Over 100 leaders from various statewide tea party member organizations met on September 22nd in downtown Richmond at the Delta (Marriott) Hotel to learn how to more effectively advocate for their causes.  They learned how to raise the funds they need through “crowdfunding”, how to run campaigns and campaign communications, how to use social media for all kinds of activism.  They also got the chance to hear a very rousing and motivating speech from our keynote speaker Trevor Loudon.

One new idea was presented by Jack Bertron, chairman of the Louisa VA Tea Party.  He proposed that we write specific pieces of federal legislation that all tea parties can support, and then work together to get our congressmen to sponsor and co-sponsor our bills, push them out of committee and pass them into legislation.  The first step would be for our member tea parties to suggest ideas for federal legislation (more on this to come) and vote on which ones to focus our resources.

FreedomFY gave an excellent presentation on how to raise money from many small donations (known as “Crowdfunding”).  They have created an online application that can unite Freedom Funders with Freedom Fighters.  If you have project that needs funding, whether a campaign, documentary, college scholarship, or anything else that will advance the cause of freedom, you can use crowdfunding to raise the funds you need. 

American Majority also gave workshops on how to run for office, using social media, and campaign communications.  In the Campaign Communications presentation, Ned Ryun showed us how to develop a message and create an outreach plan for voters, media, advertising, and crisis handling. 

We were also proud to present Trevor Loudon as our keynote speaker.  Most of us know about George Soros, but he described how the Democratic Party has also been transformed in recent years by a Marxist who married a billionaire heiress.  He also made the case that the Primary in 2014 between Dave Brat and Eric Cantor saved our nation and has given us a second chance to fix our country.

Some of the other topics presented were:

  • Fighting Voter Fraud
  • Fighting Red Tape and Over-regulation
  • The Federal Budget battle’s implications for Virginia
  • Comparison reports of local Governments’ spending versus results

We thank our sponsors, FreedomFY, FreedomWorks, Independence Institute, The Earnest Patriot, Americans for Prosperity Virginia, Concerned Veterans for America, and the Constitution Party, for helping to make our event possible. If you weren’t there…you missed a good one! Stay tuned to our communications to plan to attend the next summit meeting.

If you attended our Fall Summit, please feel free to provide feedback by taking our survey.