25372 Malibu Rd. Upstairs

February 2nd, 2008

25372 ½ Malibu Rd. Upstairs

Proctor: Diana Nicholson

Co-proctor: Stephanie Marshall

Minutes: Stephanie Marshall

Meeting open: 2:20pm

1.Welcome to the ZeroPoverty.US Meeting

2.Diana opens the meeting with the founder’s intro that is #2 on the agenda. It will be expanded on in her bio. (10 minutes)

ZeroPoverty.US was founded nearly a year and a half ago in October 2006. At past meetings Diana explained her desire to allocate some of her income towards ending poverty: in her city, in her state, and throughout the entire world (see the explanation from previous meetings). Diana’s passion for ending poverty led her to research non-profit organizations targeting both national and international poverty. The One Campaign and RESULTS told her that they did not take cash donations, but Diana felt that they did have good ideas for taking incentive and ending poverty. She was directed by these other organizations to look at the Millennium Promise website ( which did take cash donations. She then read the Jeffery Sachs book “The End of Poverty” that is discussed on the Millennium Promise website. There were many parts of the book and website that inspired Diana, but the part that hit home the most for her was about the Millennium Declaration that was presented at a the UN Summit in 2000, and was signed by 147 countries including the US. Today there are still several countries that are not living up to the commitment that they made when they signed this declaration. Diana wanted to join a group that would work on upholding this commitment, this promise. She thought that by getting our government to work with its citizens, and recommit itself to doing what it had promised, and follow the Millennium Development Goals, we could be on the road towards ending extreme poverty. But, how would she get people to follow this model, to believe that our country should give money towards a global fund so that we can end extreme poverty? What model could she create that would make the average person see the importance of getting the government to uphold the Millennium Goals on both a national and international level, and also make them want to get involved in her organization? She knew that she needed to start hear, where she lived, in California, and try to convince people that we as Americans needed to take responsibility for our action, and out government’s actions. She designed a template for the Millennium Promise goals along with an agreement to uphold them, and then have it signed by local governments. This is called the Millennium Proclamation. She took it to the Malibu city council in order for them to sign it, and they did. ZeroPoverty.US would like to get at least ½ if not more of the cities in California to sign the Millennium Promise Proclamation that she created, and then the creation of a state referendum would be possible. This would expand to all cities, all states, all nations, etc. until we have the unification of all nations, and could possibly get the UN to have another go at the Millennium Promise. This could also help the United States to recognize the serious issue of extreme poverty in our country, and get the government to start focusing on the problems that extreme poverty has created for us. Diana started her own Meetup Group, which led her to gain members who really enjoy being involved with ZeroPoverty.US and this cause. Her mission was to raise awareness around the issue of extreme poverty and support citizens to take action locally to end extreme poverty.

Her desire to create awareness around the issue of extreme poverty on a national level, and bring attention to the fact that there is extreme poverty in the US drew a lot of attention from her friends and even strangers. It is important to us as a group that we encourage the involvement of every person in this country because it is something that we as members of this nation should be concerned about. We have the potential to give what is needed to end extreme poverty, but we continue to make excuses. The people who are most involved in this organization really believe that we as a nation need to be more aware of what is going on around us, and the fact that if we do not make a significant change there will be consequences. We need to be assertive, and take care of the organizations and institutions that are in place where we live that deal with the problems that poverty creates in order to end extreme poverty. We should tackle the issue of extreme poverty locally and then globally because it is really important to start at the ground level. To read more about Diana’s vision go to: or our website

#3 is the Introductions of the Group Members. (35 minutes)

Diana introduced herself again to start this off. The introductions were right within the time limit (three-minutes). There are a total of 16 people attending this meeting today.

Diana is a Pilate’s instructor at Malibu Health Pilates in Malibu ( and the Executive Director and Founder of ZeroPoverty.US.
Stephanie is the Executive Coordinator, and an employee at Pepperdine University in Malibu, CA.
Rob is an attorney from Tennessee.
Michele is a filmmaker from Malibu, CA.
Ben is the Creative Director, co-founder of ZeroPoverty.US, and a graphic designer.
Arlan is the Director of Global Development at We The World (
Mark is a new attendee, and a supporter of Diana.
Paula is a member who also came with her son Lockland.
Bart is the person who lets us use his house for our meetings he is an injury lawyer in Tennessee.
Diana is a member.
Amy is the Director of Development, and a musician.
The attendees that arrived a little bit after we started the next item on the agenda are Nancy, Al, Charles, and Rayfred.

For our icebreaker we asked people what their reason was for coming to the Zero Poverty meeting. Some attendees said that it was because they wanted to support the organization in its objective to end extreme poverty. Others said it was because extreme poverty is an issue that we fail to address because we put other things first in this country, such as war and financial gain. It is shameful to be poor, but if you support ZeroPoverty.US you support all people in the desire to have basic human rights. Many people may not realize that they are in extreme poverty because our government and the general public fail to recognize that the suffering of those people in this country who:

-Are without adequate medical care

-Have a lack of nutritious food or do not have a constant source of food

-Do not have the means to get a proper education

-Do not have proper shelters to live in and do not have proper protection from the environment

-Suffering from preventable illnesses

-Are suffering from improper prenatal care and cannot get child care

-Are otherwise affected by poverty and the problems it creates

Many of the attendees were here today because they are interested in knowing more about the reasoning behind ZeroPoverty.US, and many attendees offered their help because this is such an important issue.

#4 is the Current Status of ZeroPoverty.US. (10 minutes)

ZeroPoverty.US as an organization has really expanded over the last year. We have gained more members, gotten donations, done several events, and continued to research how to have our proclamation passed, along with several other ongoing projects. It was over a year ago that the first proclamation was signed. ZeroPoverty.US will continue to institute that template in other cities, and use it to encourage the commitment of every city to help to guide people to eliminate extreme poverty.

We are finalizing our website right now. The content will be completed within a week, and the site should be live in about a week and a half. We have the format of the site completely programmed, and it is just the final touches that have taken us some time. We are working non-stop on this because it is so important! There are different types of software that we will be using on the site including software that will help to guide people through the steps of getting the proclamation passed in their cities, and how to help the poor where they live. We also have plans for a special members section, and a blog.
We are currently working with Pepperdine University’s Service and Leadership class in the Business School on a project for marketing and research. We have given them three projects to choose from, and hopefully they will help us to gain a better understanding of whom we are serving, and how we can get more involved in our cause. This is a good opportunity for us to be able to work with an outside source, and get feedback about our current processes and plans. In the future we hope to be a part of internships and projects with other institutions as well.
We currently have 120 members, and growing. We would like to get the people that are at this meeting to go home and talk to one person about what they have heard today, and to invite that person to the next meeting. There is no obligation to become a member, but we asked the attendees to please navigate their friends, family, co-workers, neighbors, etc. to our website if they are interested.
Malibu is the first city to pass the Millennium Proclamation, and we hope that in the next few months other cities will also sign the proclamation. Once the website is up it will be much easier to upload the Proclamation, and there will be detailed instructions on what to do once you have downloaded it.

#5 is ZeroPoverty.US’s Ongoing Goals Including Our Ultimate Goal. (5 minutes)

To submit the proclamation in the capital cities, and to eventually rewrite the law that determines the fate of millions of poor Americans. As Americans we should be able to delegate how the money for the global poverty fund is spent, and whether it should be used to assist the millions of people that are affected by extreme poverty in this country. We also want to raise awareness around the issue’s of extreme poverty particularly homelessness, hunger, lack of adequate medical care, addiction, and mental illness in our communities. The model that we are using to spread awareness, and help change the way that poverty is confronted in this country, will include the Proclamation, and also the support of whatever institutions and organizations are in tact in each community. Our group will work cohesively to actively pursue launching a movement to get our proclamation passed through each capital city, which will hopefully get us statewide support. The commitment that US made when it signed the Millennium Declaration made must be kept. We want to use ZeroPoverty.US as an example of what you can do, and what you should know when it comes to extreme poverty. It is very important for people to understand what is behind the Millennium Declaration, and what the Millennium Declaration Goals are (link to Millennium Declaration and Wikipedia websites). We want to give people the help that they need, and also raise awareness so that this issue will gain recognition. We need to make it more than just an agreement that people sign. We need to get things to happen as well. This is why we need to have our website up and running. We need to have our video done and up on the site, and we need to encourage people to promote us and our cause so that we can make sure that we continue to spread the word. We would like to inspire people everywhere to get the Proclamation passed in their city, and eventually persuade the US government to resign the Millennium Declaration, and take responsibility for overlooking the problem of extreme poverty in this country. We also need to have people’s ideas and feedback about where the money should go if the US was to agree to allocation the .7% towards ending extreme poverty. We are going to be meeting with someone who is experienced in financial planning, and helping to fight extreme poverty, which will be extremely helpful. We need to make alliances with these individuals and other organizations in order to determine who needs the most help in each city so that we can direct people properly. It is important to make an effort to end extreme poverty in your city. So many people suffer unnecessarily because they are not informed or offered the right services.

#6 is ZeroPoverty.US’s Immediate Goals (20 minutes)

Christian our programmer has completed the framework of the site and now needs to fill in. We are almost done with the content. It is going to be designed so that it can easily be editable and updatable as well as very forward when it comes to look and accessibility.
We are working on trying to secure people to do a 5 minute short for our website. This would go on YouTube, FaceBook, MySpace, etc. Anyone that knows of someone who could help us with this and pass our info along. We want the video to be a call to action about our organization and also to let people know what our ultimate goal is. We need people to understand that we have this model that includes the proclamation and outreach that we are doing. We need to create an outline and a list of ideas for this.
We are looking for people who are willing to donate their specific talents, expertise, and time to commit to a weekly meeting when necessary to discuss ongoing projects, goals, and plans. We especially need people who are experienced with fundraising and research. If anyone is interested in contributing to our group please contact Diana at or call (310) 429-1513.

We break for food at 3:30 and reconvene at 3:45

#7 is our question and answer session (about 30 minutes)

Diana reopens the meeting at 3:45.

Arlan from We The World is interested in getting ZeroPoverty.US more involved in the Ending Global Poverty.org volunteer match and global stock exchange. Both are very helpful ways for us to network.
We need to determine what it is we want volunteers to do once we get some. This should be in hardcopy form so that if we were to have an informational session, or be in a volunteer or internship program we would have something concrete to offer.
We were asked what is the goal for the proclamation and for our campaign. We site the Global Warming Initiative as being an example of how our idea can be effectively put into motion. We need those key players that will want to take on our initiative, and able a true supporter.
We also need to ask the question, what can the average person do to get involved, make an impact, raise awareness, and help one another.
Many people offer different ways that they want to help. We are left with a better sense of direction, and the feeling that we will be expanding come next meeting.

What can you do to help ZeroPoverty.US??

#8 Diana closes the meeting by going over the three immediate goals of the organization. (3 minutes)

Website needs to be completion and launch
Plan and implement the ZeroPoverty.US five minute spot and have a video shoot
Pepperdine University Project

#9 Diana makes a closing statement (close at 4:20)

TOTAL MINUTES: 2:20 pm to 4:20 pm = 2 hours