Early this morning, President Bush vetoed the Labor-HHS-Education bill, rejecting billions of dollars in FY2008 education and social services funding-some of which would go to support services for unemployed and underemployed women.

The House cleared the Labor-HHS-Education conference report for the President on Thursday night. Like the Senate vote the day prior, the House vote fell short of the two-thirds majority that will be needed to override the President's veto.  (Click here to see how your Representative voted in the House.  Click here to see how your Senators voted.)

What's Next: Either this week or possibly after Thanksgiving, the House and Senate will each hold another vote to attempt to override the President's decision.  If the veto override is unsuccessful, Congress will have to compromise with President Bush on the budget.  This means potentially making many of the deep cuts the Administration proposed earlier this year to job training, career and education, and other programs that help unemployed and underemployed women. 

Your help will be needed to pass a veto override the House and Senate by a two-thirds majority -- that is, by 289 votes in the House and 67 votes in the Senate if all members are present.  Be on alert for an Action Works! email with instructions on how to protect funding for programs that help women in economic transition!

Final conference report numbers for programs that support women in economic transition are detailed here.

Engaging clients in advocacy can lead to enormous pay-offs both for your clients and for your organization. When a client tells her story, it resonates more deeply with decision-makers because she is speaking from personal experience.  And, advocacy can be extremely empowering for clients as well.

This month's Advocacy Toolkit installment is all about helping clients find their inner advocate.  The tool provides tips for getting starting, basic tactics, and suggestions on how to navigate the obstacles that sometimes make client advocacy difficult.  We hope it will inspire you to make advocacy an integral part of your program.

Advocacy Toolkit Section 4: Engaging Clients in Advocacy

Updated Table of Contents

What is the Women Work! Advocacy Toolkit?

The Advocacy Toolkit is designed to give Women Work! members all the skills they need to be successful advocates for women's economic justice and equality.

Women Work! will release a new installment of the Advocacy Toolkit in the first Economic Equity Insider of every month until July 2008. Each month, download and print the latest tool -- including templates and sample documents you can customize for your own advocacy projects -- to produce a complete toolkit. We have also provided a cover and a table of contents that will be updated each month as we add new tools to the toolkit.

Visit www.womenwork.org to download earlier installments of the Women Work! Advocacy Toolkit.