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CCCSFAAA Financial Aid Advocacy. By Craig Yamamoto May 6 & 7, 2004 CCC Confer. Why Advocacy?. To let the State Legislature know we need to keep the money How it benefits our students How it benefits the College
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CCCSFAAAFinancial Aid Advocacy By Craig Yamamoto May 6 & 7, 2004 CCC Confer
Why Advocacy? • To let the State Legislature know we need to keep the money • How it benefits our students • How it benefits the College • Goal is to keep the increased funding in upcoming State Budget cycle and May Revise timeframe
Why us? • Significant cuts to Chancellor’s Office • CO not able to help as much • Cannot locate experienced candidate to help with advocacy for possible paid CCCSFAAA Staffer position • Legislators use feedback from their constituents to make decisions • Individual letters are better than single letter from Association to make impact • We are the ones who best know what the new funds means to our Colleges and our students
How to locate your elected officials • Use the websites: • www.assembly.ca.gov • Click “Find My District” • Enter street address, city, zip • www.senate.ca.gov • Click “Senators” • Click “Your Senator” • Enter street address, city, zip
How to locate your elected officials • Use the websites: • www.keepthedoorsopen.org • Click link under “Easy Letter-writer” • Follow steps 1 – 4 • 1: enter address • 2: edit Assembly letter • 3: edit Senate Letter • 4: Save, print and mail letters • Suggest changing letter to make it personal
What to write? • Refer to: Financial aid outreach and administrative capacity money redirected from PFE. • Do not refer to BFAP, they will not understand. • Chancellor’s Office is adamant we use “redirection” and not “augmentation”.
Benefits to our Students • Include personal success story how our students have benefited • Makes students & families aware of financial aid • Hosts Financial Aid Workshops • Offers personalized assistance to students & families navigate the complex application process • Hire more staff to process more applications • Provides information in other languages • Use technology (automation) to meet students needs
Benefits to the College • Improves retention and persistence rates • Helps College reach its goals • Additional staff • Better trained staff • More diverse student body • Outreach materials • Keep up with new technology (new computers and software)
Challenges • The rest of the College really wants the money! • Hiring freezes • Limited experience in media/marketing • Fiscal year started before the funding was secured • Loss of staff at Chancellor’s Office
Who said it was an easy job? Let’s get to work!