisting voters with questions, and ensuring that Nevadans were able to cast their votes without intimidation or unnecessary obstacles. We also published our non-partisan VoteSmartNV Voter Guide to provide equal access to information about all of the candidates, regardless of party affiliation, on key issues that we work on with our community partners across the state. In the 2020 election, the VoteSmartNV Voter Guide was accessed by Nevada voters 99,421 times statewide! Your support helps us create this content and keep Nevadans informed. Thank you.
We’ve also continued to lead the communications strategy in the work to protect abortion access here in Nevada, and the reproductive freedom that we’ve long advocated for. If you have a story you’d like to share with our Story Bank Organizer about your abortion or reproductive access story, you can share that here. The stories of real Nevadans have the power to create change. Thank you for helping us with that work.
And we can’t forget our hard work on gun violence prevention, led by our Northern Nevada Manager Amber Falgout. We recently celebrated the anniversary of the signing of Assembly Bill 286 to prevent Nevadans from possessing, selling, purchasing, or transporting firearms not imprinted with a serial number (a.k.a. Ghost guns). As our hearts break for the lives lost in Buffalo, Uvalde, & others we vow to keep doing the work to stop the senseless loss of life and continue to educate Nevadans on lifesaving gun violence prevention policies. There is still so much work to be done.
Now, we’re gearing up to enter a new fiscal year and leave our current year with a bang. We’re hoping to raise $2,500 by the end of June to bolster our work as we enter the second half of 2022. Want to help us reach our goal? You can do so HERE.
With YOUR support, we’ve been able to make great strides in this work to educate Nevadans. Thank you for all that you do for us.
What’s THE STORY?
What creates change? That’s easy — personal experiences shared with a legislator, amplified in your community, or told to a reporter. We love working with communities and individuals to help them tell their stories. In the last few months domestic violence survivors, unemployed Nevadans, DACA recipients, educators, clean energy advocates, and uninsured Nevadans have all shared their stories. Each one has a unique experience that can change minds. Check what being a storyteller means to Richard Gilroy:
“As a retired marketing professional with more than 40 years of experience in advertising, public relations, and online communications, I can attest to the strength of storytelling. Personal stories create an emotional connection to issues and cause that no amount of facts and figures can match. Personal stories make issues real. They strike at the heart of an issue. If you want to move someone — whether an elected official, a public administrator or voters in general — personal storytelling is hard to beat.”
You can take part in monthly storyteller meetings and learn more about how to get involved in our community by joining our story bank! Contact Brenda Rodriguez at brodriguez@battlebornprogress.org or submit your story here.
Meet the Team
This quarter, we welcomed some new faces to the IPN team, and we’d love to introduce you to our new Latino Anti-Disinformation Program Manager, Ignacio Romero! Here’s a bit about Ignacio, and what brought him to the anti-disinformation fight:
“I was born and raised in Bolivia, a country full of socio-economic disparities. Because of this, I developed a strong passion for equality and human rights.
Being raised in a family deeply rooted in politics and journalism, I decided to dedicate my life to the pursuit of transparency and fighting for the truth. That is why since I arrived in the United States in 2006, I have worked as a reporter, a writer, and, later, as an international news correspondent.
From my new position, here at BBP and IPN, I will be fighting ‘disinformation’, which is false information deliberately created to mislead and cause harm. This type of content is manufactured by foreign, domestic, and local individuals whose agenda is to create chaos, cause division, and weaken our democracy. We can not let that happen!”
Want to help Ignacio in this work? Email him at ignacio@battlebornprogress.org OR submit any disinformation you come across HERE.
Into the Future
- Get ready to cast your ballot in November!. As we mentioned last time, IPN’s voter education organizer, Brian Harris, worked hard this last quarter to create and publish our non-partisan comprehensive voter guide to help YOU make informed decisions at the ballot box. Bookmark this guide and stay tuned for updates ahead of the general election at VoteSmartNV.org.
- Do you have a story about how abortion access changed your life? Our Story Bank Organizer, Brenda Rodriguez, wants to hear it. The best way to spread the word about policies and legislation that matter to real Nevadans is to share their stories. That’s why we’ve started a story bank, and right now we’re focused on the abortion access fight! You can sign up to share YOUR story HERE.
- Join us to continue our work on Gun Violence Prevention. Over the coming months, we will be holding educational events and looking for folks to lift up relevant gun violence issues in the media. Contact Amber: afalgout@battlebornprogress.org.
- As we told you last time, IPN is a part of the coalition working to turn Avi Kwa’ Ame (Spirit Mountain) into a National Monument. Stay tuned to our Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram pages for details about getting involved.