Roberto Lovato
My writing competes with my other love: developing and implementing different kinds of strategies- media, political and cultural strategies. Amongst the best known and successful strategies I've developed is Presente.org's Basta Dobbs campaign. Earlier this year, I had the opportunity to deepen my undestanding of how to fuse online and offline strategies during my Senior Strategy Fellow with the Citizen Engagement Lab. By strategy, I mean the alignment of the internal resources of an organization with a desired position on a competitive or political map. In essence, I specialize in helping organizations figure out how to maximize their human, technological and intellectual resources towards a specific goal, be it a business or a political goal. Since securing my first contract with the Univision Television Network in 1996, I have provided a number of business and political strategy consulting services to select media annd other clients. My main services involve
* providing online and offilne campaign strategy support.
* training organizations to develop strategies combining online and offline organizing methods.
* developing feasibility studies,
* business planning
* public relations, communications and development support to (select) businesses, nonprofits,labor unions and other organizations.
For further information on these services, please contact me at robvato@gmail.com.
Among the success stories I've had the pleasure of helping create, launch or build are:
* Univision Television Network - Helped Univision producers and executives conceive of and produce Hora Cero, Univision's first major 1 hour special about immigration policy. The program was broadcast network wide. In conjunction with network executives, local station managers and their staff, we designed and implemented strategy (PR, programming, community relations) consolidating Univision's position in the Central American segment of the Latino market.
* Presente.org - Co-founded the country's preeminent Latino online advocacy organization. Led development of strategies fusing online and offline organizing in key campaigns including the Basta Dobbs campaign, the succesful effort to remove Lou Dobbs from CNN.
* Drop the I-Word ("Illegal immigrant") Campaign- The i-word is shorthand for "illegal alien," "illegal immigrant" and other harmful terms.In early 2010, I helped conceive of and develop the initial strategy for the succesful campaign to remove these terms from the Associated Press Stylebook and newspapers throughout the country.
* Colorlines Magazine - in conjunction with staff and board of directors, conducted feasibility study and developed business plan that transformed Colorlines Magazine from a small (i.e. <10,000 readers) largely regional print publication into one of the country's leading online publications about race in the United States. Since launching its online version, Colorlines already has hundreds of thousands monthly page views and unique visitors.
* New America Media - organized the business planning process and conducted preliminary research leading to creation of New California Media (NCM), which then led to my designing business plan leading to the creation of New America Media, the world's largest network of "ethnic" media.. With more than 1000 member media organizations, NAM is the country's first and largest association of immigrant and "ethnic" media.
* Trail of Dreams - supported 4 intrepid young DREAM Act students in the development and implementation of their online and offline strategy for their historic 1500 walk from Miami to the nation's capitol where they met with President Obama's top aides to demand an end to the deportation of DREAMers, a demand that the Obama Adminstration has tried to meet in recent months. One of the Walkers got to meet with the President himself. Their walk gained national and international recognition and contributed significantly to raising awareness of the plight of DREAM act students, to the point where their demand-stop deporting DREAMERs-is now one of the top two demands of the very powerful immigrant rights movement.
* Latinos for Internet Freedom (LIF) - Co-Founder, led planning process to create alition of local, regional and national Latino organizations and leaders coming together to keep the Internet open and free from discrimination.
* Central American Studies Program, CSUN - Led team of faculty and students that established the first Central American Studies program of any university in the United States. As the program's first Director, I hired faculty, managed staff, negotiated with university authorities and was lead spokesperson between the CASP and the larger community. In conjunction with 5 faculty members, designed course and curriculum offerings, secured approval from university administration, recruited students, conducted classes, organized special events and graduations and secured resources necessary for functioning of the CASP minor (as of 2008, the country's first CAS major).
Guardian: Don't let the Paris climate talks ignore people displaced by global warming
We are all entering uncharted waters as the effects of climate change begin to create categories of migrants that have no precedent: migrants rendered stateless after their island nations disappear; migrants constituting a vast, roaming "environmental refugee" population; migrants fleeing climate-intensified wars and violence like that in Syria and Central America.
The Nation:  El Salvador's Gang Violence: The Continuation of Civil War by Other Means
In the exoticized, Heart of Darkness narratives constructed by the likes of National Geographic and other mainstream media and US-government officials, one often hears that residents of communities like Nuevo Israel "live in chaos." In fact, there is order here—an alternative order, one governed by the gangs.
Lovato Gets Pulitzer Grant to Report on Drug Wars in America Latina
Roberto Lovato was awarded a grant from the Pulitzer Center to look at how the Obama Administration's proposed drug enforcement and security policies in El Salvador — and across Latin America — represent an attempt by the U.S. to assert new influence through old means: militarization.
Prior to becoming a writer in 2004, I was a consultant to media companies and, depending on who's asking, I still provide a number of services to any number of select and different clients. Most of my business and organizational expertise orbits around these services: feasibility studies, business planning, combining online and offilne business and political campaign strategy. I also support public relations and communications work.
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