Every morning — even on Christmas Day — Harriet Lloyd wakes up with the sunrise and puts together RISC-Y Business, a daily e-mail compilation of news articles, commentaries and letters that goes out to more than 4,000 people who have signed up for it through the right-leaning Rhode Island Statewide Coalition.

Lloyd, who lives in Westerly, talked with Providence Business News recently about the philosophy behind the e-newsletter and the political power of the Internet.

PBN: How did you get started doing the RISC-Y Business newsletter?

LLOYD: The Rhode Island Statewide Coalition (RISC) is a volunteer-driven, nonprofit advocacy organization, founded in 2003 by a handful of Westerly and Charlestown residents. Now affiliated with several local taxpayer organizations and comprised of more than 4,000 members statewide, its mission is to serve as an advocate on quality-of-life issues affecting Rhode Island citizens, such as sound government policy; ethics and conflicts of interest; responsible taxation and fiscal transparency; education reform; the environment; and voting rights.

From its inception, RISC has warned of serious financial troubles on the Ocean State’s horizon. Despite a spendthrift legislature and an apathetic, bullied electorate, RISC took it upon itself to alert members to Rhode Island current events – as well as national trends - that impacted the Rhode Island economy, such as casino gambling, separation of powers, taxation, the environment and education. Indeed, communication was one of RISC’s founding priorities, particularly for members who traveled or shared their time between Rhode Island and other locations.

As a result, the [organization’s] daily e-newsletter, RISC-Y Business, became a major incentive for joining RISC, as it appeared in members’ inboxes 365 days a year, usually before 8 a.m., and served as a “clearinghouse” of all things Rhode Island, keeping them abreast of legislative developments and other current events of concern to them. Circulation soared when the RISC Operating Committee determined to make the newsletter available to anyone wishing to receive it, with or without membership. Distribution has increased during election cycles, the proposal of a casino in Charlestown (RISC filed an amicus brief in the Supreme Court case, Carcieri vs. Kempthorne), Caruolo actions to override school budgets, and environmental threats such as LNG transport in Narragansett Bay. When issues of particular urgency arise, local or statewide, RISC Red Alerts and press releases are issued.

As a founding member of RISC, a writer and an early riser, I became the de facto editor of RISC-Y Business. Initially, its format was a simple personal e-mail, but a growing number of recipients soon necessitated the use of a system to handle thousands of subscribers and a more sophisticated format to reflect the professionalism of the organization.

PBN: Your sources range from The Providence Journal, which is featured every day, to lesser-known ones such as Stateline.org. How do you decide which articles to include, and how do you find them all?

LLOYD: This is largely a spontaneous and refreshingly “grassroots” effort; members and nonmembers of RISC forward articles that they think might be of interest, and we in turn select the ones that we feel would be of interest to the general membership. This is how we sometimes distribute interesting articles from different parts of the country or from relatively obscure publications. In turn, we hear from readers from time to time as to what they like, and on occasion what they don’t like, and that feedback helps us with our selection process.

PBN: Do you worry that by republishing full stories, rather than just a collection of links, the newsletter could hurt the publications that created the articles?

LLOYD: We’ve always believed that highlighting the valuable information provided from various sources helps to bring awareness of those publications to new people, which in turn can enhance their readership as additional people come to them to view their full range of offerings. That said, internally we recently made the decision to just provide excerpts with links to the creators’ Web sites for the remainder so that traffic is driven to the originators.

PBN: What is the importance for a newsletter like RISC-Y Business for the conservative movement in Rhode Island? More generally, how has the Internet changed this sort of political organizing?

LLOYD: Neither RISC or RISC-Y Business is part of the “conservative movement” in Rhode Island. ... Our membership straddles Democrats, Republicans, Independents, “liberals,” “moderates” and “conservatives” – to the extent that we have an “agenda,” it is to make Rhode Island a better place by improving things such as our currently substandard public education system, underperforming economy, and fiscal mismanagement at the state and municipal levels. We are partisan, but partisan against the status quo, not partisan related to a particular political party or ideology.

PBN: Does RISC have any plans to expand its Internet activities?

LLOYD: The RISC Foundation recently introduced TheMoneyTrail.org, which provides the public with the most independent, comprehensive database of state and municipal documents available in Rhode Island. Citizens can check on what their state and local governments are doing with their tax dollars without having to leave the house. This took several months of work, and keeping it current will be a continuous effort – new content is added daily, literally. We are gratified that The Money Trail has received positive recognition from national organizations such as the National Taxpayers Union, but we are not ones to rest on our laurels and additional enhancements are in the planning stages.