As of this morning, the GSP Supporter List reached 174 organizations. Since launching at the end of March, we’ve added an average of about 3 new names per day (including weekends). Beyond the statistics, it’s just as interesting to take look at how those companies and associations ended up on the list.
The Coalition for GSP has been around for a while – since 1992 in fact. In that time, we’ve worked with many companies and associations that care deeply about GSP. Many of these friends signed this letter urging GSP renewal in September 2009.
Last summer, we used import records to build the first-ever map of probable U.S. companies benefiting from GSP savings (right). We contacted many “new” companies to engage them on our GSP renewal efforts (with varying degrees of success) and doubled the number of signatures on our next letter to Congress last November.
Now we are close to doubling the number of signatures again and, if we continue adding names at our current pace, will far exceed all previous efforts in a matter of weeks.
Amazingly, more than half of all GSP Supporter List companies – 54% to be exact – are completely random. They found us after realizing how badly GSP expiration was hurting their company. They are not companies we contacted in the past or old friends or even “friends of friends” that may have had our emails forwarded along.
In fact, most don’t even show up on the map – meaning no one could anticipate that they would be hurt by GSP expiration. It’s impossible to know how many companies are impacted by expiration, but whether our GSP Supporter List hits 200 or even 2,000 companies, we’re likely still seeing only the tip of the iceberg.
