Use this as an opportunity to explain the mission of STAND and discuss your core beliefs and objectives. STAND’s mission is to empower women to act politically to promote peace, equality, and progressive social change. This mission statement is somewhat broad for the purpose of catering to the needs of students in your specific area.

STAND is a program of WAND, whose mission is to empower women to act politically to reduce militarism and violence, and redirect excessive military resources toward unmet human and environmental needs. To gain endorsement from WAND, all actions and involvement must support this mission.

Discuss issues you would like to focus on and what you want to accomplish. You will need to decide what type of activities to have at your meetings. STAND has a political focus so you may want to have some type of discussion about current events. You will want to have social activities and educational programs especially in smaller communities.

Group discussions are also excellent ways of helping people to get to know one another. They are inexpensive and easy to organize compared with other activities. If you need ideas for discussion, contact your local WAND chapter or the national field office. Give everyone an opportunity to speak without having any one person dominate the conversation.

Select your group’s leaders and assign responsibilities. At one of the early meetings nominate and elect officers and establish rules of order to help control the meetings. The officers of STAND are the President, Vice-President, Secretary, and the Treasurer.

You might consider inviting people from other organizations to come speak to your chapter about a certain issue. Political, peace, and women’s groups are quite willing to do so on occasion. You might also screen movies, which may be of interest to the group such as major releases with student, women or pacifist themes, educational tapes and the like. Activities involving the outdoors are usually fun such as hikes, picnics, a day at the beach or mountains, a group trip or maybe a backyard barbecue at a member's home.

Write down your basic agenda for each meeting with what you hope to accomplish. The agenda might revolve around elections, helping to support or defeat candidates, raising awareness of bills before Federal or State Legislatures, fundraising, and participating in conferences or public events that will advance public awareness of STAND and its causes.

Pass the hat at those meetings where you have an objective planned that requires funds. Brainstorm ideas to fundraise (suggestions are included later). Time and effort are as valuable as money and are significant contributions.

Urge people to get involved, but do not demand it. Let people speak. This enhances their public speaking ability and lets them know that their opinion is valued. Each person has to get some self-satisfaction from the groups' meetings and activities or she may drop out.

Keep the group focused on specific objectives and activities that it can successfully accomplish with the resources that it has. You cannot change the world or the political system overnight. Avoid vague theories and concentrate on specific courses of action that will accomplish a particular objective.

Every STAND chapter will eventually be in need of funding. The best way to see that there is adequate money to meet the chapter's needs and goals is through fundraising. There are many ways to do this. The following are some ideas to use for the raising of funds for your chapter:

Charge for a social event, dance, speaker or party

50-50 raffle

Bake sale

Car wash

Rummage/white elephant/yard sale

Raffle tickets for a specific purpose (this usually nets you what you need and then some, however, if you are incorporated and/or have tax-exempt status, your money is then locked into that specific purpose and may not be used for any other purpose.)

Membership month-During this month, all dues for paying STAND members are retained by the chapter.

Applying for grants

Here are a few websites that may be helpful.
http://www.fundraiser.org/
http://www.fundraisingbazaar.com/
http://www.fund-raising.com/

Also, almost any public library in your city will have a section on volunteer organizations. There are a number of books available on grassroots fundraising for small organizations.

Coalition partners share information with each other, attend each other’s meetings, and organize events and activities together, forming a “united front” in defense of issues they care strongly about. Forming a coalition can enable you to achieve goals more easily and quickly reach out to other organizations that wouldn’t normally hear your message.

Like-minded progressive organizations will be the most obvious coalition partners, but don’t rule out unlikely candidates before you speak with them.