Current Campaigns

About the Fair Share Campaign

To help working families and build a stronger economy for all of us, we need good public schools for our children, affordable higher education and a transportation system that gets people to work and customers to businesses. However, after decades of tax cuts on corporations and wealthy Americans, MA is facing a major structural deficit and doesn’t have enough resources to invest in education and transportation. Thus, with our partners in Raise Up we are organizing for a “fair share tax” on the wealthy to tax income over 1 million dollars 4% higher. This will raise over $1.3 billion to improve our schools, make higher education more affordable, and fix our crumbling transportation system.

This campagn is an opportunity of a generation to make systemic economic change – to create an economy where we all contribute to a future of abundance for our children. Our faith traditions teach us that all things belong to God, and that as stewards of land and wealth, we each have a responsibility to help build a beloved community where every one of God’s children can thrive.

The first step in this process is collecting 65,000 signatures Sep–Nov 2015, qualifying us for the ballot in 2018 for a constitutional amendment. We will lay the groundwork towards a breakthrough on fair and adequate revenue, by educating our grassroots leaders on budget cuts and the needs of our communities. We will also have to win the votes of 50 of the 200 legislators in 2016 and 2017 before it goes to the ballot in 2018.

Resources

Faith & Clergy Resources

Faith communities around the state are invited to hold Signature Sabbaths, services that include preaching the social teachings of our faiths, education about the amendment, and an opportunity for congregants to sign the Fair Share petitions and sign up to help gather more.

To make your participation as easy as possible, we have created a Signature Sabbath resource guide. Click on any link below to download and print a copy of the material.

• — Full Signature Sabbath 2015 Packet
  — Faith Talking Points for the Fair Share Campaign, developed by clergy across the state. We will be using this to understand and connect this campaign to the teachings of our faith traditions.— Resource for Clergy – Sermon Starter Guide
  — Signature Sabbath How-To Planning Guide
  — Sample Congregation In-Person Announcement or Bulletin Text
  — Sample Agenda for a Planning Meeting— Petition Gathering Helpful One-Liners
  — Fair Share Campaign FAQ
  — Volunteer Sign-Up Form
  — Mail-In Voter Registration Form
  — 501(c)3 Congregations Can Support Ballot Questions

Race & The Fair Share Campaign Resources

Some of our staff of color at MCAN have drafted a resource to think about the ways that inequality and state budget cuts primarily hurt the most marginalized populations in our state, and how this campaign begins to shift the resources and power to benefit communities of color.

The link below is a working document, and we’re open to additions and revisions. Please email info@mcan-pico.org with comments.

• — Racial Analysis Talking Points for the Fair Share Campaign

Raise Up Materials

Here are the signature collection resources created by our partners at Raise Up Massachusetts. Click on any of the links below to download a copy of each material.

• — Signature Gathering Outline (also available in Haitian Creole, Vietnamese, Portuguese, and Spanish)
  — Fair Share Amendment Fact Sheet (also available in Haitian Creole, Vietnamese, Portuguese, and Spanish)
  — Signature Do’s and Don’ts (also available in Haitian Creole, Vietnamese, and Portuguese)
  — Signature Collection Event Planning How-To
  — Official Letter of Permission for Signature Collection in Public Places

While most of the resources you need are printable from this website, you can only get Fair Share Petitions from the campaign itself. Please email info@mcan-pico.org for petition sheets and we will mail them to you ASAP.