- Email should include a salutation (e.g., “Dear X,”)
- Emails should begin with “My name is [YOUR NAME] and I am a resident of [NEIGHBORHOOD/BOROUGH/CITY].”
- Emails should end with:
[YOUR NAME]
[YOUR ADDRESS]
[YOUR EMAIL]
[YOUR PHONE NUMBER] - Emails should be first-person (e.g., “I demand…” not “We demand…”)
- Remove hashtags
- We are amplifying calls to defund the police, not reform them. The core message should be a direct statement to defund the police. Specific demands for reforms (e.g., policing tactics and training) will be removed.
- Make the email specific to your city/county. Please include sources for this information. Some suggestions:
- Can you include dollar amounts or percentages of how much of the budget goes to the police, in comparison to other community programs, initiatives, or infrastructure?
- Can you write about a specific recent event in your city that highlights the flaws of your police department?
- Can you include information about local economic issues (e.g., existing budget shortfalls, inequities in economic security or outcomes)?
- If an email widely pulls in other issues or hones in on something very specific (e.g., funding being reallocated to a single, specific category rather than a more general array of social services), try to generalize. People using this tool can customize their emails to be more specific should they choose.
- Sample language: “I urge you to advocate for a meaningful reallocation of the city's expenditures: away from policing, and towards social programs and resources that support housing, jobs, education, health care, child care, and other critical community needs.”
- Avoid using police framing of community problems, i.e. “crime.” Instead of summarizing social programs as being more effective than policing at “reducing crime,” say that they are more effective at “promoting community safety.”
- When referring to racial or ethnic identities, capitalize the identifying word, e.g., "Black Americans", "Latinx residents", "White people".
- Avoid referring to the email sender as a "citizen" or "voter". Not all senders may be citizens or voters.
To determine what emails to include, in the U.S., typically the Mayor and City Council determine the budget for the following year (source: National League of Cities). However we recommend looking up the budget process for your local government.
https://defund12.org/santabarbara
People's Budget LA
New York City Anti-Violence Project
NYC Budget Justice
Black Visions Collective and Reclaim the Block
Philly We Rise
Unite Oregon
8toAbolition
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