LORETTA KANE'S BIOGRAPHY
Loretta Kane is a partner in Camino Public Relations, which works for positive social change through media advocacy, publicity, communications strategies, marketing campaigns, social marketing initiatives, promotion, and crisis communication. She has dedicated most of her professional life to the struggle for women’s, LGBT and civil rights, including the rights of working people. Her diverse experiences range from serving as communications director for the Carol Moseley Braun for President campaign to communications director of an international, multi-union campaign.
A devoted feminist, Kane culminated her thirteen-year career at the National Organization for Women (NOW) serving as vice president - action (July 2000 to August 2001). She was responsible for the development and implementation of NOW's action programs; the direction of demonstrations of up to hundreds of thousands of participants; the supervision of key issue programs and field projects; and the coordination of grassroots actions by NOW's 500 chapters throughout the nation. She also had fiduciary responsibility for the organization's five million dollar budget. Before assuming the role of vice president, Kane worked on NOW's national staff for a dozen years, and was NOW's chief of staff for field and communications.
Kane is a skilled business professional with more than 20 years of management experience. As a market trainer for a Fortune 500 company, she developed and implemented the entry-level management and staff training programs for 21 restaurants. She also was a store manager with fiduciary responsibility for a high-volume restaurant with a staff of 125 people and annual net sales of $1.7 million.
With outstanding oral and written communications skills, Kane coordinated campaign communications for the Public Services division of the Service Employees International Union (SEIU), one of the largest labor unions in the country. She also was communications director for Planned Parenthood Federation of America, the most influential reproductive rights organization in the country. Currently, Kane works for the 1199SEIU Benefit and Pension Funds as the communications director. She oversees communications, with an emphasis on health information, to some 300,000 1199SEIU members. (She will leave her position at the funds to work full time at Camino PR this summer.)
She is a seasoned organizer and an expert grassroots strategist who has worked with activists in cities and towns across the nation to organize women's health clinic defense projects and to train thousands of people in the techniques of nonviolent action. Kane has traveled the country to aid activists with organizing efforts following terrorism at women's health clinics -- including deadly attacks in Pensacola, Florida and Birmingham, Alabama.
An innovative thinker, Kane conceptualized NOW's Women-Friendly Workplace campaign, which aims to impress upon companies that discrimination is not only bad business, it is bad for business. She coordinated actions to protest harassment in workplaces from brokerage firms on Wall Street to automotive assembly lines in the Rust Belt.
No stranger to electoral politics at the local, state and national levels, Kane has worked in campaigns to elect feminists from coast-to-coast. She has participated in or supervised a number of referendum and ballot measure projects -- including NOW's campaigns to defeat anti-abortion, anti-LGBT and anti-affirmative action referenda. Kane also served as communications director for the 2004 Carol Moseley Braun for President campaign.
Kane has worked on a number of national, mass actions. She served as the deputy director of the 1992 March for Women's Lives and as the director of the 1995 Rally for Women's Lives, the 1996 March to Fight the Right, the World March of Women 2000 and the 2001 Emergency Action for Women's Lives. (With just over seven weeks to organize, the Emergency Action was described by the Washington Post as "the largest abortion rights rally in years.")
Additionally, she has organized countless "zap" actions, rallies, protests, pickets and conferences in Washington, D.C. and has worked with activists across the country on demonstrations and conferences in their communities. Having organized actions and events throughout the United States, Kane is an expert in grassroots organizing, crowd management, logistics and police negotiations.
Ever committed to grassroots activism, Kane worked to improve communications with, and in support of, NOW's 500 chapters. She designed and implemented the "Activist Liaison" program, an innovative system to facilitate two-way communications with activists across the country. She also developed action kits and other materials to assist chapter activists. And she served as the president’s special liaison to NOW’s board members and other grassroots leaders. Kane also is well-versed in utilizing old and new technologies -- including direct mail, blogs, emails, phone banks and "voice blasts" -- to reach and organize grassroots activists.
With expert knowledge of a broad range of feminist and labor issues, Kane has appeared on CNN, Fox News, MSNBC and local stations in Washington and other markets. She has been quoted in the Washington Post, the Los Angeles Times and countless other local newspapers, and in AP and Reuters wire stories carried across the country, as well as in Web publications.
Kane is a writer with many years of experience penning op eds, news releases and statements. She also is a keen media strategist, who has successfully developed and implemented campaign communications plans for nonprofit organizations and candidates for office.
An excellent public speaker, Kane has addressed crowds at community rallies and on college campuses throughout the United States. She also is an experienced trainer who has conducted basic leadership, grassroots organizing, media relations and message strategy training sessions and briefings.
Born in the Bronx, Kane is now a devoted Washingtonian, who is committed to the struggle for D.C. Statehood. She divides her time between her home on Capitol Hill (Washington, D.C.) and her beach apartment in Ocean Grove, NJ. She also is an out lesbian and a "companion human" to Kate and Ali (who are cats).
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