Welcome to Veterans Coalitions Director/Team training Part 2!
1. Learning the Acronyms & Setting up your Technology
- Convention of States uses a lot of Acronyms. Use this Acronym Guide to find the meanings when you run into new ones (Print the Guide)
- Open the email asking you to confirm your new COS email account and click the link inside.
- Download the COS Action App to your phone (iPhone / Android) and sign into it.
- Watch Telepatriot training videos.
- National Training Video
- As a Veterans Coalitions Director/Team member (VCD & VCD Team) you have the ability to make telepatriot calls if you want to, but it is not one of your responsibilities.
- Join the two Slack Workspaces (Wisconsin COS & VETS4COS) via the email invitations that you will receive.
2. Convention of States University (3 hrs, 15 min)
- COS 300 Convention of States Culture (57 min)
- COS 400 Leadership & Activism (58 min)
- LL 200 How to Influence Your Legislator (1 hr 16 min) - As a VCD or VCD Team member you will encourage veterans to build relationship with their legislators. This course will provide you with some useful tactics to pass on.
3. Your District Numbers, State Representative and State Senator
Before you go any further you will need to discover your Representative, Senator, House District (HD), and Senate District (SD). Use the instructions below to find your legislators and district numbers, and save that information somewhere that you will be able to refer to easily. If you already know all four of these things go ahead and move on to step 4.
- Use Wisconsin’s My Vote to fill in your address and discover your Wisconsin State Representative. You can also address them as Assemblyman, Assembly person. Click here to go to My Vote Wisconsin:https://myvote.wi.gov/en-us/My-Elected-Officials
- Use Wisconsin’s My Vote to fill in your address and discover your Wisconsin State Senator and Senate District. Click here to go to My Vote Wisconsin:https://myvote.wi.gov/en-us/My-Elected-Officials
4. Citizen Builder/Dashboard
Citizen Builder (also known as Dashboard) is where you will find local cos volunteers and veterans as well as where you send email blasts, create pages, polls, surveys, action reports, upload files, and research legislators' Convention of States positions.
While it is important that you know these tools exist and are at your disposal, don't worry if you don't have them all memorized by the end of this training. This page exists to be a resource you can come back to if you ever need to remember how to do something.
5. Leaders Directory
Leaders Directory is one of your best tools for finding your Veteran's Coalitions Team, your State Leaders, and out-of-state leaders.
6. Searching for People and your local volunteer team
The Leaders Directory is awesome, but it won't give you a short and sweet list of all the volunteers and local cos volunteer leaders near you, nor will is show you all the veteran signers in your area. To do those things you will need to go to Dashboard and do a search.
7. Lists
Coming Soon
8. Tags
Coming Soon
9. Files & Pages
- Watch How to Create Website Pages
- If you create a page and want to publish it, reach out to your State Director for assistance. - Watch How to Create Files
10. Polls & Surveys
- Watch How to Create Polls
- Survey Instructions in the works.
11. Action Reports
Action Reports are a critical part of uniting all our individual efforts into one focused movement. They can be made through the COS Action App or the COS Website. Watch the videos below and save/print the instructions for your future reference.
- Watch Action Reports from the COS Action app
- Watch Action Reports from the COS Website
- (Website) Action Report Instructions: Print/Download (text) (text and images)
- Direct Link for submitting New Action Reports
12. LMS (Legislative Management System)
- Watch Training on the LMS
13. Email Blasts
- Watch How to Set Up an Email
- Watch Email Checklist
- Watch Crafting Effective Subject Lines
- Read Best Practices
14. Veterans Coalitions Team
Who's who on the VCD Team. The titles on this team are rather confusing so here's a basic breakdown of what they mean.
State VCD: The State VCD is responsible for the entire statewide VCD Team.
VCD: VCD work to reach veteran organizations within their Region.
VCD Team: VCD Team work to reach veteran organizations within their House District.
15. Setting Yourself Up for Success
While you now know pretty much everything you need to get started, the following steps will help you be truly prepared to do this job.
- Save your State Director's contact information and expect to reach out often.
- Attend the Wisconsin State Team Zoom Meeting the 2nd and 4th Wednesday of each month from 7pm to 8pm.
Plan to attend Regional Meetings and get to know your local volunteer team so that you can help them engage with your efforts. - Save the COS Wisconsin Website to your Browser for quick access.
If you have completed all these things then call/text/slack/or email your State Director and let him/her know you are ready for your final zoom training.
