WAGE CLUB/SAMPLE EMAIL TO LOCAL LEADERS

Dear [name of national organization] leader

[Name of national organization] is pleased to invite you to join an exciting grassroots effort designed to help close the wage gap and get women paid fairly. As you know, the wage gap costs women and their families dearly. Women lose between 700,000 and 2 million dollars over the course of their lifetimes because of the wage gap. Women of color experience especially harsh pay disparities, with full-time African American women workers getting only 68 cents and Hispanic women paid only 57 cents for every dollar earned by their male counterparts. These losses are personal, and add up to missing paychecks, pensions, and basic security that women need and deserve.

Equal Pay Day, Tuesday April 24 ^th, 2007, is an important opportunity for us to highlight the importance of closing the wage gap. However in order to draw attention to the persistent wage gap year round, we hope you will join us in a groundbreaking project to increase grassroots attention to this important issue impacting working women.

[Name of organization] is excited to announce that we are participating in a new approach to this longstanding problem. In collaboration with the WAGE Project [www.wageproject.org], the national project designed to close the wage gap, and the National Committee on Pay Equity [www.pay-equity.org], [name of national organization] invites you to join us as we launch WAGE Clubs in communities nationwide. Wage Clubs are groups of 5-10 women who come together in a safe place to support one another as they share personal stories, discuss discrimination at work, gather information, build allies, then go to the top to create change.. We would like you to join this effort by committing to launch a WAGE Club

Launching a WAGE Club is easy. Simply set a date, invite women, and your WAGE Club is off and running.  Using Getting Even, a book authored by Dr. Evelyn Murphy, the WAGE Project founder, and a group discussion guide developed by the WAGE Project, WAGE Club members gather regularly to participate in a series of discussions and strategy sessions to help each other take action to close the wage gap in their workplaces. If you commit to launching a WAGE Club with [name of local organization], you will be part of a nationwide media strategy designed to raise awareness about the wage gap and this new grassroots effort. Please contact [name of national organizational contact] by [Deadline] so we can start working together on this important project.  We look forward to working with you to launch your WAGE Club as we all work to help women get paid what we deserve.

[Name of National Organizational Contact]