Activist Network Seeks Grant Proposals — One-Page Project Summaries Due May 15

Activist Network Seeks Grant Proposals — One-Page Project Summaries Due May 15

Bonus Points* for Projects Reaching Beyond the Usual Suspects

Later this year, if Activist Network teams’ ambitious plans come to fruition, six new environmental ambassadors, recruited by the Club’s Puerto Rico Chapter from the U.S. mainland, will march in New York City’s Puerto Rican Day Parade. By the end of the summer, dozens of volunteers in New Jersey, including residents, vacationers and lots of kids, will safely release hundreds of diamondback terrapin hatchlings into Bargenat Bay.

Those are 2 of the 21 projects the Activist Network Support Team awarded grants for earlier this year, allocating a total of $87,850. (We received 28 proposals, the most ever.) You can see the full list  in Diamondback Terrapins, Solar Rooftops, National Monuments, and More — Activist Network Awards $87,850 in Project Grants.

Now we’re announcing the Activist Network’s eighth round of grant funding for team projects. The deadline is May 15 for the preliminary one-page proposal. Here are the criteria and directions.

*Note: We don’t literally have bonus points, though our grant review team does use numbers for preliminary ratings of proposals. We just mean that we are encouraging proposals from chapters or teams working to engage non-traditional constituencies such as youth, faith, labor, low income, or business communities. All proposals must include volunteer engagement and leadership development along with measurable benefits to the environment.

Exciting New Message Box on Climate Disruption!

Intrepid Sierra Club communicators, take note: we just added a New Message Box on Climate Disruption to the Clubhouse Talking Points section!  We also revamped the entire climate change messaging page, removing out-of-date information on cap and trade, the 2% solution, and other topics, and adding up-to-date Sierra Club messaging on climate disruption,  extreme weather events, carbon pollution, and more. 

While climate disruption is a vital part of the Sierra Club's agenda, it can be a very tricky issue to communicate strategically to the American public, and we often get questions about how to approach it.  We hope the new climate disruption message box will be a helpful resource. 

Remember to check the Clubhouse Talking Points section and the climate change messaging page often, as changes are made and new materials added!

New Leadership in Chapter & Leader Support and Activist Network

Here's a note from Debbie Heaton about recent staff and volunteer appointments within Chapter and Leader Support and the Activist Network:

As a result of the restructuring earlier this year, the following appointments have been made:

• Julia Reitan will fill Scott Elkins spot as staff co-lead (Coordinating Pair) for Chapter and Leader Support. Julia will work with volunteer co-lead Debbie Heaton and CLS’s six teams that provide programs and services to chapters and leaders across the Sierra Club.

• John Barry will take over as staff co-lead (Coordinating Pair) for the Activist Network filling Julia’s spot and Clayton Daughenbaugh will take over as volunteer co-lead from Bob Morris, who has stepped won. John will stay involved in with the Conflict Resolution Team as a member. Kirstin Replogle has agreed to serve as Activist Network Support Team co-lead, taking Clayton's former role.

• Sue Merrow will take over from Debbie Heaton as the volunteer co-lead on the Chapter Assessment Support Team. After the Annual Meeting she will work with Greg Casini on the ongoing analysis of the newly collected data and next steps for the team.

To learn more about Chapter and Leader Support check out this page on the Clubhouse:  http://clubhouse.sierraclub.org/people/structure/teams/chapter-leader-support.aspx
To learn more about the Activist Network and get involved, go to sierraclubactivistnetwork.org.

How Technology Can Advance Activism

Technology continues to move at breakneck speed. How do we keep up? How do we harness the technology to strengthen activism? How do we bridge the digital divide between those who have all the devices and know how to use them and those who don’t?

On Wednesday, July 27, we’re hosting a conference call conversation with Executive Director Michael Brune and Board Director Jared Duval to address questions like those, as well as your questions. The call is at 5 pm Pacific/6 pm Mountain/7 pm Central/8 pm Eastern at 1-866-501-6174  —1892-005#.
   
As part of his reorganization plan announced earlier this year, Michael Brune called for the creation of the new Digital Strategies Department to oversee all the Club’s online outreach. (The department will include Online Organizing, Information Technology, Social Media, and the Actiivst Network.) This this will be an opportunity to learn more about his vision for this new department, how we can engage new people and grow our movement.

Board Director and former Sierra Student Coalition Director Jared Duval is author of Next Generation Democracy, which chronicles how participatory organizations can use technology to address urgent problems with unprecedented speed. (And that was back in 2010, when everything was slower!) He’ll will discuss the open source movement, millennials, and share first-hand examples of direct democracy.

We’ll have plenty of time for questions and discussion. RSVP here. (You can also post questions in advance.)

Other upcoming calls: August 1 — Growing Your Team (Promotion, Outreach, Recruitment) and August 8 — Introduction to the Activist Network. Here’s the conference call schedule.

Imagine a Stable of Writers...

Here's a new project that we're starting in the Activist Network — a team of writers and creative thinkers to help create compelling content for Activist Network teams and community.

Activist Network Creative Project
Activist Network Creative Services
Activist Network Writers Project
Activist Network Creative Team

Looks like our first task is to decide on the best name for this team/project/effort.

Let me share the idea first. We can decide on a name after we know better what we’re doing.

Goal

Our goal, broadly, is to create compelling content for Activist Network teams and community.

Imagine we have a stable of writers and creative thinkers to work with, to make Activist Network team and issues as exciting and inviting as possible. Well, we may not have a full stable, but we’ve got some intrepid souls who are kicking this project off.

We’re going to focus first on the short and distilled. Facebook blurbs, taglines, tweets, what you say in the elevator when you only have 10 seconds.

Here’s are two examples:

1. (For the overall Activist Network community) You’re a Sierra Club team and you need to get work done. An office would be helpful — to store your stuff, meet and greet, make plans, welcome visitors. Enter the Activist Network — sc.org/act-net
   
   (That’s 37 words, 196 characters. Way too long for a tweet. Or a bumper sticker. Might be too long for an elevator speech too, unless you’re going to the top floor.)
2. (For the Hydrofracking Team) Vocabulary lesson! Hydrofracking = a gas drilling technique using high pressure fluid injection to break loose and extract small bubbles of gas trapped in rock.
   
   (That’s 160 characters — perfect for a tweet, except that there’s no web link. Or anything about why hydrofracking is a danger. Back to the red pencil.)

We don’t always have to get our point across so succinctly, but it’s definitely worthwhile to be able to. So we’ll put our energy first to the short and sweet. Even email subject lines are critical, the right one can double, triple your chances someone will open your message.  

Here are some of the other kinds of communications we may be able to help with:

• One- or two-page fact sheet
• One page of talking points, elevator speech
• Opportunities for involvement (“Help Wanted” ads w descriptions of tasks or roles)
• Five slide power point presentation
• One-minute video
• Web banner
• Camera-ready ad copy

If all that is too ambitious, here’s a more modest endeavor: We review existing content and make suggestions on how to improve it.

Obviously, we’re not going to start with a one-minute video. What we do will depend on the team’s needs, what materials already exist, and who can work on this. (We do need participation from some team members. We don’t do it for you, but with you.)

We’ve got some people who’ve volunteered to help with the words and ideas, and the first team we’re working with is the Ohio Forests Team. They’re an established team, devoted to protecting Ohio’s forests, but they’re relatively new to the online world. Our first task was to help with a brief article for the chapter newsletter.

Here’s our the first two paragraphs we came up with:

The forests in Ohio were once so thick a squirrel could scamper from the Ohio River to the shores of Lake Erie and never touch the ground. Okay, that’s an exaggeration — there were certainly wide rivers to cross — but the point is the state was once heavily forested, and no longer is. The forests have been felled, fields plowed and planted, cites and suburbs sprawling.

 

Pockets of wild forest remain, but threats from mining, logging, drilling and development continue. That’s where the Ohio Forests Team comes in.

We’ve set up this project as the gathering place for the writers and creative thinkers as well as teams that would like some assistance in making their web pages more compelling.

---

Template

There’s no one-size-fits-all model — we’ll need to tailor what we do for each team, but most everyone is going to need and use short blurbs, so here’s are four categories to start with.

1. Headlines, email subject lines, tag lines, teasers
(Less than ten words, bumpersticker length — (a) summary phrase that stands alone, or (b)  whimsical or provocative line that doesn’t explain, but teases?

Help Protect What’s Left of Ohio’s Forests
What Happened to Ohio’s Forests?
Beaver Creek. Blue Rock. Tar Hollow. Vinton Furnace. What are they?

2. Facebook blurbs
[Less than 50 words]

When the first Europeans explored Ohio, the land was forested from the Ohio River nearly to the shores of Lake Erie. Today few forests remain. The Sierra Club’s Ohio Forests Team seeks to preserve the state’s public forests and advocate for long-term forest recovery to old-growth conditions. Join them. [link]

 

Beaver Creek. Blue Rock. Tar Hollow. Vinton Furnace. Rock bands? Retirement communities?  No, those are 4 of the 21 state forests in Ohio — and the Sierra Club’s Ohio Forests Team is working to protect them. Find out how you can help. [link]

3. Text messages and tweets
[Text message less than 160 characters, spaces included, tweets less than 140. For tweets, you need to leave room for a link.]

Ohio forests once so thick squirrels could scamper from Ohio River to Lake Erie and never touch ground. Not now. http://sc.org/ohio-forests
(139 ww)

Sierra Club’s Ohio Forests Team works to protect what’s left of Ohio’s forests. Join us. http://sc.org/ohio-forests
(115 ww)

Note: We can help you get short URLs that start with sc.org or show you how to create your own.

4. Elevator speech/talking points
(Less than 10 seconds, if possible.)

Ohio forests once stretched from the Ohio River to Lake Erie, but now they’re mostly gone. There’s one national forest and 14 state forests, and they face threats from mining, logging, and development. [Need a last sentence...]

(139 ww)

---

Process

1. We are starting small, but this is potentially a large, ongoing project, so we need to recruit a team of people to work on it. Ideally, we have enough team members that we can create project teams of two, three, four people to work together with a team on their specific needs.

2. I’ve drafted a template, above, and once we’ve used it a few times, we can revise and expand as necessary, and spell out our process and protocol more clearly.

3. For now, we will use shared google docs for our notes, brainstorms, and drafts until we get the revision history working in this collaboration space.

Questions, contact me at john.barry@sierraclub.org or add a comment below. Please join us. This will be fun.

Congratulations to 2011 Activist Network Grant Awards

One of the ways that the Activist Network Support Team supports activism, as is our charge, is by funding team projects. We recently completed our first round of grant allocations for the year, awarding $70,625 to 10 projects. (In addition, another 10 projects that received grants last year were extended into 2011.)

We’re happy to support three new teams and their projects.

• The Climate Action Leadership Team ($9,000 grant) builds on existing Cool Cities programs on the San Francisco peninsula to work for more walkable, bikable transit-accessible neighborhoods (Building Climate-Friendly Communities) and energy efficiency upgrades to existing buildings (Green Buildings for Cool Cities).

• The Community Natural Gas Education and Outreach Project ($4,000) aims to educate the public on natural gas issues by hosting film screening and house parties in Colorado, Wyoming, and New Mexico showing the documentary Split Estate, and building prospective leaders in each community.
• The Midwest Activists Team ($5,000) is bringing together Club leaders from eight midwestern states for “Beyond Corn” — a planning meeting to define new, sustainable ways to manufacture goods and develop agricultural resources. And stop coal plants.

We are also funding three lobby events.

• The Resilient Habitats Lobby Project ($12,000), a joint project by the Wildlands and the Wildlife & Endangered Species teams, aims to bring new and veteran activists to Washington, D.C., for administrative and legislative lobbying on public lands issues, and to take that message back to their communities to educate and engage new people.
• The Marine Action Team ($9,000) is piggybacking lobby visits onto the Blue Vision Summit in May, and is holding a contest to recruit citizen lobbyists — a “most-expenses-paid” trip to D.C. to support ocean issues like coral reef protection. Here’s the team’s recruiting poster.
  
  
• The Grazing Team ($8,275) will be doing an educational and lobby project in the nation’s capital as well, building support for legislation that would compensate ranchers for voluntarily retiring their grazing permits.

Other teams are focusing on public education and working in specific communities or national forests.

• The Borderlands Team ($9,000) is continuing its outreach campaign, which includes video screenings and community meetings, to educate the public and elected officials about the border walls environmental impact. They are advocating for repeal of section 102 of the REAL ID Act, which gives the Department of Homeland Security unprecedented authority to waive 36 laws including the Clean Water Act, Clean Air Act, and Endangered Species Act. Here are their reports from their 2010 project.
• The Toxics Team ($6,500) is working to reduce exposure to persistent bio-accumulative toxins (PBTs), such as mercury, though public education and by defending against industry attempts to undermine existing rules, specifically in Wisconsin, Washington, and Kentucky.
• The Recreation Issues Team ($900) seeks to better protect specific national forest sites from motorized impacts by “ground-truthing,” that is, verifying or refuting information about trails through on-the-ground field investigations.
• The Forest Certification Team ($6,950) continues its work promoting credible forest certification systems and campaigning within the US Green Building Council to keep its certified wood standards high.

We encourage you to visit these team and project pages and get involved. There are many other grant-funded projects continuing from 2010. As of March 1, 2011, we’ve allocated $127,000 for Activist Network projects. You can see a full list of teams, charges, projects, and grants here. (It’s also in Clubhouse.)

How to Make Hot Videos — What Sierra Club Productions Can Do For You

Here's a memo from Bob Sipchen and Adrienne Bramhall to Club staff and volunteers on how to request a hot new Sierra Club video.

Colleagues,

The Sierra Club has plenty of riveting stories to tell and it’s important that we tell them well. Judging from the number of requests Sierra Club Productions receives these days, none of you need to be told what a powerful communications tool video can be. If this sort of visual storytelling were easy, however, the Academy Awards would be even longer and snores would never be heard during a Sundance screening.
  
It’s with this challenge in mind that the Communications department has made raising the bar on the quality of all our video efforts a priority goal for the first half of 2011.
  
Moving forward, we want every video we produce to reach the widest possible audience. The best way to do that is to make sure those viewers want to watch every second of every video, do so, and then hit replay. And then hit replay again. And then share the video with friends. If we’re talking about a captive audience of donors or a house party crowd, we want viewers to watch through to the final frame without fidgeting and then burst into impassioned discussion of what they’ve seen.
  
To hit these high benchmarks, our videos need to surprise, invigorate, motivate, and inspire as well as inform. We want them to make people laugh, weep, dance, get mad, take action. Want to make a video that’s funny? Edgy? Truly profound? Of course you do. Predictable? Preachy? No way.
  
Sierra Club Productions’ role is to help staff and volunteers determine when the use of video is likely to be effective and to produce or offer guidance in crafting the finest quality videos at the lowest possible price.  In some instances, we can meet your needs by identifying a video that already exists.
  
To help chapter leaders, volunteers and others working on their own projects, we have bolstered the information that appears on our website. Please view it as an ever-evolving self-help webinar on best practices in the realm of persuasive video, from conception to promotion, with how-to tips on scripting, story-boarding, filming, editing, embedding interactive elements, use of cutting-edge engagement tools, metrics accountability, distribution and publicity.
  
Videos that aspire to national distribution on the Sierra Club’s official YouTube channel or requiring promotion by the Communications department will, in all but a few rare cases, be created by Sierra Club Productions—perhaps with the help of outside talent. For these, the Club has a more formal but relatively painless process. It’s important to note that at the national level, the Club will not authorize payment for any videos or significant video-related expenditures that have not gone through the Sierra Club Productions process, including legal and contractual vetting, compliance approval and strict quality control. 
  
So. Have a brilliant idea for a video that will change the world (or at least make people giggle and do something significant for our cause)? Click here for the handful of hoops we’ll ask you to jump through and an estimate of what your video will cost to produce.
  
We look forward to working with you. Please spread the word.

Need help getting started? Call Adrienne at 805.955.9374.
  
Thanks!   
Bob Sipchen and Adrienne Bramhall 

 

Call with Michael Brune on Protecting Public Health and Building a Clean Energy Economy

Please join us for an activist call TOMORROW with Executive Director Michael Brune on Protecting Public Health and Building a Clean Energy Economy. This call is open to all Sierra Club volunteers.

WHAT: Call to Action: Protecting Public Health and Building a Clean Energy Economy

WHEN: Tuesday, February 1st at 8:30pm ET/5:30pm PT

HOW: Dial (866) 501.6174, when prompted dial 223 9223#

1.) Vision: Protecting Public Health and Building a Clean Energy Economy

- Michael Brune, Sierra Club Executive Director

 2.) Health Campaign Overview

 - Mary Anne Hitt, National Beyond Coal Cmapign Director

3.) Defending the Clean Air Act

- Melinda Pierce, Deputy Director of National Campaigns

4.) Questions and Answers

5.) Your Charge: Translating this Work to the Local Level

6.) Questions and Answers

Please submit questions that you have for Michael Brune to energy.intern@sierraclub.org by 5:00pm ET on Tuesday with the subject line: "Questions for Michael Brune."

Hope you can make it. 

 

 

New Monday Night Conference Calls

Next Monday, January 24, we'll be discussing Activist Network Technology; on January 31, we'll help you jumpstart your team; on February 7, we'll help you design tasks for new volunteers.

These weekly conference calls open to all. Most are focused on the Activist Network or Clubhouse, but we’ve got an open house call with Club President Robin Mann on February 21.


Please join us on Mondays at 5 pm Pacific/ 6 pm Mountain/ 7 pm Central/ 8 pm Eastern at 1-866-501-6174 -- 1892-005. RSVP here. You can also ask questions in advance.

• January 24:  Activist Network 2.0 — What fixes and features are most important?
  Join a discussion about how we can improve the Activist Network technology and design. Please read Activist Network 2.0 — Technology Fixes and Features before the call.
• January 31: Jumpstart Your Activist Network Team or Project in 2011
  This is targeted at existing teams that want to engage new people, and grow their team.
• February 7: Task Design
  Learn how to design tasks and roles to help recruit and engage new volunteers.
• February 21: Open House with Club President Robin Mann
  Robin will report on the February board meeting in Austin. Bring your questions.

We’ll continue to host Monday calls through the winter and spring. Here’s the current schedule.

Updated Talking Points -- Elections, Tar Sands, Coal, EPA, and more!

Have a media event or Editorial Board meeting coming up?  Don't "reinvent the wheel" -- check out the the Sierra Club's latest strategic messaging on the Clubhouse "Talking Points" section! Here's a sample of the newest Talking Points and template media materials for our campaigns for the 2010 Midterm Elections, Dirty Fuels, Coal, Energy-Efficiency, EPA Regulation of Global Warming Pollution, and more:

> 2010 Midterm Elections –

Talking Points emphasizing the economy, and ties between clean energy jobs and protecting the environment - http://clubhouse.sierraclub.org/communications/talking-points/politics/post-election-2010-talking-points.aspx

Post-election polling memo - http://clubhouse.sierraclub.org/communications/talking-points/politics/Post-election%20GQR%20Polling%20Memo.pdf

Talking points on the impact of young people on the elections - http://clubhouse.sierraclub.org/communications/talking-points/politics/youth-voters-election-2010-talking-points.aspx

> Tar Sands Oil -

 Talking Points on Tar Sands Oil/Keystone XL pipeline – http://clubhouse.sierraclub.org/communications/talking-points/oil-spill/Keystone%20XL%20pipeline.aspx  

Letters to the Editor on Tar Sands/Keystone XL pipeline – http://clubhouse.sierraclub.org/communications/talking-points/beyond%20oil/Keystone%20XL%20pipeline_LTE.aspx

 Sample Op-Ed (Thanksgiving theme) on Tar Sands/Keystone XL pipeline – http://clubhouse.sierraclub.org/communications/talking-points/beyond%20oil/Keystone%20XL%20pipeline_OpEd.aspx

> Beyond Coal -

 Sierra Student Coalition "Campuses Beyond Coal" Talking Points – http://clubhouse.sierraclub.org/conservation/energy/coal/campuses-beyond-coal.aspx

Beyond Coal template local press release for air pollution warnings -http://clubhouse.sierraclub.org/conservation/energy/coal/Coal%20Air%20Pollution_press%20release.aspx

> Energy-Efficient Building Codes –

Talking points on making building codes for new homes and commercial buildings more energy-efficient - http://clubhouse.sierraclub.org/communications/talking-points/energy/energy-efficient%20building%20codes.aspx

> EPA Regulation of Global Warming Pollution

Fact Sheet on EPA regulation of global warming pollution (greenhouse gases) under the Clean Air Act – http://clubhouse.sierraclub.org/communications/talking-points/politics/default.aspx

Talking points on EPA regulation of global warming pollution (greenhouse gases) under the Clean Air Act - http://clubhouse.sierraclub.org/communications/talking-points/politics/EPA-GHG-talking-points.aspx

Letters to the Editor on EPA regulation of global warming pollution (greenhouse gases) under the Clean Air Act - http://clubhouse.sierraclub.org/communications/talking-points/politics/EPA-GHG-LTEs.aspx