View our brand new website -- new tools -- new look -- same urgent mission

DEAR NUMBERSUSA FAXERS,

For the first time in seven years, we have re-designed our website. We hope you will immediately take a look:

www.NumbersUSA.com

Among the many reasons for the change, the most important is that we are in the process of creating a number of new activist tools to meet the very difficult political climate in which we expect to find ourselves next year. We need our website to be the best possible for being the nation's premier mobilization center for citizens to counteract the power of the special interests.

We have "beta-tested" the new site with several thousand of our NumbersUSA members over the last few months. We have made numerous revisions based on their feedback. We have found that with minor exceptions the new design is more friendly to some demographic groups that have been under-represented in our membership. Our re-design began as a response to years of suggestions from many of you.

But equally important, we have found that the new design preserves the features our veteran members have loved. For most of our veteran testers, the new site is at least as user-friendly as the previous one. We welcome your suggestions for continued improvements (and especially your pointing out any typos or other errors).

Here are some key changes:

No. 1: We provide a video TOUR so you can get a quick idea of what all is on the website and how to get there.

Click on the TOUR button at the top of the right-hand column.

Everything on the website is accessible from the navigation bar across the top.

We feel that we have organized the voluminous material on our website into quite logical categories. For example, Grade Cards, Profiles, contact info, legislative analysis are all under the " Congress" button.

All the information about congressional, presidential and other races are under the "Elections" button.

No. 2: I am writing a regular blog on the Home page.

Because of difficulties with ISPs blocking our Action Alerts to our members, I am going to send less analysis through emails and, instead, put it on the website so you can always see it.

With the blog, I will be providing far more analysis and commentary on immigration events than in the past, since I won't have to worry about over-filling your in-box.

But you will have to remember to come to the website on your own -- regularly.

No. 3: You can comment directly on what I and others say in the blog. And you can interact with each other on the issues.

If you are logged in as a NumbersUSA member, you will find at the end of each blog a place to add your own comments and to read those of others.

This is a moderated comment section, posting relevant submissions. You will see quite an array of comments already on previous blog posts from people who found the new website before it was announced.

The comments section is important because there is a vast amount of wisdom, passion and experience that lies beyond the staff of NumbersUSA and within the 640,000 activist faxers.

No. 4: The home page is changing daily with both blogs and news item. So, there is a reason for you to visit often -- and not wait for us to email you.

The home page contains links to the most recent and urgent actions for you to take.

But it also has the key news items about immigration activity in Congress, the Administration and elsewhere. And a link to a much larger array of news items than in the past.

I urge you to bookmark www.numbersusa.com (and consider making this the home page of your browser). Please creat e a routine of bringing it up daily or at least a couple of times a week -- even if you don't get an email from us.

Over the last seven months, the internet service providers have become incredibly difficult about blocking large minorities of our emailed alerts. There are all kinds of reasons for this. Many of you have noted that a lot of the people working inside the ISPs have personal and financial reasons to see that our alerts don't get through. There may be something to that, although we don't have direct evidence. The biggest problem appears to be that the ISP computers often treat us as commercial spam instead of the protected political speech and membership-requested email that we are.

We have a staffer who works full time just working with the ISPs to unblock us. But we see no chance that we can dependably reach all of you with emails as we once did.

If you are one of many people who have wondered why we were not more active over the last several months, it is not because we weren't active or weren't sending out alerts. Rather, our alerts to you were often being blocked. I'm glad you can read this one.

Thus, it is imperative to the movement for rational, sensible immigration policies that YOU make the first move every day and come to NumbersUSA.com to find out if there is an action you need -- and want -- to take.

No. 5: Every page on the website is interlinked with related pages.

When you pull up a news story, for example, you will see other things on the page that direct you to actions that may be related, to resources, studies, etc.

No. 6: The Action Buffet corkboard has been modified primarily in appearance and to make the actions dominate the page.

Many of you were fond of the news column on the left side. That is gone. But you will find expanded news replacing it on the left side of the Home page. (You can also access much o f the news by clicking on the NEWS button in the left-hand column of the corkboard.)

One of the goals of the new website is to encourage all of you to make use of the website beyond the Action Buffet.

Clearly, the Action Buffet and your taking action are the most important aspects of the website. But we have learned that many of you arrive on the website on the corkboard and never leave it, not knowing that we actually have a website beyond.

No. 7: You will also notice that your personalized Fax Library is not on the corkboard.

That is because it is being greatly improved. We have never been satisfied with the technological reliability of the Fax Library. Our Tech Team assures me that a much improved library will be back on your corkboard very soon.

No. 8: At the bottom of the corkboard, you will find some fascinating running totals about your activism through NumbersUSA.

The blue-green horizontal note at the bottom shows how many faxes you have sent under your current log-in registration, as well as financial donations and other activities.

No. 9: In the left-hand column of the corkboard, you will find easy ways to ...