INTERWEAVING COALITION BUILDING, TECHNOLOGY, AND PRO BONO ATTRONEYS:

1. INTERWEAVING COALITION BUILDING, TECHNOLOGY, AND PRO BONO ATTRONEYS: The Story of a Nine-State Project

2. CONTACT INFO Russell Butler Maryland Crime Victims Resource Ctr. Rbutler@mdcrimevictims.org Sunrise AyersIdaho Legal Aid Servicessunriseayers@idaholegalaid.org Marilyn Harp Kansas Legal Services harpm@klsinc.org Mirenda Watkins Probono.net mwatkins@probono.net

3. With funding from the U.S. Dept. of Justice, Office for Victims of Crime (OVC), a cooperative agreement between OVC & Maryland Crime Victims’ Resource Center (MCVRC) created the National Identity Theft Victims Assistance Network. By creating a national network of 10 coalitions, project seeks to build field’s capacity, help provide a coordinated response to problem, improve outreach & capacity of programs to better address ID theft victims’ rights & needs.

4. Part of a Large & Diverse Network • Arizona Identity Theft Coalition coordinated by AZ Attorney General’s Office • Identity Theft Advocacy Network of Colorado coordinated by CO Bureau of Investigation • Finger Lakes (NY) Identity Theft Coalition coordinated by Lifespan • Idaho Coalition Against Identity Theft coordinated by ID Legal Aid Services • Minnesota Identity Theft Coalition coordinated by BWLAP • NYC Identity Theft Coalition coordinated by South Brooklyn Legal Services • South Carolina Identity Theft Network coordinated by SC Victim Assistance Network • Texas Identity Theft Network coordinated by TX Legal Services Center • Washington Identity Theft Alliance coordinated by WA Coalition of Crime Victim Advocates • Wisconsin Identity Theft Network coordinated by Coalition of WI Aging Groups

5. Goals & Activities of the Coalitions • Awareness: Community outreach/public awareness campaigns • Professional Education: training of service professionals in region • Systems-Change: improved inter-agency infrastructure, coordination, referrals

6. Website: identitytheftnetwork.org Twitter: twitter.com/IDTheftNetwork Facebook: facebook.com/IdentityTheftNetwork

7. Resources Online

8. Coalition Building Tips Learned in Creating the Idaho Coalition Against Identity Theft

9. Idaho Coalition Against Identity Theft • What is it? • Who is on the Coalition? • Most importantly, why? • Identity theft is a growing problem in Idaho. • Seniors are often particularly vulnerable to identity theft. • Victims in Idaho were not being served in a coordinated fashion

10. Is a Coalition Appropriate for Your Project or Targeted Group? Are you having trouble gaining attention to an issue/problem/under-served group that you think is important? Are you going to need expertise from several disciplines or from both public and private entities? Does your organization have limited staff and budget but your project will have high manpower needs? Have you identified a problem but need community information and feedback to create a solution? Are there several groups already trying to serve this population or address this problem, but they are not working together?

11. Step Two: Find out what is already out there! Is there already a coalition working on this exact issue? Is there a coalition that covers a broader topic that could encompass your issue? Is there a specific organization devoted to your issue? Have there been prior efforts to form a coalition around this issue or target population? Why was it unsuccessful? Are there coalitions like the one you are seeking to create in other states/jurisdictions that can share resources, materials?

12. Determine Coalition Membership Have a brainstorming session with a small group: Choose 4-8 categories that will benefit your Coalition For example: Healthcare, Education, Financial, Businesses, Nonprofits, Senior Service Providers, Law Enforcement, Government Agencies, etc. Under each category, list 1-5 specific organizations under each of these subcategories: Local, Statewide, Regional, Federal/National Research membership lists for similar coalitions: do you see members you missed in your brainstorming session Review your list and ask if this list covers: representatives from your target population, community leaders, groups whose participation will be critical to the success of your Coalition.

13. Resources Determine Staffing and Resources Staffing Who will be the Coalition’s “leader” or “coordinator” and what responsibilities will they have? How much time will the project coordinator need to devote to the Coalition during development and then on an ongoing basis? Will the Coalition coordinator or a support staff person be available to take meeting minutes, send out correspondence and emails, etc? Does your Coalition have a Budget? Will use of project funds be determined by the Coordinator or by Coalition vote? Does your Coalition have a place to meet? If you lack a budget – are organizations on the Coalition willing to donate meeting space, printing, paper, or postage?

14. Other Recruitment Recruit Coalition Members Invite Letter Create a list based on your brainstorming session Acquire addresses or email addresses Draft an invite letter that explains: What the problem is Why the Coalition is needed to address the problem How the Coalition can benefit members Details of the first meeting How to get more info Announce formation of the Coalition at other meetings, groups you participate on Send out a press release Post information about the first Coalition meeting on your website and in your organization’s newsletter It never hurts to have refreshments available, at least for this initial meeting!

15. Work Out the Details How often will your coalition meet? What are your expectations of coalition members? What activities will your coalition engage in, especially during its first year? Should a needs assessment be done? Would your coalition benefit from assigning additional leadership positions? Would your coalition benefit from developing subcommittees? How do coalition members prefer to receive information and updates from you?

16. Mission, Goals, Objectives Develop a mission statement – sets out the purpose of your coalition Goals: General outcomes you hope to produce due to your Coalition’s work Objectives: Specific outcomes as a result of specific action items Idaho Coalition Against Identity Theft

17. More on Membership Once you have recruited some members, send out a second invite letter touting existing members Consider size of your membership – should be small enough to be manageable, but large enough to have diverse views represented at each meeting and given realties that not every member can attend each meeting. Keep members involved

18. Sustainability Brag about Coalition accomplishments Make sure members know: 1) Specific things they can do to help the Coalition 2) Ways in which the Coalition benefits them as a member Have regular meetings Have an agenda Respect people’s time Encourage participation of all members Distribute minutes or meeting summaries Develop action items with specific deadlines If coalition starts to lose direction or focus, can do another round of strategic planning to create new goals or objectives as needed If budget is small or nonexistent, create action items that are realistic given funding restraints Want to ensure you have accomplishments you can brag about! See above!

19. Mistakes to Avoid Don’t have one person doing all the work Delegate! Ask coalition members to give reports on their assigned projects/tasks periodically Don’t overwhelm your members Emails Responsibilities/Requests for help But . . . Also don’t give them the chance to tune out Use surveys or agency updates to keep folks involved If the nature of your membership changes, you may need to change goals, objectives, and subcommittees Stay informed and keep your coalition members informed – keep in the forefront of their minds why your issue is still so important Share media stories Have a member of the target/affected population come speak at a meeting

20. Why Coalitions Work You educate key community members about the specific nature and dynamics of an issue that they may only have a superficial understanding of You raise awareness of your issue or target population so that Coalition members start addressing it at their home agencies/organizations as well You access manpower and resources that you may lack at your individual agency You can accomplish a lot with limited time and resource commitment You identify gaps in community services by seeing who is not at the table You can gain credibility and media access for your cause through your coalition

21. Sunrise AyersIdaho Legal Aid Servicessunriseayers@idaholegalaid.org208-345-0106 Questions?

22. ID Theft Collaborative • NITVAN/MCVRC, Kansas Legal Services & Pro Bono Net created & launched online assistance resources for identity theft victims.Creates letters that mirror the letters the FTC created. • Kansas Legal Services & NITVAN/MCVRC—developed the interviews • Pro Bono Net/LawHelp Interactive provides the back end to serve the interviews, and worked with partners to come up with a set of staging pages & FAQs to create in the LSC funded statewide websites. • Pro Bono Net & NITVAN/MCVRC are doing outreach to attempt to get these forms posted in all 50 states.

23. 3 ID Theft Forms being shared Nationally Using LawHelp Interactive • Identity Theft Interactive Forms • Letter to Creditor - Use this interactive interview for responding to someone collecting a bill that is in your name, but a bill you did not authorize. • Letter to Debt Collector - Use this interactive interview for responding to a company or law firm that is a debt collector, orcollecting a bill that is in your name but you did not authorize. • Letter to Credit Bureau - Use this interactive interview to create a letter to a credit bureau, seeking investigation and removal from your credit report of items that are the result of identity theft.

24. States linking to the ID Theft Forms • Arizona • Arkansas • Florida • Georgia • Idaho • Kansas • Maryland • Minnesota • North Carolina • New York • Oklahoma • South Carolina • Texas • Washington Find the up-to-date list of online assistance in your state: identitytheftnetwork.org/victim-assistance

26. What is LawHelp Interactive? • A national server available to legal non profits to create, post, and then serve online interviews that create legal documents in an easy, friendly way • A training center, and a best practices engine

27. Advocates or self-represented litigants answer questions during an interview. A personalized document is created from the answers. The answers can be saved and reused. What is Law Help Interactive?

28. Online Forms/LawHelp Interactive • Since 2005, LHI has served over 2.2 million interviews and assembled over 1.3 million legal documents. • On a daily basis, LHI generates approximately 1,194 legal documents per day, and serves approximately 2, 343 interviews (HD and A2J Author) per day. • 7, 280 documents were emailed through LHI by its users in Q1 2013 • Top five states continue to be: New York, California, Texas, Illinois, and Kansas • Move to increase remote work flows

29. LHI Forms utilization 2012

30. Step by Step Guide

31. To find the bona fide information/referral webpages • All states have a Legal Services Corporation approved webpage • The webpages are a portal to free, quality legal information • http://www.lawhelp.org links you to any of these websites for the US • http://identitytheftnetwork.org/victim-assistance/resource-map has a nice map of resources available for ID theft per state

32. To find more about how to create online forms using LawHelp Interactive • Claudia Johnson, cjohnson@probono.net • Mirenda Watkins, mwatkins@probono.net • http://www.probono.net/lhi LHI Resource Center • For courts-to find about licensing directly to LHI, Adam Licht alicht@probono.net and Claudia Johnson cjohnson@probono.net

33. How to get the Staging Page for your use? harpm@klsinc.org Kansas Legal Services Marilyn Harp

34. STAGING PAGE CONTENTS • What is Identity Theft? • Identity Theftis the largest consumer complaint filed with the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) annually.  If you have been the victim of identity theft, it could mean someone has used your name to: • make purchases, • get credit cards • rent an apartment or • obtain utilities without your permission.

35. STAGING PAGE How Might it Impact Me? • Even if you are able to resolve a financial identity theft issue with your bank, this use of your name and credit history can result in you getting collection letters for things you did not purchase.  • It can also result in unfavorable entries on your credit report, causing you problems in getting credit or paying a higher interest rate. • Becoming the victim of an identity theft can be a complicated and frustrating time in your life.

36. STAGING PAGE What Can I Do? • The Federal Trade Commission has created letters (in this booklet) that consumers can use to notify a debt collector or credit bureau of the theft of your identity. • To use the letters, you must first report the crime of identity theft to the police.  You do not need to know the name of the person who used your identity. You show the police the debt collection letters or other re the victim of this crime. 

37. STAGING PAGE • Forms • Letter to Creditor • To use the interactive interview for responding to someone collecting a bill that is in your name, but a bill you did not authorize, you will need a copy of the bill in hand when you start the interview.  • You will also need to provide a copy of your proof of your identity.  • Click below to use the interactive interview for a Letter to a Creditor, directly collecting their own bill.  This might be a credit card statement you received that contains charges you didn’t make or authorize.  It can be any situation where your credit or identity was used without your permission. Letter to Creditor – Identity Theft

38. STAGING PAGE Letter to Debt Collector • To use the interactive interview for responding to a company or law firm that is a Debt Collector, or collecting a bill that is in your name but you did not authorize, you will need a copy of their letter in hand when you start the interview.  • You will also need to provide a copy of your police report and proof of your identity, by copying these and putting them in the letter.  Click below to use the interactive interview for a Letter to Debt Collector. Letter to Debt Collector – Identity Theft

39. STAGING PAGE Letter to Credit Bureau • To use the interactive interview to create a letter to a Credit Bureau, seeking investigation and removal from your credit report of items that are the result of identity theft, you will need a copy of your credit report in hand when you start the interview.  • You can obtain a free copy of your credit report from each credit bureau here. (https://www.annualcreditreport.com/cra/index.jsp) You do not have to pay for a copy of your credit report.  One credit report from each company is available to you free each year.  • You will mail the letter and attachment, a copy of your credit report with the incorrect items circled, a copy of the police report you made of the identity theft and proof of your identity with the letter.  • Click below to use the interactive interview for a Letter to a Credit Bureau.Letter to Credit Bureau – Identity Theft

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