This document describes how you can work with U. S. Health Care Reform to establish an email list to help you communicate with your network of activists and organizations. U. S. Health Care Reform offers this service to the health care reform organizations.

Other Sources of Email Lists

To help foster the effective use of electronic mail ("email") among activists in the World Wide Web health care reform community, U. S. Health Care Reform hosts email lists for groups of activists who have access to email and wish to use an email list as an organizing tool. Creating an email list is easy, but there are some minimum requirements we ask that you meet with respect to training, list moderation, and list size. Below is all the information you need to establish an email list with U. S. Health Care Reform, including a simple form to start your own.

Note:  We can host email lists predominantly related to health care reform.  

What are email lists? Why do people use them?
An email list is a tool that makes it easy to reach multiple email addresses (people!) by sending a message to a single email address. This single email address "contains" the email addresses of all the people you want to communicate with on the specific mailing list. When any member of the list sends a message to the address of the mailing list, everyone on the list automatically receives the email message.

Anyone with an email address that can be reached via the Internet-including email addresses through commercial online services (America Online, CompuServe) and other Internet Service Providers (IGC, local providers, etc.)--can be added to an email list. There is no need for list members to have special software; the mailing list software runs on U. S. Health Care Reform's Internet computer (our "server"). Email lists are often referred to as "listservs" or "majordomos" (the names of two popular mailing list software packages), or sometimes "conferences".

We feel that email lists are most useful for groups of people (typically 10-50) who are organized around a specific subject or interest area, and need to communicate regularly for organizational purposes. Email lists can be used for mundane purposes like scheduling meetings, forwarding "FYI" information, and simple notifications. Or, it can be used to carry on online "conversations" in which group decisions can be made, documents reviewed, and feedback gathered. In general, email lists are a convenience; reaching everyone you need to reach via a single email address is much easier than remembering all the email names of the individual participants in the list, particularly as people tend to change email addresses rather frequently. Furthermore, an email list allows every member of the group to easily communicate with every other member of the group; because the list of subscribers is centrally maintained, there is no need for each person to maintain their own "address book" of group members' email addresses.

As you use the email list, you will find that it will help you form an "online community" of like-minded people who you can rely on for information and assistance. If used properly, you'll find your email list to be an efficient, effective tool in your health care reform work.

Establishing an Email List with U. S. Health Care Reform
To create an email list for your group, we need some basic logistical information from you. More importantly, we need a commitment from you to effectively manage and operate the list. This takes some time on the list owner's part, but we have see that effective use of an email list can have a bottom-line impact on the environment.

And while we don't "charge" for the set up, hosting, and maintenance of these lists, they do pose a significant cost to U. S. Health Care Reform. We therefore ask your organization to contribute a suggested amount annually to help support the staff time and infrastructure required for this program. These suggested amounts are based on the number of subscribers to a particular list, and cover only a fraction of the cost of the actual time and equipment needed to administer the lists.

Here are the recommended minimum amounts ($USD):

We will send out annual reminders in January of each year - please feel free to prorate this year's contribution, if you like.

Checks can be made payable to Stephen Swoyer - U. S. Health Care Reform.

Please feel free to contact us if you have any questions about this.

We have identified two types of lists that meet two activist communications needs:

1) Interactive List (many-to-Many)
The most effective email lists consist of a relatively small number of people working collaboratively. Interactive lists are designed for focused discussion around a predetermined topic. The list owner takes an active role in leading discussion, defining goals, and generally making the communication worth everyone's time. We ask you to limit the size of your email list to no more than 50 subscribers.

2) Broadcast List (One-to-Many)
Great for disseminating information infrequently to larger groups of people, broadcast lists can look like metaphorical newsletters or action alerts. One person - the list administrator - is responsible for gathering, distilling, and publishing relevant messages to the list. These broadcast need to be frequent enough to maintain the list subscriber's interest, but not so often as to overwhelm the audience. Once every week or two is a rough estimate.

To set up an email list for your organization or activist network, we require that you designate an "Owner" of the list, and also provide some basic information about the purpose of the list and the people who will be on it. Below is the specific information we need from you; please fill out the form below, and (assuming that the list meets our criterion) create and activate your list.  We try to process these requests in no more than three days; your patience is appreciated. If we have questions or need clarification we'll contact the administrator listed in the application.

Note: To effectively manage the technical aspects of the lists we host, and to identify opportunities for helping list participants use their list more effectively, staff members of U. S. Health Care Reform automatically subscribe to all lists. All communication via these lists is kept strictly confidential to the participants. Please contact U. S. Health Care Reform if you have any questions or concerns about this policy.

List Owner Information
Email lists are most effective when someone on the list actively takes responsibility for its operation, and works with the people on the list to keep the flow of information valuable and efficient. Without this management, email lists can quickly become useless, either because of too much low-value email, or too little email to make the list worth belonging to. In addition, if there is a technical problem with the list, it is important that it be resolved quickly by an individual who has received training from us on how to resolve the issue.

Therefore, each organization requesting an email list from U. S. Health Care Reform must designate an individual who will serve as the "owner" of the list. We will provide informal training and reference materials to the List Owner, who will be responsible for the day-to-day management of the email list: adding new names, helping list members with problems, ensuring a productive flow of information, etc. The List Owner will also be our point-of-contact on all technical issues.

Please provide the following:

Other Sources of Email Lists

Here are some other organizations that can provide you with free or low-cost email lists. 

Topica (http://www.topica.com ) is one of the largest providers of free, ad-supported email list hosting services.  Offeres excellent Web-management and archiving tools.

Listbot (http://www.listbot.com): A service of LinkExchange, a part of the Microsoft Network, Listbot offers free email lists (with advertising embedded), extensive Web-based administration and archiving.

eGroups (http://www.egroups.com): like Listbot and Topica, eGroups offers free, ad-supported email lists.

An even more extensive listing of email list providers can be found at:
    http://catalog.com/vivian/mailing-list-providers.html

06/29/01

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