Organizing Tip of the Week: Use Gmail to work smarter, not harder

There are tons of reasons why having a Gmail account is a great idea for your SSDP chapter:

• easy to remember & promote
• presents a professional image of your group
• allows more than just one person to access
• preserves institutional knowledge
• ability to utilize other Google services (many chapters find Groups, Documents, Calendar to be particularly helpful)
• and the list goes on...

It's simple and free to create a Gmail account for your SSDP chapter (ex: RowanSSDP@gmail.com). Then, set it up so that your chapter e-mails get forwarded to your regular e-mail inbox (ex: JaneChapterLeader@gmail.com).

It's easy to forget to check multiple e-mail accounts, so once you've set up forwarding, you'll have all of your messages in one central location. I did this for the first time in 2005 when my @umd.edu e-mail address was created. I didn't like the school's mail program so I had it forward to a @gmail.com account I created and I've never used anything else since.


Share responsibility for managing your chapter e-mail with your other officers. Provide them with the password to access your chapter Gmail account, and show them how to set up forwarding for themselves.

Then you'll all be able to see what messages have been sent, received, and which ones still need to be taken care of. Not to mention, future chapter leaders will likely appreciate having so much institutional knowledge categorized and accessible by searching for key terms or names that appear in older e-mails.


Already an avid Gmail user?
Take organizing to the next level by using Gmail filters to tame your inbox. These are especially useful for managing those useful but often high-volume Facebook notifications.

Sneak a peak inside my own inbox.
Watch this short screencast and you'll see how I set up a new filter, then I'll show you my existing filters --I have more than 50!-- that help me manage my e-mail.

(Sidenote: I used this awesome free screencapture program, Jing, to record this. More on screen sharing and other helpful web tools to come!)

I hope you find this information helpful, stay tuned for more organizing tips of the week by subscribing to the Dare Generation Diary and by joining our community on Facebook.

SSDP Tip of the Week: Get Visible on Campus!

Use posters, events, and media to
magnify your chapter's visibility on campus!

We're starting a new series of blog posts aimed at helping you run successful chapters that engage in campaigns, constantly recruit new members, and become the most active and exciting groups on campus. To start things off, here's a lesson on visibility. 

It might seem like a no-brainer, but if you're not promoting your chapter's meetings, events or campaigns, then how will people know to join SSDP? Check out these great and easy ways to make sure people know about SSDP at your school. 

• Posters: Make sure you're putting up flyers every week to promote your chapter's meetings. This simple action is likely to not only increase attendance at your meetings, but it will make sure people are at least familiar with SSDP. If you have members that are talented graphic designers, put them to work! When the posters are printed, make putting them up around campus a fun team effort. 
• Events: Events, small or large, prove to your campus community that SSDP is active and working hard. It doesn't matter if it's a simple movie screening or a day long symposium on the injustice of the drug war, if you're constantly providing the community with opportunities to learn about drug policy, you'll bring credibility to your chapter and awareness to our mission. Events keep your chapter members interested and engaged. In addition to all this, if your chapter is consistently active, it will be hard for anyone on campus to try and stereotype SSDP members (we know the opposition tends to rely on name calling because the facts are on our side!). 
• Events are also great for highlighting campaigns you might be working on and really help to draw in new members that might not otherwise attend a general meeting. For instance, if you're just starting a chapter, consider holding a Know Your Rights movie screening and Q&A before your first meeting. That event is likely to draw in a much more diverse and possibly larger audience than the meeting would, providing you with the perfect opportunity to pitch SSDP and promote your upcoming general meeting!
• Campus Radio and TV: Reach out to shows on your campus radio or television stations and offer to give an interview about SSDP or a relevant drug policy issue. For example, if a medical marijuana bill was recently voted on in your state, that's a great opportunity for you to lend your expertise on the bill. Be proactive - don't wait for them to contact you. Once you're on the show, they're likely to call you back when similar stories arise. 
• Letters to the Editor: Probably one of the easiest ways to increase your chapter's visibility is to frequently submit letters to the editor to your campus paper and local media outlets. As a recognized student group, there is a high probability your piece will be published. Plus, LTE's are generally around 150 words so you can write one in about 10 minutes! 
• Build Coalitions: Research other groups on your campus and reach out to them by offering to combine efforts and work together. Groups working on issues like human rights, criminal justice, personal liberty, the environment, economics and racial injustice all tie into aspects of the drug war. Attend their meetings and see what you can do to help them - not only what they can do to help SSDP. 

I hope you've found this helpful. Each of the items listed here will be expanded on in upcoming "Tips of the Week" so subscribe to the SSDP Blog RSS feed and be sure to read through the SSDP Student Organizing Manual (soon to revised and updated!).