Resource Library

Multiracial organizing (MRO) can easily be siloed in culture, but it needs to be integrated in all parts of your DNA: story, strategy, structure and culture. MRO is hard work, and if your movement or organization is struggling to navigate how to do it well, you are in the majority. Representation and tokenization are easy traps to fall into. If your movement cannot clearly articulate why building multi-racial movement is important for winning, you may find it hard to organize with integrity, and conflicts will arise in your organization about who is leading and who is in your base. “Ideological grounding” is an important first step. Different kinds of MRO will be best in different kinds of contexts: majority white spaces, majority Black spaces, versus majority POC, non-Black spaces. Historic organizational memory matters, and there are different “levels of intervention” that can help strengthen MRO organizing. This report details those kinds of interventions and other aspects of successful MRO.

In this webinar, the Lab team is joined by the Regulatory Assistance Project to explore recommendations from the new report Energy Infrastructure: Sources of Inequities and Policy Solutions for Improving Community Health and Wellbeing.
In addition to the report, participants also learn from advocates across the country fighting for an equitable clean energy future. Contributing speakers shared their reflections and lessons learned from a variety of perspectives on what it takes to achieve energy equity, including how they’re financing low-income solar, how they’re growing solar through state-level policy, and how to work in strong coalition.
Contributing speakers include: Donna Brutkoski, Communications Associate, Regulatory Assistance Project; Yesenia Rivera, Director of Energy Equity and Inclusion, Solar United Neighbors; and Jacqueline Hutchinson, Vice President of Operations, People’s Community Action Corporation.

American’s external political efficacy – the belief that one can influence government decisions – has been on the decline over the last several decades. Greater involvement in civic associations may help to reverse this. Analyzing a panel dataset of several hundred environmental association members, this study found that as members got to know their association’s chapter leaders, external efficacy increased.

Describing “hardworking families” as the heroes of a political narrative and “big, greedy corporations” as the villains may be the best progressive economic message. Climate change and water issues are a top concern for New Mexico voters. This report describes ways for progressives to connect more deeply with New Mexicans and communicate their vision and agenda in more authentic language that resonates, excites, and persuades. New Mexicans value family, fairness, opportunity, and respect for communities. Any successful message will engage with those core values. This report describes emotions in play, personal values, pain points, and aspirations relevant to New Mexico voters, in addition to variations on successful political messages and how they relate to survey data gathered for this report.             

This resource looks at where Black audiences are when they are online and how they act when they get there. This goes beyond reliance on polls and surveys to create a more complete picture of the culture people are consuming, creating and being inspired by. Key takeaways include the identification of five distinct Black audiences: Strivers, Planners, Learners, Gamers, and Bootstrapers, along with the most popular platforms (Google and YouTube) and the fact that most Black people are getting COVID news from mainstream and left-leaning outlets on their desktops.          

This article draws from an interview with Kim Wasserman, executive director of Little Village Environmental Justice Organization (LVEJO), based in Chicago, Illinois. Kim Wasserman and LVEJO (pronounced “ell-VAY-ho,”) have spent nearly two decades “fighting the bad” in Chicago’s predominantly immigrant community of Little Village, engaging in a 12-year campaign to shut down two coal plants that ranked as the top three for most polluted in the US and contributed to some of the highest asthma rates in the country.  After the conversation with Kim, the article captures are the main lessons the author learned about how to be an environmental justice leader.