No one has had more of an impact on my political and professional career than Morton Blackwell. I met Morton at the 1976 Republican National Convention when I was an 18-year-old Youth for Reagan volunteer staffer. He invited me to what is now called the Youth Leadership School (this was pre-Leadership Institute) and then placed me as a youth coordinator in a congressional campaign that fall. I spent my spring break the next year pulling material out of Mortons attic and putting together the first Sourcebook (for the training school) that was indexed (this was a major improvement). That same year, I stayed in Mortons home during the summer and worked as the Field Director for his PAC, then called the Committee for Responsible Youth Politics. The next year (1978), I was at the post-election gathering (at Mortons then brand-new cabin, the Briar Patch) where Morton said he was thinking about separating the training school from the PAC and creating a nonprofit foundation. He asked for our opinion and we all thought it was a great idea. Soon thereafter, the Leadership Institute was born. I came to Washington after (finally) graduating from college in 1980 to work for Bruce W. Eberles direct mail company. Bruce and his staff taught me direct mail fundraising and launched my career. Bruce also had a huge impact on my career. During this time, Morton invited me to join the board of directors of his political action committee, now called Conservative Leadership PAC, on which Ive served for 34 years. In 1993, I joined the staff of the Leadership Institute and began to learn about the low volume, high dollar direct mail system Morton created. As luck (or, more likely, Providence) would have it, this system fit my style of writing perfectly and we had good success building LIs direct mail program. I was proud to serve on LIs staff for 10 years and Im equally proud to continue working with LI as a consultant and as a volunteer speaker at LI schools. In 2005, David Bufkin, Robert Stuber and I founded ClearWord Communications Group, which specializes in the type of high dollar direct mail program I learned from Morton. Over the past 9 1/2 years, ClearWord has helped dozens of the countrys most effective conservative and free market organizations raise the funds to advance liberty and promote Americas founding principles of limited government, free markets, individual liberty, and a strong national defense. While speaking at LIs International School of Fundraising in England a couple of years ago, I said that I had written more fundraising letters for Mortons signature than Morton had written for his signature. Morton was in the audience when I said this, and afterwards he said I was probably right. Happy Birthday, Morton. No one has had more influence on the lives of more people than you have. Be sure to watch the video.
Posted on: Fri, 12 Dec 2014 15:32:08 +0000
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