Welcome to Veterans Coalitions Director/Team training Part 2! 

1. Learning the Acronyms & Setting up your Technology

Convention of States uses a lot of Acronyms. Use this Acronym Guide to find the meanings when you run into new ones (Print the Guide)
Open the email asking you to confirm your new COS email account and click the link inside.
Download the COS Action App to your phone (iPhone / Android) and sign into it.
Watch the App Introduction Video.

Watch Telepatriot training videos.

National Training Video

Michigan Training Video

As a Veterans Coalitions Director/Team member (VCD & VCD Team) you have the ability to make telepatriot calls if you want to, but it is not one of your responsibilities.
Join the two Slack Workspaces (Michigan COS & VETS4COS) via the email invitations that you will receive.
Introduction to Slack


2. Convention of States University (3 hrs, 15 min)




COS 300 Convention of States Culture (57 min)
COS 400 Leadership  & Activism (58 min)
LL 200 How to Influence Your Legislator (1 hr 16 min) - As a VCD or VCD Team member you will encourage veterans to build relationship with their legislators. This course will provide you with some useful tactics to pass on.

3. Your District Numbers, State Representative and State Senator


Before you go any further you will need to discover your Representative, Senator, House District (HD), and Senate District (SD). Use the instructions below to find your legislators and district numbers, and save that information somewhere that you will be able to refer to easily. If you already know all four of these things go ahead and move on to step 4.

Find your State Representative and House District

Find your State Senator and Senate District

Print/Download Instructions (text) (text and images)

4. Citizen Builder/Dashboard


Citizen Builder (also known as Dashboard) is where you will find local cos volunteers and veterans as well as where you send email blasts, create pages, polls, surveys, action reports, upload files, and research legislators' Convention of States positions.

Watch Introduction to Citizen Builder for Veterans Coalitions Team



While it is important that you know these tools exist and are at your disposal, don't worry if you don't have them all memorized by the end of this training. This page exists to be a resource you can come back to if you ever need to remember how to do something.

5. Leaders Directory


Leaders Directory is one of your best tools for finding your Veteran's Coalitions Team, your State Leaders, and out-of-state leaders.



Watch Using State Directory to find State Leaders




6. Searching for People and your local volunteer team

The Leaders Directory is awesome, but it won't give you a short and sweet list of all the volunteers and local cos volunteer leaders near you, nor will is show you all the veteran signers in your area. To do those things you will need to go to Dashboard and do a search.

Watch Searching for People in Dashboard




7. Lists

Coming Soon



8. Tags

Coming Soon



9. Files & Pages


Watch How to Create Website Pages
- If you create a page and want to publish it, reach out to your State Director for assistance.
Watch How to Create Files


10. Polls & Surveys


Watch How to Create Polls

Survey Instructions in the works.

11. Action Reports


Action Reports are a critical part of uniting all our individual efforts into one focused movement. They can be made through the COS Action App or the COS Website. Watch the videos below and save/print the instructions for your future reference.

Watch Action Reports from the COS Action app

(COS Action App) Action Report Instructions: Print/Download (text) (text with screenshots)   This still needs to be created
Watch Action Reports from the COS Website
(Website) Action Report Instructions: Print/Download (text) (text and images)
Direct Link for submitting New Action Reports


12. LMS (Legislative Management System)


Watch Training on the LMS


13. Email Blasts



Watch How to Set Up an Email

Watch Email Checklist

Watch Crafting Effective Subject Lines

Read Best Practices


14. Veterans Coalitions Team

Who's who on the VCD Team. The titles on this team are rather confusing so here's a basic breakdown of what they mean.

State VCD:
The State VCD runs the entire VCD Team.

VCD:
VCD work to reach veteran organizations within their Region.

VCD Team:
VCD Team work to reach veteran organizations within their House District.




15. Setting Yourself Up for Success


While you now know pretty much everything you need to get started, the following steps will help you be truly prepared to do this job.

Save your State VCD's contact information and expect to reach out often.
Tony Tarkowski - [email protected] - (248) 709-4100

Plan to attend your state vcd meetings every other Thursday @ 7pm (see Volunteer Calendar for next meeting date & zoom link)
and National VCD Meetings when they come up.


Plan to attend Regional Meetings and get to know your local volunteer team so that you can help them engage with your efforts.

Save the COS Michigan Website to your Browser for quick access.


Familiarize yourself with the Veterans Coalitions Resources Page





If you have completed all these things then call/text/slack/or email your State Director and let him/her know you are ready for your final zoom training.

Sarah Santana - (760) 481-2406 - [email protected]