Resource Type: Case Studies

“Impact storytelling” is an important political tool, but it needs more coordination, training, talent, research, and funding. This report argues that “narrative and cultural strategy” are important tools of social change and should be further invested in, in many ways. The actors involved in the impact storytelling ecosystem include strategic communicators, grassroots and field organizing, legal and public policy advocacy, and artists and cultural organizers. More important people and groups are engaging in impact storytelling, but challenges remain: people don’t always lead with an impact storytelling mindset, there are too many vague reports and not enough actionable research, there is a looming leadership and staff crisis, there aren’t great ways to measure progress, and there are hurdles to collaboration. Therefore, this report includes recommendations for how to strengthen impact storytelling—there needs to be more: formal coordination and distribution of impact storytelling, training to boost the talent pipeline, practical and useful research and measurement, and more abundant and strategic funding.

Deep canvassing increases support for climate change action in rural British Columbia. The Neighbours United Project, an initiative of the West Kootenay EcoSociety, has shown that deep canvassing and storytelling can persuade on climate in a frontline, rural, industrial community in British Columbia. Successful deep canvassing requires the right script, trained canvassers (staff or volunteers), and a supportive organizational culture. When knocking on doors to have conversations with people, canvassers followed six steps: surface conflicted feelings, connect and acknowledge identity, share a personal story, make the case and help the voter process, understand the impact of the conversation, and make the campaign ask. One overall conclusion is that increasing a sense of government efficacy and support for government action on climate change could be key to moving citizens on climate change.

Integrated, year-round community organizing is necessary to create people-powered political representation in the Midwest. Midwestern state economies have destabilized, and this has caused shifting politics, such as formerly Democratic or swing states now voting mostly for Republicans. This report dispels multiple myths about Midwestern politics, such as: some states swung irreversibly to the right; Midwest states can be won either by engaging only people of color, or by frantically chasing white Obama/Trump voters; retail politics can work in the Midwest by “treating” white voters with messages about the economy and Black voters with messages about race, while ignoring Native, Latino, AAPI, and other voters; and we can win Presidential, US Senate, or Gubernatorial races by dumping billions of dollars into paid advertisements each cycle, rather than building the human capacity to lead and govern. This report argues for intentionally, consistently organizing people into membership organizations, unions, and community institutions in order to move constituencies of people into political action and create political homes. Overall, this report argues for “state ecosystems” of democratically accountable movement groups to engage in electoral politics.

Environmental justice activists that work across a diverse set of issues rank climate justice among their highest priority issues. They overwhelmingly rely on base building, coalitions, and organizing strategies to do their work. In reflecting on the movement’s contemporary approaches, activists articulate the importance of shared frameworks such as climate justice to shift popular narratives and action on climate change. The climate justice frame reflects a critical, intersectional, and reconstructive conceptualization of the climate crisis that requires disrupting the status quo approaches to climate change. This study points to some of the challenges and opportunities ahead for realizing such a contentious and transformative climate justice vision led by EJ activists in a moment of expanding political opportunity and risk.