Resource Type: Field Research

We try hard to influence policymakers like elected leaders and other government decision-makers. But do our tactics work? Turns out, our assumptions (such as more = better) can be wrong. Here are evidence-based tips for getting through to policymakers, through your supporters and via direct contact.

YPCCC’s Partnerships Program grows the capacity of the climate movement to conduct strategic communication campaigns and transformational organizing. Over the years, organizations (both big and small) across the climate movement have used our tools and advice to develop effective tactics and winning strategies. This webinar highlighted some of these case studies and explored the major lessons learned for strategic decision making, message testing, recruitment, and advocacy. Through an interactive break-out session, they explored how our tools and data can best serve your specific organizational and campaign goals.             

When faced with challenges to their power, social movement organizations can revise their structure in different ways to solve different problems. For example, the Sunrise Movement has engaged its membership in an attempt to decentralize some power from its national staff to local hubs. Color Of Change expanded its staff-driven approach to create events and local groups for social engagement and localized projects, in addition to refocusing its campaign goals to local elections. United for Respect has experienced member and staff growth, experimenting by organizing staff by campaign and by role, settling on a hybrid structure, utilizing both. Other organizations—ISAIAH, New York Working Families Party, and Florida’s Statewide Alignment Group—have also re-structured in illuminating ways. This report employs useful metaphors to describe different group structures, including “boat”, “big tent”, “Rubik’s Cube”, “house”, “stool”, and “fractal”.             

California and the US are increasingly beset by climate-fueled disasters like wildfires, extreme heat, and power blackouts. These events put additional stress on frayed hard and social infrastructure systems, and disproportionately impact working-class communities of color. To adapt to these changes, society must update our notion of disaster response to increase resilience in these systems before disasters strike. This report offers two models for this response: 1) building and normalizing resilience hubs where community members gather and organize both in good times and bad, and 2) increasing in-home resilience by recognizing homecare workers as effective agents for assisting vulnerable populations and bridging authorities and the frontlines. The report goes on to recommend specific ways to set up resilience hubs, train care workers, and develop forward-thinking emergency response plans to avert human disasters after natural disasters.