Resource Type: Tips & How-Tos

How do we build the power to win? The Lab is constantly working to uncover and share what works (and doesn’t) to help build grassroots power and win equitable solutions through evidence-based advocacy. A common request we receive is for rigorous best practices to grow people power. Last year, the Lab finalized our research vision and research agenda and solicited research project ideas from the Lab community, rooted in how to improve organizing and mobilizing, and grounded in a common conceptual framework.
Today we share results from these six collaborative research projects, and our guidance for your recruitment and mobilizing work, based on the evidence we gathered together.

Texas is back in the news this week because the state faced record temperatures that almost crashed its power grid. Well, earlier this year, Justin Rolfe-Redding at the Lab wrote about the upcoming Valentine’s Day campaign #BreakUpWithGas. The campaign was designed to push back on disinformation and use the one-year anniversary to galvanize public attention to the problem with fossil fuels. That Texas freeze in 2021 resulted in hundreds of Texans losing their lives and more than half of the state was without power or water service for days. Now it’s time to revisit that campaign and see what they/we can all learn.

Tribal communities, commercial fishermen, and conservation groups in Alaska are celebrating a recent EPA announcement outlining new protections for the Bristol Bay Watershed – protections that could (finally) end the decades-long fight to stop Pebble Mine. Alannah Hurley, Executive Director of the United Tribes of Bristol Bay (UTBB), reflected, “As stewards of these lands and waters since time immemorial, our people welcome this step towards permanent protections for our waters and way of life… We appreciate EPA’s efforts to address the threat Pebble poses to our lands, waters and way of life in Bristol Bay, and hope to see the agency finalize strong protections this year.” (Please consider standing in solidarity with UTBB by submitting your own public comment to the EPA!)
In response to this growing challenge, Alaska Conservation Foundation (ACF) reached out to the Lab earlier this year for support. Specifically, ACF was eager to explore the role of narrative, both as a tool wielded by the opposition (mining industry and pro-mining decision-makers) to push the necessity and “inevitably” of unchecked mining expansion and as a tool for advocates statewide to put forward an alternate vision for prosperity, sustainability, and self-determination through the coming energy transition. Read on for key learnings and insights from the work we did together!

The Climate Advocacy Lab is excited to pilot a 4-Day Workweek because we believe in the sustainability of our people as well as the planet. The Lab team feels deeply privileged to do work in service of our mission: to equip the US climate movement with the evidence-based insights, skills, and connections needed to build durable power and win equitable solutions.
However (as you all know well) working in the climate movement means we absorb an extreme level of anxiety-provoking news and grapple daily with existential questions about our place in this world and long-term viability of our planet. These threats and anxieties are even greater, of course, for our friends and colleagues working on the frontlines, dealing with the pain and trauma of too many intersecting crises. The ongoing pandemic has forced all of us to re-evaluate the boundaries between work and rest — as well as the balance between professional development and professional sustainability. As a result of exploring different models for how the Lab works toward our mission that allows us to consider the long-term health of our team, we have decided to pilot a Monday-Thursday four-day workweek (4DWW).

The world can be a dangerous place, especially when you’re trying to solve a climate crisis. Disinformation – from the fossil fuel industry, conspiracy theorists, or their partisan accomplices – pollutes the discourse and draws attention away from actual climate solutions. Unfortunately, we’re now all responsible for pushing back against lies, dirty tricks, and bad-faith arguments in order to protect our audiences.
Building off of our March webinar on Fighting Digital Climate Disinformation, we want to arm advocates with what they’ll need to fight disinformation in their work, whether that looks like organizing volunteers on social media to amplify inoculation messages, debunking misleading information in frontline communities, or building a dedicated program to conduct anti-disinformation research. Participants will leave this webinar equipped with the knowledge and instructions to protect their organization and their base.

For both those who are planning on climate deep canvassing, as well as those just curious about it, an all-star panel guides you through the ins and outs of designing, running, and evaluating a climate deep canvassing program, including a walkthrough of the entire deep canvassing design process; a haul of instructional materials, tipsheets, and sample scripts.

This interactive session covered how researchers and advocates (the two biggest constituents in the Lab community!) can help each other evaluate the effectiveness of their programs, test out new approaches to win campaigns, and generate more knowledge for the rest of the movement to learn from. Our panel included:

Kate Mannle (Rare) and Adam Seth Levine (Johns Hopkins University, research4impact) on the process of building mutual understanding and a healthy, equitable working relationship across sectors
Rodrick Leary (Audubon) and Heather O’Connor (Louisiana State University-Shreveport, Indiana University) on how to connect across sectors and share knowledge
Ernesto Cruz (Neighbor to Neighbor) and Justin Rolfe-Redding (Climate Advocacy Lab) on moving from shared interests to tangible questions and a functional research plan