Resource Type: Evaluation & Measuring Progress

The segment of the American public “alarmed” about climate change has grown from 17% (2008) to 26% (2020). This is the biggest change of any of the “Six Americas” global warming belief categories of public opinion (others include “concerned”, “cautious”, “disengaged”, “doubtful”, “dismissive”). Notably, higher proportions of Latinos (37%) and Black Americans (27%) are “alarmed”—as compared to White Americans (22%). Among the total population, the second biggest change from 2008-2020 has occurred among the “disengaged”, dropping from 15% (2008) to 6% (2020) of the US.             

Relational climate conversations (talking about climate change with people you know) can be very effective at changing hearts and minds, but requires thoughtful practice to implement and evaluate. It takes more than just trainings and a script. Rather, the tactic only works with an existing organizational support structure that can create a community of collective accountability and help advocates navigate potentially vulnerable social interactions. Intentional focus on community-building and mutual support is key.  A panel presentation as part of the Greenpeace Data Activist Co-Op.

This is a conversation about organizing, metrics, tracking, and building power. It features Ari Trujillo-Wesler (Sierra Club), Brittany Bennett (Sunrise Movement), and Weronika Paszewska (Tectonica Digital Campaign Solutions) in a panel discussion about organizing, measuring its elements and tracking success. 
In this session, Ari re-capped how she worked to measure organizational power, which was really a project to move the Sierra Club towards more analytics-informed organizing. And in the process they learned a lot more about who Sierra Club members are. Brittany explained how she uses supporter activity to help organizers better target their work and how this essentially amounts to measuring an entire movement. Weronika talked about developing an equaltion that is meant to guide digital-first organizations away from simple 1-way communications towards comprehensive decentralized organizing. 

This report looks at this process of power building for just transition in four states: California, Kentucky, Louisiana, and New York. We combine an analysis of the pillars of just transition – strong governmental support, dedicated funding streams, diverse coalitions, and economic diversification – with an analysis of how to change power at a state level that focuses on the conditions that impact possibilities, the community-level capabilities that facilitate effective voice, and the arenas in which power is contested.

In this blog post from January 2021, Brittany Bennett, the Data Director for Sunrise Movement, argues that in order to become a data-driven organization, the people in charge of the data and data management need to be oriented towards serving the organizers as their first priority. “[W]when you cannot deliver accurate results quick to organizers, you lose their buy in to your system. And when your organizers do not use your systems, your organizations becomes less data driven.”