In order to fulfill our mission to raise awareness and advocate for the increased U.S. commitment to global child survival efforts, the US Coalition for Child Survival focuses on three main objectives:

•  Serve as a leader and convener in the child health community for helping to resolve the child survival crisis;

•  Expand the capacity of Coalition members to serve as credible, well-informed, and committed practitioners and advocates;

•  Engage key U.S. policymakers to encourage increased support of child survival programs and funding.

The Coalition staff engages in a wide variety of activities to support each of these objectives:

•  Developing factsheets on the basic challenges facing children around the world

•  Organizing trainings on message development, advocacy strategies, grassroots development, and other relevant topics of interest

•  Providing briefings to policymakers’ staff on child health issues

•  Expressing support for child survival legislation and annual appropriations for child health programs by organizing group sign-on letters to leaders in Congress and the administration

•  Coordinating a speakers bureau through which a variety of experts raise awareness about child health issues

•  Facilitating communications with major media outlets to encourage increased media coverage, while serving as a resource for interested journalists

•  Tracking coverage of global child health issues and providing links to relevant articles, publications, and events through daily updates on the Coalition’s Web site and a free, biweekly e-mail newsletter

Although the Coalition does not provide direct services or make grants to other organizations, we help our members bridge the gap between project implementation and child survival advocacy through these activities.