Blueprint for Multiracial Cross-Class Climate Movement

Introduction

Coalition work is essential to building a powerful multiracial, cross-class climate movement. It is also some of the hardest work climate advocates and organizers can do. The Multiracial, Cross-Class Coalitions (MRXC) Blueprint for Coalitions is a research-informed training and capacity-building program that helps climate leaders strengthen how they work together across differences.

Why the Blueprint for MRXC Coalitions Exists

Coalition work is where mass organizing power is built, but it is also where organizing can break down.

Winning climate campaigns requires coalitions that can bring people, organizations, and communities together across differences — whether race, class, geography, gender, theories of change, sectors, strategy, or lived experience. At their best, coalitions can expand what is politically possible: they build broader bases, shift public narratives, win policy, and create the durable power needed for long-term change.

Coalitions don’t become strong by accident.

Even the most committed coalitions can struggle with unclear roles, uneven resources, competing priorities, decision-making confusion, historical harms and mistrust, funder pressure, conflict avoidance, and burnout. Without intentional practices, these challenges can weaken campaigns, strain relationships, and reproduce the same power dynamics the climate justice movement is working to transform. 

The MRXC Blueprint report was created to help coalitions meet that complexity with clarity, strategy, and care. It began as a research project asking a practical question: How can multiracial, cross-class climate coalitions build power while also creating healthier ways of working together?