We quote the report in full:
Directors Report for August 2 LNC meeting
Staffing: There have been several staffing changes:
- Brian McWilliams resigned as Communications Director, with an effective date of July 31.
- Alex Vidal is transitioning from a part time contractor to full time Social Media Manager, with an effective date of August 3.
- A new Communications Director has been hired, with an effective date of August 3. I will have more to say on this during the LNC meeting.
The net increase in staff spending from these changes is less than the savings from Hannah Kennedy moving from full-time to part-time so no increase in the staff budget will be needed.
Freedom Fest: Chair Evan McMahon and I attended Freedom Fest in July. Evan was offered a speaking slot on a panel and a free sponsor package including a booth. Since this was not budgeted for, Evan and I covered our own expenses. We were assisted in staffing the booth by Mimi Robson (LNC R4 rep), Alex Flores (LNC R9 rep) and Greg Hertzsch (LNC R3 alt). We talked to a lot of people over the course of the event. Most people who stopped by took a copy of LP News – far fewer took issue cards. We need better handout literature for events like this. Members who stopped by were very glad to see LP News was back in print, including one of the original major donors to Project Archimedes. Evan appeared on a panel hosted by Larry Sharpe, along with Avens O’Brien and Mike ter Maat. Evan and Avens refuted Mike’s assertion that libertarians needed to work within the two-party system and made the case for working to build a large, effective Libertarian Party. We are planning to return to the event next year with a much larger presence.
LP News: The delay with the Post Office was finally resolved and the issue was mailed July 9. Feedback has been generally positive, especially from long-time members. Monthly LP News sponsorships are up to $1022. We also are running our first ad in the July issue, which was sent to the printer July 29. We have already assembled a significant portion of the content for the August issue, with a target date to send to the printer of August 18. Our goal is to have most members receive their issue by the end of the month, so the target date for September will likely be a bit earlier. Either the August or September issue will test including an inserted reply envelope/donation form. In the past, doing this raised enough to pay for each issue. We intend to find out if that is still the case. The June issue was mailed to current members and members who lapsed in 2025-26. The July issue is being mailed to current members and members who lapsed in 2024 & 2026. There are roughly 2000 members who are not getting LP News, either because they have no address, a bad address with no forwarding address, or are marked Do Not Mail. We will be reaching out via email to those members, both for address corrections and to ask if they wish to remove their DNM flag so they can receive LP News. I will report the result of this in my report for September.
Direct Mail: The direct mail letter that was held up at the post office also dropped on July 9. We have just started getting returns from that letter. The average donation thus far is $113. Our Development Director is working on the next fundraising letter, but that will not go to the printer until we have received sufficient returns from the first letter to assess its effectiveness. The three month in advance expiring member letter was very successful, with a nearly 25% response rate and an average donation of about $90. The long-term lapsed letter dropped on July 20. A few people have used the URL in the letter to renew online but we have not started receiving returns in the mail yet. This letter is the one that contained two glaring errors. We have changed the process for proofreading to prevent this from reoccuring. Now, the responsibility for the final, detailed proofreading rests with the individual who is sending that job to the printer. Our next letter to long-term lapsed members will likely be a minor variation of the next fundraising letter. Any lapsed member (or basic member) who donates at least $25 will automatically become a sustaining member. We are working to automate a process for collecting and reporting hard numbers for each mailing. That report will be distributed in August when complete, and will be included with my monthly report going forward.
Website & Online Donations: I discovered that people who join, renew, or donate online have only been receiving an email receipt, not any sort of thank you. That has been corrected. They are now receiving a separate thank you email after donating. Thank you to Matt Hudson for figuring out how to do this without the need to involve the Zoho consultant. Staff has been updating the website such as replacing obsolete information. Articles from the first issue of LP News are being posted, to be followed by ones from the newest issue. Further updates will be forthcoming, with input from our new Communications Director.
Communications: As noted under Staffing, we have a new Communications Director starting August 3. I will be meeting with him in person August 4 for in-depth discussion and planning on how we want to move forward to improve our internal and external communications, with a major focus on increasing our media visibility. Our goal is that all our communications be boldly LIbertarian while being fully aligned with our Statement of Principles and Platform.
Store: Prices in the store were substantially lowered to be more in line with the market. This has resulted in a major surge in store sales.
Ballot Access:
- Massachusetts: The ballot drive has been completed – 6,320 signatures have been turned in to the towns. Of those, 3,936 (62%) have been validated and picked up. 3,506 of those signatures are valid, which is an 89% validity rate. We only need a 63% validity rate for the remaining signature to meet the 5,000 signature requirement, so we are highly likely to qualify.
- New Hampshire: LP member Stephen Villee is running for Governor, despite opposition from our former affiliate. He and his team have collected sufficient signatures that he should qualify for the ballot (see chart). Rachael Blackfyre is his campaign manager and managed the petition drive. Virtually all of the funding came from the candidate and supporters in New Hampshire – none came from our former affiliate or the LNC.
- Maryland: I have asked both the state chair and treasurer for an updated signature count, but I have not yet heard back from them. Our expectation remains that the drive will be completed in September.
Monthly Membership Report: I expect to receive this by Friday. I will forward it to the list after I review it for errors.
Membership Cards and Pins: Mr. Nekhaila has been helping Iris with this since he returned to the US – he originally purchased the printer and donated it to the LP. The software and drivers have been successfully installed and appear to be working. Some cables needed to be ordered – they should arrive early this week. Matt Hudson has obtained quotes for bulk printing of regular membership cards. We still plan to restart the Membership Card Selfie membership appeals in social media in conjunction with sending out membership cards. Those raised a significant amount of money from 2017-2021.
Weekly Active Membership Reports: At the first meeting of state chairs (August) I will be asking state chairs to confirm that they are all getting these reports. On our end it looks like they should.
Unified Membership Program (UMP): Live testing with Washington State is nearly complete. Everything seems to be working correctly. Once they go fully live, we will open the program to other states. Any state that is interested should email me at steve.dasbach@lp.org. I will also be discussing this at both the Affiliate Support Committee meeting and the August meeting with state chairs.
CRM: Zoho is currently costing us an average of over $4600/month when you add Zoho Marketing Automation and our Zoho consultant to our base Zoho fee. Andy Buchovich has been working on a system that he says will eliminate the need for much of that spending. He hopes to be ready to deploy this in September. I am requiring that any further purchases of time from the Zoho consultant be approved in writing in advance by me.
2026 Convention: All convention bills have been paid, including the final speaker reimbursement and hotel bills. Negotiation by the COC chair did not result in any reduction in those bills. Our communications team has been creating videos of the individual main hall speakers and posting to our YouTube channel. These have been used to create reels for social media.
Committees: All of the members appointed to committees have been added to the appropriate groups and are communicating with each other. Affiliate Support, Candidate Support, and IS have all set their initial meetings.
Incoming comments and info requests: I have asked Iris to BCC me on all responses to incoming communications from info@lp.org, social media platforms, voicemail, etc. for the first week in August so that I can collect data on the types of messages we receive, from where, and how they are being handled.
Texting. Still no progress on texting. Andy and Canyon have been focused on other items described above.
Thank you for your service on the LNC. If you have any questions, please don’t hesitate to reach out to me.
Also, thank you to all our hard-working staff and volunteers.
Steve Dasbach
Executive Director
steve.dasbach@lp.org
(703) 867-4345
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