350.org workshop guide

Dikili, Turkey
28 June – 18 July, 2009

350Speaks Climate Leadership Workshop

Table of Contents

Welcome 3

Workshop Outcomes 4

Who We Are 5

Session 1 – Organizing & Leadership 7

Session 2 – Structuring Leadership and Learning Teams 10

Session 3 – Introduction to Public Narrative and Story of Self 18

Activity – Video Review 22

Peer Coaching 101 23

Session 4 – Introduction to Climate Science 28

Session 5 – The Effects of Climate Change 30

Session 6 – Introduction to Climate Policy + Solutions 32

Session 7 – Climate Justice 36

Session 8 – Story of Us 38

Session 9 – Story of Now 43

Session 10 – The 350 Campaign Strategy 47

Session 11 – Putting It All Together 55

Session 12 – Building a Campaign 57

Session 13 – Building a Campaign, part 2 67

The 9-step Plan 71

Session 14 – Spreading the Word 78

Session 15 – October 24 Planning 95

The End? 98

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Welcome!

We’re glad you made it here safely, and we’re excited to hear all about the great work you’re doing in your community. By
now, you’ve probably realized that this is going to be an action-packed few weeks. This workshop is designed to be a
hands-on experience. You’ll learn about the latest science and policy related to climate change, how to tell your story as a
community organizer, and all the nuts and bolts of advocacy. You will be able to use these tools to become a climate
leader in your village, town or city, but they will be useful beyond those geographical and issue boundaries – they will stick
with you for the rest of your life.

Keep in mind that you will only get as much out of this workshop as you put in. That is, if you stay engaged and focused
throughout, you will leave feeling more confident, equipped and energized to take on the challenge of climate change.
Keep this guide close as you wend your way through becoming a climate leader – it will become an invaluable reference –
and check back at 350.org for more tools, materials and up-to-date news and media about the campaign.

We are committed to making this workshop as interactive as possible. If it seems like anything isn’t working for you, if you
need any help or you have any comments, we encourage you to give us feedback. We are flexible, and can
accommodate most concerns.

Finally, we hope that you have fun! While organizing can sometimes be tiring, frustrating and difficult, solving climate
change should be fun. Let’s use this workshop to get to know each other, joke around, stay positive, and build those
friendships that will help us build a global community strong enough to solve this crisis.

Many thanks,

Phil, Will, Wael, Farah, Adnan and the rest of the 350.org and IndyACT team.

You can contact us at:

1505 22nd St. NW, Washington, DC 20037 USA IndyACT, Nahr Street, Rmeil, Jaara Building, 4th Floor,
+1 202 640 1838 Beirut, Lebanon
phil@350.org PO Box 14-5472, Beirut, Lebanon
http://350.org +961 1 447 192
fsalka@indyact.org
http://indyact.org

Acknowledgements
Parts of this document have been generously donated by IndyACT – The League of Independent Activists, Marshall Ganz, Joy
Cushman, Liz Palatto, and the Environmental Justice and Climate Change Initiative.

Additional thanks to rockstar organizers Zo Tobi, Jon Barrows and the Sierra Student Coalition, Heather Cronk and the NOI team
and countless others. Many thanks to you all.
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“Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, concerned citizens can change the world. Indeed it is the
only thing that ever has." – Margaret Mead

Outcomes

Broadly, the goal of this workshop is for participants to understand climate change, and translate that
knowledge into community action. The sessions will focus on a few main themes – by the end of the
workshop, participants will:

• Understand recent climate science and international policy.
• Be able to present your own stories through the lens of Public Narrative.
• Know how to communicate effectively about climate change.
• Identify strategic targets and goals.
• Understand campaign nuts and bolts.
• Write campaign plan leading up to October 24.

Required reading prior to the training:
Salt Satyagraha, Wikipedia online article, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salt_satyagraha

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The most important job of a climate organizer is telling a compelling story that will motivate people to take
action, so here’s a little story about how we got started!

Who are we?

The central coordinating team for 350 is a small team of youth from around
the world, and author and environmentalist Bill McKibben – check out more
about each of us at 350.org/our-team. A few years ago, after graduating
college, where we ran a handful of environmental campaigns on our campus
in Vermont, USA, a group of college friends decided to try and spark the
climate movement in the U.S. We linked up with Bill McKibben, and in early
2007, pulled together the largest day of environmental protest in a generation.
During that year, we coordinated over 2000 events in all 50 states, calling on
the U.S. Congress to “Step It Up” and cut carbon emissions 80% by 2050. We
used online tools to stimulate offline actions, and unite a grassroots movement around the U.S., which continues today. At
the end of 2007, we traveled to Bali for the UNFCCC climate negotiations, and spent two weeks talking to delegates, civil
society representatives and young climate activists from around the world who had gathered there. We found that it
seemed like our style of organizing just might work on the international level, and soon after we got back to the US, we got
to work and launched 350.org.

For the Climate Advocacy Institute this year, we’re collaborating with IndyACT, the League of Independent Activists.
IndyACT is a global non-political league of independent environmental, social and cultural activists with the aim to achieve
an active, healthy, safe, equitable and beautiful planet, by identifying, activating, connecting and protecting similar
passionate “independent activists” and providing them with the required professional skills and support to reach that aim.
IndyACT’s motto is “Passion with Professionalism”, which is reflected in all of its projects and activities. Passion provides
the drive for perfection and achieving the biggest results, while professionalism provides highest quality output and
extreme efficiency. Combining passion with professionalism means that the high standards applied in the private sector
are being delivered with the passion and innovation of civil activists. IndyACT is working on several issues at the moment
in including climate change, migrant workers, feminism, youth empowerment, no smoking, zero waste and more.

350 would never be possible with just the small team of young people who got it started. It’s made possible by a network
of hundreds of partner organizations, university groups, local activists, and community leaders who have taken this idea,
adapted it, and made it part of their local movement for change. We like to think that our central team provides the tools,
information, and facilitation to empower a global movement to stop the climate crisis. We hope that after reading this
guide, you’ll be ready to create your own local 350 movement!

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What’s different about what we do?

For one, we focus on supporting grassroots climate organizers around the world to spread our message through visual
actions because, as they say, a picture is worth a thousand words. A display of global solidarity will engage the media and
political leaders, which in turn will have an effect on the United Nations negotiations. We also like telling stories. Personal
stories and compelling narratives have significant impact on the pace and scope of UN climate meetings.

That’s why it’s vital that previously overlooked voices are brought into the process of international policy development. We
hope to really shine a spotlight on the communities around the world that are being hit by the worst effects of climate
change and showcase the solutions that communities rely on. Finally, we are constantly redefining what’s achievable with
online organizing on a truly global scale. With the increasing number of new web tools, the barriers to collaboration, group
formation, and collective actions have collapsed over the last few years. We like to say that the internet was invented for
this kind of work!

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Session 1: Organizing and Leadership
Good organizing requires the investment of our hearts (motivation), our heads (strategy) and our hands and feet (action).
These skills of motivation, strategizing and structuring collective action can be taught and learned, and are critical
leadership skills for campaign development and movement building.

Organizing requires three things:

1 Leaders who recruit and develop other leaders and coordinate them in leadership teams.
2 Building relationships, community and commitment around that leadership.
3 Building power from the resources of that community and using that power strategically to achieve clear goals and
outcomes.

What is Leadership?

Leaders are those who do the work of helping others to achieve purpose in the face of uncertainty.

One of your jobs as an environmental organizer is to identify and recruit volunteer leaders to work with you to build a
campaign to win a clean energy future. But what type of leader should you be, and what are you looking for in others?
Sometimes we think the leader is the person everyone goes to, like this (see left):

But what does it feel like to be the “leader” in the
middle? What does it feel like to be the arrow that can’t
get through? What happens if the “leader” in the middle
drops out?

Sometimes we go to the other extreme and think we
don’t need a “leader,” because we can all lead which Lack of Leadership
Leader in the Middle
looks like this (see right):

Sometimes this works. But who’s responsible for coordinating everyone? And who’s responsible for pushing the whole
group forward when you can’t reach a decision? Who takes ultimate responsibility for the outcome?

Organizers are those who can ultimately be held accountable for meeting campaign goals. However, organizers are also
responsible for coordinating and empowering others to take leadership, which requires delegating responsibility (rather
than tasks) and holding others accountable for carrying out that responsibility.

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Remember, we don’t yet have all the volunteers and leaders we need in order to
win a clean energy future. A good organizer’s job is to reach out and find leaders
in your community who can help you recruit and coordinate others well. These
leaders will be the backbone of your local campaign and you must be able to trust
them to delegate responsibility to other dedicated reliable people, and to follow
through on commitments. You may be the leader in the middle, or part of a
leadership team in the middle, guiding volunteer efforts and being held
accountable for outcomes, but you will be deeply reliant on your relationships with
others for success. Leadership Team

Key Organizing and Leadership Practices

DISORGANIZATION LEADERSHIP ORGANIZATION
Divided Build Relationships Community
Confused Interpret Understanding
Passive Motivate Participation
Reactive Strategize Initiative
Inaction Mobilize Action
Drift Accept Responsibility Purpose

Shared Values Narrative:
Organizing is rooted in shared values expressed as public narrative. Stories help to bring alive motivation that is rooted in
values, highlighting each person’s own calling, our calling as a people, and the urgent challenges to that calling we must
face. Values-based organizing - in contrast to issue based organizing - invites people to escape their “issue silos” and
come together so that their diversity becomes an asset, rather than an obstacle. And because values are experienced
emotionally, people can access the moral resources – the courage, hope, and solidarity - that it takes to risk learning new
things and explore new ways. Each person who learns how to tell their own story, a practice that enhances their own
efficacy, creates trust and solidarity within their campaign, equipping them to engage others far more effectively.

Shared Relational Commitment:
Organizing is based on relationships creating mutual commitments to work together. It is the process of association – not
simply aggregation - that makes a whole greater than the sum of its parts. Though association we can learn to recast our
individual interests as common interests, an objective we can use our combined resources to achieve. And because we
are more likely to act to assert those interests, relationship building goes far beyond delivering a message, extracting a
contribution, or soliciting a vote. Relationships built as a result of one on one meetings and small group meetings create
the foundation of local campaign teams, rooted in commitments people made to each other, not simply an idea, task, or
issue – relationships create a source of new “social capital.”

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Shared Organizational Structure
A team leadership structure leads to effective local organizing that integrates local action with national purpose. Volunteer
efforts often flounder due to a failure to develop reliable, consistent, and creative individual local leaders. Structured
leadership teams encourage stability, motivation, creativity, and accountability – and use volunteer time, skills, and effort
for effectively. They create the structure within which energized volunteers can actually accomplish real work. Teams
strive to achieve three criteria of effectiveness – meeting the standards of those they serve, learning how to be more
effective at meeting outcomes over time and enhancing the learning and growth of individuals on the team. Team
members work to put in place five conditions that will lead to effectiveness – real team, (bounded, stable and
interdependent), engaging direction (clear, consequential and challenging), enabling structure (work that is
interdependent), clear group norms, and a diverse team with the skills and talents needed to do the work.

Shared Strategic Objectives
Although based on broad values, effective organizing campaigns learn to focus on a clear strategic objective, a way to
turn those values into action. National campaigns locate responsibility for national strategy at the top (or at the center), but
are able to “chunk out’ strategic objectives in time (deadlines) and space (local areas) as a campaign, allowing significant
local responsibility for figuring out how to achieve those objectives. Responsibility for strategizing local objectives
empowers, motivates and invests local teams. This dual structure allows the movement as a whole to be relentlessly well
oriented and the personal motivation of volunteers to be fully engaged.

Shared Measurable Action
Organizing outcomes must be clear, measurable, and specific if progress is to be evaluated, accountability practiced, and
strategy adapted based on experience. Such measures include volunteers recruited, money raised, people at a meeting,
voters contacted, pledge cards signed, laws passed, etc. Although electoral campaigns enjoy the advantage of very clear
outcome measures, any effective organizing drive must come up with the equivalent. Regular reporting of progress to
goal creates opportunity for feedback, learning, and adaptation. Training is provided for all skills (e.g., holding house
meetings, door knocking, etc.) to carry out the program. New media may help enable reporting, feedback, coordination.
Transparency exists as to how individuals, groups, and the campaign as a whole are doing on progress to goal.

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Session 2: Structuring Leadership Teams
Campaign Structure: Leadership and Learning Teams

Why do organizing teams matter?
During this training you will be working in learning teams to coach and support each other, to hold each other accountable
to meeting the goals set out in each session, and to plan your next steps together if you want to continue learning and
teaching others organizing skills as a team.

The most effective leaders have always created teams to work with them and to lead with them. Take for example
Moses, Aaron and Miriam in the story of Exodus, or Jesus and the twelve disciples in the New Testament, or Mahatma
Gandhi, Jawaharlal Nehru, Sarojini Naidu, and the Indian National Congress Working Committee of the Salt Satyagraha.

Leadership teams offer a structural model for working together that fosters interdependent leadership, where individuals
can work toward an outcome together, with each person taking leadership on part of the team’s activity. At their best
leadership teams recognize and put to productive use the unique talents of the individuals who make up the team.

Team structures also help create strategic capacity—the ability to strategize creatively together in ways that produce more
vibrant, engaging strategy than any individual could create alone. During the Salt March , the field structure created
multiple layers of leadership teams to engage people creatively and strategically at all levels of the campaign. Each town
they passed through had a leadership team that coordinated local neighborhood leadership teams of volunteer leaders.
At every level the people on leadership teams had a clear mission and the ability to strategize creatively together about
how to carry out their mission. This structure created multiple points of entry for volunteers, and multiple opportunities to
learn and exercise leadership.

So why don’t people always work in teams?
We have all been part of volunteer teams that have not worked well. They fall into factions, they alienate each other, or all
the work falls on one person. Some aim to keep the pond small so they can feel like big fish. So many of us come to the
conclusion: I’ll just do it on my own; I hate meetings, just tell me what to do; I don’t want any responsibility; just give me
stamps to lick. There’s just one problem: we can’t become powerful enough to do what we need to do if we can’t even
work together to build campaigns we can take action on.

The challenge is to create conditions for our leadership teams that are more likely to generate successful collaboration
and strategic action.

The criteria for team effectiveness.

A great deal of research on teams has shown that three things help to make a team more effective:

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1 The output of your team matches the goals you need to meet to win on your campaign.
2 The team is learning over time how to work together better.
3 Teamwork supports individual growth and learning.

In short, the team is meeting the campaign’s interests by meeting goals, while at the same time meeting each participant’s
interests by giving them room to learn and grow.

The conditions than can get your team off to a good start:

Your team is stable, with clear boundaries. You can name the people on it and they meet regularly. It’s not a different,
random group of people every time.

Your mission points you in an engaging direction. The work you have to do is clear, it’s challenging, it matters to the
campaign you’re working on and you know why it matters.

Your team works interdependently. Everyone should have a roughly equal share of the work, understanding that each
part is necessary to adequately reach the ultimate goal. Thus, the success or failure of one will have an effect on all. One
way to encourage interdependence is to have clear roles based on the work that the team needs to do to succeed.

Good teams will coordinate and help each other. Good team members will communicate well when they need assistance.
No one is carrying out activity in a silo that’s secretive to others. A good team will have a diversity of identities,
experiences and opinions, ensuring that everyone is bringing the most possible to the table.

You have clear rules. Your team sets clear expectations for how you will respect and empower each other during your
work together.

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Team Work: Starting and Building Your Team – Mission, Rules, Roles

Goal

The purpose of this exercise is to help you (1) Articulate your team’s purpose; (2) choose leadership roles for
today based on the talents of your team’s members and (3) identify the rules you will adhere to as a learning
team.

Agenda

TOTAL TIME: 45 min.

1. Gather and review agenda. Choose a timekeeper for this session 5 min

2. Establish Your Team Purpose (See worksheet below) 10 min

3. Review Team Roles 5 min

4. Decide on Team Roles 10 min

5. Decide on Collaborative Rules 15 min

6. Choose a Team Name

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Team Exercise One: Shared Purpose (10 min.)

Fill in the blanks in the team purpose area on the worksheet. First, write down the interests your team shares. Then fill in
the geographic area that you are working and include a brief description of the people you serve in your area. What kinds
of people live in your turf? What are their interests? What will engage them?

Examples of a team’s shared interest:

• We share an interest in uniting young people and older people in the campaign for a clean energy future.
• We share an interest in training more young people in organizing skills to build our movement
• We share an interest in creating meaningful local ways for people to get involved in the clean energy movement.

We have a shared interest in Our team will provide leadership to We will engage the people in
______________________ . organize our constituency in our community by:
____________________________.
 Recruiting others to join
The community we will serve is us,
(briefly describe your community's  Learning together and
characteristics). coaching each other in
organizing skills,
 Training other young
people in organizing
skills

We will do this by inspiring our
constituency, implementing,
evaluating and refining strategy,
and coordinating action.

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Team Exercise Two: Team Roles (15 min.)

TEAM ROLES (15 minutes)
1. Review the team role descriptions below

2. Go around the circle and ask each person to tell others what experience and talents they have and what
specifically they want to learn in more detail (1 minute each)

3. Discuss roles listed below as well as strengths needed to fill them. Choose roles for each team member to play in
your learning team today.

You would be good for this role You would probably not be
Responsibilities
if you . . . good for this role if you . . .

Team Coordinator

Coordinate and support team Can stay focused on the outcome Try to do everything yourself
members (for this training the outcome of each
session is that each participant in Try to set the team’s mission by
Create agendas and facilitate your group gets to practice and get yourself without listening to others
meetings that follow an agenda feedback on their stories)
Get distracted easily
Serve as the resource coordinator Listen attentively to others and
for the team, making sure all events summarize well Are shy and reluctant to speak up in
are well prepared with appropriate order to keep discussion moving
resources Have the ability to identify talents in
others and help others contribute Are too equivocal and have difficulty
Proactively lead your team in their greatest talent to the team helping the team move through
identifying opportunities to train conflict toward a decision when
others. necessary.

Timekeeper

-Steward your team’s most valuable -Have a watch or other timekeeping -Never look at your watch
resource—time! device
-Think that the last calendar or day
-Work with the Team Coordinator to -Keep a calendar and stick to it planner you bought was maybe in
keep the group moving forward 2002
toward the desired outcome -Understand how to structure
activities in sequence to build toward -Always procrastinate
-Lead the team in scheduling next a desired outcome
steps and timelines with concrete -Are not willing to remind others of
deadlines -Are willing to ask your team to agree deadlines and to hold others
that you will hold everyone accountable to deadlines that they
-Hold your team accountable to the accountable to time and collective have participated in setting and have
timeline you’ve set together deadlines on behalf of the team, in agreed to meet
order to build momentum.

Story of Self Trainer/Coach

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-Put extra effort in learning how to -Are willing to invest effort in learning -Ramble
create a story of self how to tell a good story of self
-Try to tell your whole biography when
-Coach your teammates on story of -Enjoy storytelling telling a story of self (have trouble
self being selective)
-Can tell vivid, detailed stories that
-Prepare the story of self, part of are carefully selected -Are not willing or able to invest time
your team’s training on public in listening carefully to those you are
narrative so you can teach this skill -Are interested in people—who they coaching and asking careful,
when you return home. are, where they come from, how they probative questions of them
became who they are

-Can listen carefully and ask
thoughtful questions of others

Story of Us Trainer/Coach

-Put extra effort in learning how to -Are willing to invest effort in -Get frustrated easily. (Story of us
create a story of us understanding how to tell a good takes a while to learn well.)
story of us
-Coach your teammates on story of -Believe that we are trying to motivate
us -Are curious about community stories everyone in the world to action with us
and willing to spend time developing (which dilutes the meaning of our
-Prepare the story of us part of your them—asking questions about how a community and our responsibility)
team’s training on public narrative community was founded, who its
so you can teach this skill when you heroes are, what outcomes it has -Try to make the community you’re
return home. achieved together, what its hopes moving to action too broad without
are boundaries so that it loses meaning
and identity
-Enjoy storytelling

-Can listen carefully and ask

-Have patience

Story of Now Trainer/Coach

-Put extra effort in learning how to -Are willing to invest effort in -Tend to try to do everything. You’re
create a story of now understanding how to tell a good reluctant to make strategic choices
story of now about what to do—and what not to do.
-Coach your teammates on story of
now -Feel urgency -Are not very creative about action—
you stick to the same old tactics that
-Prepare the story of now part of -Can help others choose strategic everyone has always used.
your team’s training on public action. You understand that scale is
narrative if you teach this skill when built by asking 1,000 people to do -Struggle to imagine in vivid detail
you return home. the same single meaningful thing what a different future could look like if
(like not taking the segregated bus) we all act together.
rather than giving 1,000 people a
laundry list of actions to choose from.

- Can listen carefully and ask

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Team Exercise Three: Team Rules/Expectations (15 min.)

Brainstorm group rules on each theme below and how you will self correct if the norm is broken. (If you don’t self correct
the new rule will be breaking the rules.)

RECORD GROUP RULES HERE

How we will respect time and the timekeeper so we meet our expected outcomes:

What we will always do:

How we will self correct if the rule is broken:

How we will get back on track if someone gets off on a tangent:


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How we will respect each other while still giving constructive feedback:



How we will communicate and coordinate after the training :



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Session 3: Introduction to Public Narrative & Story
of Self

Public narrative is a practice of leadership
Public narrative is the “why” of organizing—the art of translating values into action through stories. It is an iterative
discussion process through which individuals, communities, and nations construct their identity, make choices, and inspire
action.

Each of us has a compelling story to tell
Each of us has a story that can move others. As you learn this skill of public narrative, you will be able to tell a
compelling story that includes elements that identify yourself, your audience and your strategy to others. In addition, you
will gain practice in hearing and coaching others to tell a good story.

Why Use Public Narrative? Two Ways of Knowing or Interpreting
Public leaders employ both the “head” and the “heart” in order to mobilize others to act effectively on behalf of shared
values. In other words, they engage people in interpreting why they should change their world – their motivation – and
how they can act to change it – their strategy.

Many leaders are often good at the analysis
side of public speaking – and focus on
presenting a good argument or strategy.
Alternately, other leaders tell their personal
story – but it is often a tale of heartbreak that
educates us about the challenge but doesn’t
highlight the choices and the potential for
hopeful outcomes.

This public narrative work is an effort to tell a
story that involves the head and heart AND
moves people to use their hands and feet in
action.

The key to public narrative is understanding that values inspire action through emotion.

Emotions inform us of what we value in ourselves, in others, and in the world, and enable us to express the motivational
content of our values to others. In other words, because we experience values emotionally, they are what actually move
us to act; it is not just the idea that we ought to act. Because stories allow us to express our values not as abstract

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principles, but as lived experience, they have the power to move others too.

Some emotions inhibit action, but other emotions facilitate action.

Action is inhibited by inertia, fear, self-doubt, isolation, and apathy. Action is facilitated by urgency, hope, YCMAD (you
can make a difference), solidarity, and anger. Stories mobilize emotions that urge us to take action and help us
overcome emotions that inhibit us from action.

Public narrative combines a story of self, a story of us, and a story of now.

The process of creating your public narrative is fluid and iterative and can start at any place. Once you develop your story
of self, story of us, and story of now, you’ll probably want to go back to the beginning to clarify the links between them.

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A “story of self” tells why we have been called to serve.

The story of self expresses the values or experiences that call each person to take leadership on energy and the
environment. The key focus is on choice points, moments in our lives when values are formed because of a need to
choose in the face of great uncertainty. When did you first care about being heard, learn that you were concerned about
climate change, wanted to protect the planet, wanted to ensure clean air, clean water for yourself and others, learn to love
nature or appreciate being outdoors? Why? When did you feel you had to do something about it? Why did you feel you
could? What were the circumstances? What specific choice did you make?

A “story of us” communicates the values and experiences that a community, organization, campaign or
movement shares and what capacity or resources that community of “us” has to accomplish its goals.

Just as with a person, the key is choice points in the life of the community and/or those moments that express the values,
experiences, past challenges and resources of the community or “us” that will take action. For example, tying a current
effort to win a campaign to a past campus campaign victory and describing the effort it took to win, the people who
worked hard to make it happen, their capabilities, their values, etc. is a story of us.

A “story of now” communicates the urgent challenge we are called upon to face now and calls us to action.

The story of now articulates the urgent challenge in specific detail. It also includes a description of the path we can take
to achieve goals relative to the mission – the unique strategy or set of ideas that will help us to overcome the challenge
we face and succeed. The story of now includes an ask that summons the audience to a specific action they can do to
achieve our collective mission. Finally, the story lays out in detail a vision for the potential outcome we could achieve if
our strategy succeeds.

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Linking Self, Us, Now

You are looking for the link between these three stories, the place where they overlap, to help explain why you are called
to this work of building a clean energy future, why we are called to act with you, and why we are called to act now. This
means being very selective about the story you tell—for example not trying to tell your whole biography when you tell your
story of self.

The Three Key Elements of Public Narrative
Structure:
Challenge – Choice – Outcome

A plot begins with an unexpected challenge that
confronts a character with an urgent need to pay
attention, to make a choice, a choice for which
s/he is unprepared. The choice yields an outcome
-- and the outcome teaches a moral.

Because we can empathetically identify with the
character, we can “feel” the moral. We not only
hear “about” someone’s courage; we can also be
inspired by it.

The story of the character and their effort to engage around values engages the listener in their own challenge, choice,
and outcome relative to the story. Each story should include the challenge, the choice and the outcome. It’s not enough
to say – I was scared. You need to say – I was very scared, I needed to decide, and when I did, I learned it was possible.

Incorporating Challenge, Choice, and Outcome in Your Own Story
There are some key questions you need to answer as you consider the choices you have made in your life and the path
you have taken that brought you to this point in time as a leader. Once you identify the specific relevant choice point,
perhaps your decision to choose an environmental career, dig deeper by answering the following questions.

Challenge: Why did you feel it was a challenge? What was so challenging about it? Why was it your challenge?

Choice: Why did you make the choice you did? Where did you get the courage (or not)? Where did you get the hope (or
not)? How did it feel?

Outcome: How did the outcome feel? Why did it feel that way? What did it teach you? What do you want to teach us?
How do you want us to feel?

A word about challenge. Sometimes people see the word challenge and think that they need to describe the misfortunes
of their lives. Keep in mind that a struggle might be one of your own choosing – a high mountain you decided to climb as
much as a hole you managed to climb out of. Any number of things may have been a challenge to you and be the source
of a good story to inspire others.
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ACTIVITY – VIDEO REVIEW
Barack Obama Speech – 2004 Convention
We will watch this video as a model for a public narrative that includes examples of self , us and now as well as an appeal
to emotions. As you watch the video – think about the elements of SELF – US – NOW that you hear in his story.
Listen as well for the challenge, choice and outcome in each of the three areas.

SELF US NOW

What are his experiences What is his reason for believing in the Why is it urgent to change?
and values that call him to capacity of the people he is speaking What is his strategy to
take leadership to elect John to create change? What shared overcome the challenge?
Kerry? values and experiences does he What is the first step that
appeal to? each person can take to be
part of the solution?

Do you think he did a good job of telling his story? What worked? What could have been more clear?

What are some of the specific details in his story that you remember?

What values did he talk about in his story?

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Peer Coaching 101

Coaching Checklist

DO

 Say what works first in the story, focusing on specifics.

 Identify both the CHALLENGE and the HOPE in the story.

 Clarify choice points, the moment when one thing happened instead of another.

 Connect the dots in the narrative, helping to illuminate how someone got from here to there.

 Look for themes.

 Ask questions about the intended audience and the desired action or response.

DON’T

Offer vague, abstract "feel good" comments, unless you’ve established the context.
What does the story teller learn from “you did a great job”, as opposed to, “the way you described your moment of choice
made me feel very hopeful because...“

Make value judgments about the story teller’s voice or the validity of the point they want to make.
The key here is that a person find ways to express themselves in their own voice –word choice, humor, metaphor, etc. Of
course they need to know if choices they’ve made communicate what they want to communicate.

Think about what you’re going to say about your story while someone else is saying theirs. You should allow
yourself to take a risk with your story by diving in. Focus on others stories so you can help them with their efforts and
then you can get the same sort of help from them.

Underestimate the power of someone’s story. If it doesn’t “work” for you, think about why it doesn’t, and more
importantly, why it would for someone else.

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Team Work: Practicing Your Story of Self

GOALS

The teamwork you’re asked to do here is to coach each other in how to tell your story of self. One goal is for you to begin
learning how to tell your personal story of why you are called to organize to help win a clean energy future.

Another goal is to begin learning how to coach others’ stories by listening carefully, offering feedback, asking questions,
etc. In this way you can develop leadership in others, as well as yourself. Be prepared to take some risks, and support
your team members as they step out on the limb themselves!

A final goal is to practice working as part of a team. As you work together, think about the dynamics in your team.
Practice your norms and help your other team members take leadership on their chosen roles.

Agenda

TOTAL TIME: 70 min.

1. Gather in your team. Timekeeper begins keeping time. 5 min

2. Take time as individuals to silently develop your “story of self” 10 min
using the worksheet on the next page.

3. Tell your story to your team members and respond to each 45 min
other—each person takes 2 min. to tell their stories and the
group has 3. min to offer feedback. Story of Self Coach leads the
team in giving feedback to each storyteller.

NOTE: You have just 2 minutes to tell your story. Stick to
this limit. Make sure your timekeeper cuts you off. This
encourages focus and makes sure everyone has a chance.

4. Choose your most able story teller to tell their story before the 10 min
larger group. Give them pointers to prep again to tell their story a
third time.

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WORKSHEET

“Story of Self”
What are the experiences and values that call you to take leadership on climate and clean energy?

If you’re having trouble getting started, here are some key elements and types of experiences that may have contributed
to your current choice to take leadership as a community organizer on clean energy.

ORGANIZER/ENVIRO
FAMILY & CHILDHOOD LIFE CHOICES
EXPERIENCE

Parents/Family School Role Models
Growing Up Experiences Career Your First Experience of
Your Community Partner/Family Organizing
Role Models Hobbies/Interests/Talents Your First Awareness of the
School Experiences – Finding Passion Environment
Overcoming Challenges A Key moment in nature
Your current experience in
Power Shift

Focus on one key story—one event, or one place or one important relationship. Take some time to think about the
elements of your story in the context of the challenge, choice and outcome. In this case, the outcome might also be the
thing you learned, in addition to what actually happened.

Remember, the purpose of story of self is to begin to create common ground with your audience by telling a story that
reflects the values that brought you here to work on building a clean energy future, and where those values come from.
So choose a story of self that reflects values you will later call on in your stories of us and now.

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CHALLENGE CHOICE OUTCOME

What was the specific What was the specific choice What happened as a result
challenge you faced? you made? of your choice? What hope
can it give us?

Record Feedback/Comments from Your Team Members On Your Story Here:

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Coaching Your Team's “Story of Self”

As you hear each other's stories, keeping track of the details of each person’s story will help you to provide feedback and
remember details about people on your team later. Use the grid below to track your team's stories.

Name Challenge Choice Outcome Notes/Themes

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Session 5: The Effects of Climate Change
Climate change is already affecting many species – inlcuding humans – in every corner of the planet. It’s happening now,
and if we continue to emit carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases into the atmosphere, it will continue to affect us
and the planet for years to come, in ways that we can’t even begin to predict. Scientists know that as long as we stay
above 350ppm, we are at risk of changing the planet as we know it. While it’s easy to ascribe weather events, droughts,
floods and other natural events to climate change, it’s important to know that not every natural event is related to climate
change. You don’t have to be an expert, but it helps to know exactly how increased levels of CO2 will continue to affect
our planet and people around the world. Here are some of the major effects of climate change:

• Melting glaciers will initially increase flood risk and then strongly reduce water supplies, eventually threatening one-sixth
of the world’s population, predominantly in the Indian sub-continent, parts of China, and the Andes in South America.

• Declining crop yields, especially in Africa, could leave hundreds of millions without the ability to produce or purchase
sufficient food. Global food production is likely to be seriously affected.

• In higher latitudes, cold-related deaths will decrease. But climate change will increase worldwide deaths from
malnutrition and heat stress. Vector-borne diseases such as malaria and dengue fever could become more widespread.

• Rising sea levels will result in tens to hundreds of millions more people flooded each year. There will be serious risks
and increasing pressures for coastal protection in South East Asia (Bangladesh and Vietnam), small islands in the
Caribbean and the Pacific, and large coastal cities, such as Tokyo, New York, Cairo and London. According to one
estimate, by the middle of the century, 200 million people may become permanently displaced due to rising sea levels,
heavier floods, and more intense droughts.

• Ecosystems will be particularly vulnerable to climate change, with around 15 - 40% of species potentially facing
extinction. And ocean acidification, a direct result of rising carbon dioxide levels, will have major effects on marine
ecosystems, with possible adverse consequences on fish stocks.

• Warming may induce sudden shifts in regional weather patterns such as the monsoon rains in South Asia or the El Niño
phenomenon - changes that would have severe consequences for water availability and flooding in tropical regions and
threaten the livelihoods of millions of people.

• A number of studies suggest that the Amazon rainforest could be vulnerable to climate change, with models projecting
significant drying in this region. One model, for example, finds that the Amazon rainforest could be significantly, and
possibly irrevocably, damaged.

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• The melting or collapse of ice sheets would eventually threaten land which today is home to 1 in every 20 people.

• A 5 or 10% increase in hurricane wind speed, linked to rising sea temperatures, is predicted approximately to double
annual damage costs, in the USA.

• Heat waves like that experienced in 2003 in Europe, when 35,000 people died and agricultural losses reached $15
billion, will be commonplace by the middle of the century.

• Flood-risk hotspots occur in Africa, including the Sahel, the Horn of Africa, Great Lakes region, Central Africa and
Southeast Africa; Central, South and Southeast Asia; and Central America and the western part of South America.

• Cyclone-risk hotspots occur largely in Mozambique and Madagascar, Central America, Bangladesh, parts of India,
Vietnam and several other Southeast Asian countries.

• Drought-risk hotspots are mainly located in sub-Saharan Africa; South Asia, particularly Afghanistan, Pakistan and parts
of India; and South East Asia, particularly Myanmar, Vietnam and Indonesia.

• Mosquitos are spreading: They’re thriving in new places, and are bringing malaria and dengue fever with them.

What are some effects of climate change in your community? Record them below:

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Session 7: Climate Justice
Introduction
OVERVIEW: A brief brainstorm and discussion
designed to link climate change and What is climate justice? How do we talk about poverty, inequality
environmental racism. and power in a way that brings more people in rather than

OBJECTIVES: To understand why climate alienates them? This section will address those questions, and
change disproportionately impacts certain help you understand how to work in communities where climate
communities. change, the environment and power structures are intimately

MATERIALS: Three large pieces of paper, connected.
Markers, Map

TIME: 10 minutes

Causes and Consequences of Climate Change
The map below displays the historic cumulative greenhouse gas emissions through proportionate land size. You
can see how the industrialized nations (in pink) are polluting more than their fair share of the earth. The developing
nations (green) are contributing far less to the problem of greenhouse gas emissions.

• Who do you think causes climate change?

• Who do you think is impacted most and first by climate change and list them on the second sheet of paper titled “Who
is Most Impacted by Climate Change?”

• Are the people who cause climate change the same as those who are impacted most by it? We’re going to explore
this injustice in depth throughout this workshop.

Climate Cases
OVERVIEW: A small group activity that examines
Introduction case studies of disproportionately impacted
This activity seeks to allow participants to see that climate communities.
change is already impacting many in the world today. We will
OBJECTIVES: To demonstrate that some
explore how this happens from within communities and from communities are already impacted by climate
an outside experience. This activity can be a frustrating and change, to show participants this is a complex
disheartening experience for some, which is why it’s important problem that requires education and community
participation.
to realize the situations these communities are in. The
solutions will come in the next activity, but try to find sources MATERIALS: Case Studies, Large sheets of blank
paper, Markers
of hope in this one.

TIME: 55 minutes

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Activity
We are going to look at a few case studies of climate injustice in action. We will break into small groups and everyone will
get a different case study. Your assignment is to read the scenario, answer the questions at the bottom (everyone has
the same questions), and brainstorm ideas for overcoming the injustice. You will then have to creatively draw your
scenario- including the problem, assets, barriers, and solutions. You’ll have 20 minutes to work in groups and 5 minutes to
report back to the large group.

1. What links all the communities that have been discussed in this activity?

2. Which, if any, of the communities discussed in this activity are key contributors to climate change? (Some communities
are employed by oil, coal or mining companies. How can you break this tie?)

3. What would make you more hopeful that positive change could occur for the communities discussed?

4. What strikes you most about these facts? This paper is just a sample of the research that the EJCC has done around
climate injustice.

Thank you for participating in this activity. These are real, difficult struggles that communities deal with everyday.
Remember your responses to these case studies as we move into the next activity- one that will provide us with more
solutions.

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Session 8: Story of Us
Now that you’ve had a while to reflect on both your own personal story and the state of the Earth’s climate, let’s get back
to telling the larger story of our movement. Remember that an organizer doesn’t just tell his or her story, and talking just
about the science and policy tends to make peoples’ eyes glaze over. That’s why it’s important to talk about the “story of
us” so as to implicate and engage people in your activism.

A “story of us” communicates the values and experiences that a community, organization, campaign or
movement shares and what capacity or resources that community of “us” has to accomplish its goals.

Just as with a person, the key is choice points in the life of the community and/or those moments that express the values,
experiences, past challenges and resources of the community or “us” that will take action. For example, tying a current
effort to win a campaign to a past campus campaign victory and describing the effort it took to win, the people who
worked hard to make it happen, their capabilities, their values, etc. is a story of us.

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Team Work: Practicing The Story of Us

GOALS

The teamwork you’re asked to do here is to coach each other in how to tell your story of us. One goal is for you to begin
learning how to tell your community’s story of why you in particular have the capacity to help address climate change and
build a clean energy future.

Another goal is to begin learning how to coach others’ stories by listening carefully, offering feedback, asking questions,
etc. In this way you can develop leadership in others, as well as yourself. Be prepared to take some risks, and support
your team members as they step out on the limb themselves!

A final goal is to practice working as part of a team. As you work together, think about the dynamics in your team.
Practice your norms and help your other team members take leadership on their chosen roles.

Agenda

TOTAL TIME: 55 min.


2. Take time as a group to figure out who your “us” is and then begin 10 min
developing your story using the worksheets below.

group has 3. min to offer feedback. Story of Us Coach leads the
team in giving feedback to each storyteller.


larger group. Give them pointers to prep again to tell their story a
third time.

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WORKSHEET

“Story of Us”
Remember, the purpose of the story of us is to create a sense of community among individuals who may or may not yet
see themselves as a community and to give them hope that they can make a difference. Your goal here is to tell a story
that evokes our shared values as your audience, and shows why we in particular are called to take responsibility for action
now.

Your story of us may be a story of what we’ve already done together, challenges we’ve already faced and outcomes
we’ve achieved. Or it may be a story of some of our shared heroes, challenges they faced and outcomes they’ve
achieved. Hearing how we’ve met challenges in the past gives us hope that we can face new challenges together.

Brainstorm all the stories you know of about your audience and their collective story and experience. Your story of us
may change each time you are talking to a different group of people.

Who are some of the “us”s that you’re a part of? (Your generation, your learning team, the international youth
climate movement, 350.org) Which “us” is most relevant as an audience here at this training?

What are some stories of this audience that give you an indication of their shared purpose and the goals of this
group? What are their values?

What are some shared stories that give you a sense of the strengths and capacities of your
audience/community?

What are some stories of your generation or of the environmental community that give you the belief that
together they could work to join you in creating real tangible change in the world?

Now choose one of the stories you brainstormed above to flesh out in vivid detail.

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What was the challenge we What specific choice did we What happened as a result of our choice?
faced? make? What action did we What hope can it give us?
take?

Record Feedback/Comments from Your Team Members On Your Story Here:

Coaching Your Team's “Story of Us”


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Session 9: The Story of Now
Remember the third part of a public narrative. Do you remember how Barack Obama, in his 2004 Democratic convention
speech, got very specific about the fact that there was “more work to do”? Do you remember how he explained the
challenges? Was it with statistics? Or was it with specific people, facing their own challenges, their own choice points. Do
you remember how gave us a sense of hope, that we could do something about these challenges? And then, he wound
up with calling on us to make the choice to join the campaign to elect the Democratic nominee, President. He identified a
very specific action he was asking us all to choose to take—to go vote for John Kerry.

This should sound familiar. There’s a challenge, but instead of being in the past, it’s in the present. There’s hope, but
instead of something that happened in the past, it’s in the future. And there’s a choice, but instead of being a choice we
once made, it’s a choice we must make now. And that’s why it’s a “story of now”.

Linking Your Story of Now to Story of Self and Story of Us

Now we know why you’ve been called to a particular mission, we know something of who it is you want to call upon to join
you in that mission, so what action does that mission require of us right here, right now, in this place?

A “story of now” is urgent, it requires dropping other things and paying attention, it is rooted in the values you celebrated in
your story of self and us, and requires action.

The Elements of a Story of Now

 The strategy – your plan to achieve your goal.
 A strategic “hopeful” choice that each person in your audience can make
 A specific ask for each person that involves a commitment of time, resources before they leave.
 A vivid description of what collectively can be achieved if we take action together.

Why It Matters
The choice we’re called on to make is a choice to take strategic action now. Leaders who only describe problems, but fail
to identify action that their community can take to address the problem aren’t very good leaders. If you are called to
address a real challenge, a challenge so urgent you have motivated us to face it as well, then you also have a
responsibility to invite us to join you in action that has some chance of success. A ‘story of now” is not simply a call to
make a choice to act – it is a call to “hopeful” action.

What is Strategy?
The story of now is a story of strategy—how my action, added up with other people’s action could, with a reasonable
amount of hope, be expected to achieve a clear outcome that would help us meet our goal.

The challenge of strategy is building toward key peaks of collective action that aren’t random, and don’t just happen and

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dissolve into nothingness afterwards. The challenge is identifying actions that will help to build capacity and momentum
that can launch your campaign toward the next peak, and the next peak, until you have enough power to win the change
you seek.

Often when working on our story of now we realize we really don’t have a clear, actionable or motivating strategy.
Working on story of now can be a way to re-evaluate our strategy and to engage others in strategizing with us.

Strategy is motivated.
We strategize in response to urgent challenges or
unusual opportunities to turn our goals into specific
outcomes. Consider Gandhi’s salt march– to what
challenge did Gandhi respond? What was his
motivating goal? Was his goal just to halt the British
monopoly on salt production, or was it to make
progress toward the goal of achieving freedom from
British rule? How did he turn a large goal into an
achievable but meaningful outcome?

Strategy is intentional.
Strategy is a theory of how we can turn what we have
(resources) into what we need (power) to get what we want (outcomes). It is a hypothesis that we can use certain tactics
to achieve specific outcomes. What clear outcome was Gandhi trying to ? How could poor Indians reasonably believe
that the action they were being asked to take could make a difference? What clear outcome were they trying to achieve?
How would they know if they had met it?

Strategy is creative.
Challenging the status quo requires making up for our lack of resources, with greater resourcefulness, like the story of
David and Goliath. Creative strategists don’t just fall back on the same old tactics to build their campaigns. They look for
tactics that will build power by engaging as many people as possible, and they think creatively about how to turn the
resources they have into what they need to win. For example, during the salt march, the resignations of local leaders
refusing to submit to British rule was a creative way to meet an urgent strategic need—gathering more people to move the
march ahead.

Strategy is a verb
(Something we do), not a noun (something we have). We can see that repeatedly in the story of the salt march, and this is
a core strength of the 350 campaign. As we work toward our outcome we need to build in time to learn from our
successes and failures and to adapt our tactics to become more and more effective. We constantly seek out new
opportunities that could help us mobilize more people or resources for our effort, and we think creatively about how to turn
challenges into opportunities.
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Four Strategic Questions

1. What’s the Motivating Goal: What threats to your common
interests must you face? What opportunities must you act
upon?

2. What’s the Outcome: specific, focused, measurable (how
will the world be changed?). On what outcome can you
focus? What outcomes are nested within that outcome? How
much time do you have to achieve these outcomes? What is
the scope (time) and scale (size) of this outcome?

3. Which Tactics will you use? Why these and not others?
Criteria include:

• Will it influence the outcome you’re hoping to achieve? How?
• Will it use your resources creatively? How?
• Will it create organizational capacity? How?
• Will it develop leadership? How?

4. When will you use them? Consider the dynamics of campaigns, which tactics will you use when, what will be the
sequence, how can you make the most of momentum, etc.?

As you work on developing your strategy as part of figuring out your story of now, remember that strategy is not
something done by an individual alone in a secretive dark corner somewhere. Strategy is best created in a strategic
team. It is very important to think about who serves on your strategy team, how it works, and how well. Does your team
have a clear common purpose? Do you deliberate well together? Do you operate with consistent norms? Is it clear who’s
on the team? Is your team’s authority to strategize clear?

As you continue to create your strategy in the face of new challenges and opportunities, your story of now will become
clearer and more focused.

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Session 10: The 350 Campaign Strategy
Our Mission:

350.org is an international campaign dedicated to building a movement to
unite the world around solutions to the climate crisis--the solutions that
justice demand.

Our mission is to inspire the world to rise to the challenge of the climate
crisis--to create a new sense of urgency and of possibility for our planet.

Our focus is on the number 350--as in parts per million, the level scientists
have identified as the safe upper limit for CO2 in our atmosphere. But 350
is more than a number--it's a symbol of where we need to head as a
planet.

To tackle climate change we need to move quickly, and we need to act in unison--and 2009 will be an absolutely crucial
year. This December, world leaders will meet in Copenhagen, Denmark to craft a new global treaty on cutting emissions.
The problem is, the treaty currently on the table doesn't meet the severity of the climate crisis--it doesn't pass the 350 test.

In order to unite the public, media, and our political leaders behind the 350 goal, we're harnessing the power of the
internet to coordinate a planetary day of action on October 24, 2009. We hope to have actions at hundreds of iconic
places around the world - from the Taj Mahal to the Great Barrier Reef to your community - and clear message to world
leaders: the solutions to climate change must be equitable, they must be grounded in science, and they must meet the
scale of the crisis.

If an international grassroots movement holds our leaders accountable to the latest climate science, we can start the
global transformation we so desperately need.

350 is just a number. Wouldn't "Climate Emergency" or "Clean Energy Now" be a better call to action?

350 translates into many languages--numerals are among the few things most people around the world recognize. More
to the point, 350 tells us what we need to do. Far from boring, it's the most important number in the world. It contains,
rightly understood, the recipe for a very different world, one that moves past cheap fossil fuel to more sensible
technologies, more closely-knit communities, and a more equitable global society.

Why October 24th?

The timing here is crucial--there is a narrow window when we can have the most influence in international climate politics.
Too early and we're irrelevant, too late and we've missed our chance to have a real impact.
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Though the final climate meeting in Copenhagen doesn't take place until December, governments will be finalizing
positions before the meeting takes place. Late October may well be our best chance we have before countries set
everyone that negotiates for the United Nations climate talks will get their final orders.

With creative actions happening all over the globe, and photographs of those events appearing online, in the media, and
on politicians' desks, we will change what these negotiators think they can achieve right before they make the important
decisions of the UN treaty. Right now most of them know the science of 350ppm, but they don't think it is politically
possible. On October 24, we are going to show them that not only is it possible, but it is what everyone all over the world
is demanding they do.

Why another organization--there are already too many things going on!

It's true, there are lots of organizations and individuals working hard to solve the climate crisis. This is great news--it
means that we don't really need to build a movement from scratch because it's already bubbling up all over the world.

Our hope is that we can shine a spotlight on the work of existing organizations, highlighting everyone's incredible work
and knitting these many efforts together for a powerful and unified call to action--a call that is global, scientific, and
specific. By providing a common platform with the 350 target, we can help to stitch together a whole that is truly greater
than the sum of its parts, a diverse movement that speaks with one collective voice.

How do we know this will work?

By now, you’ve probably had a good dose of how we look at the world and what we think makes for an effective
campaign. But that doesn’t necessarily translate into action. We know that this kind of campaign works because we’ve
done it before, here in the United States.

It’s easy to join the global warming movement. We know it’s easy because we all just joined ourselves. None of us have
spent long years as organizers. One of us has spent long years mostly as a writer with a little activism on the side; the rest
of us haven’t spent long years doing anything except school, because we just got out of college.

But in 2007, we came together to see if we could kick up a fuss about climate change. That January 10th, we launched a
Web site, StepItUp2007.org. We asked people across the country to start organizing rallies for April 14, to demand that
Congress cut carbon emissions 80 percent by 2050. We had no money, and we had no organization, so we had no
expectations. Our secret hope, which seemed a little grandiose, was that we might organize a hundred demonstrations for
that Saturday, only three months away.

Instead our idea took off. The emails we sent ended up spreading virally, in the way that certain ideas sometimes do on
the Internet. People we’d never heard of started signing up on the Web site to host rallies in places we’d never heard of.
The electronic pins stuck on our online map got thicker by the week—200, 500, 900. By the time the big day rolled
around, there were 1,400 demonstrations in all fifty states, ranging from tiny to enormous. It was one of the biggest days
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of grassroots environmental protest since the first Earth Day in 1970, covered extensively in the national media and in
thousands of local stories across the country.

Our International Strategy

It’s easy to get wrapped up in the international negotiations or policy details in our nations’ capitols and forget about
building a movement, but there has never been a more critical time to bring our message home to our communities.
That’s why we don’t ask all of our organizers around the world to protest at the national Parliament or Prime Minister’s
house (though that’s not a bad idea).

Our international strategy rests on the idea that nothing short of a massive movement will convince the world’s leaders to
take the issue of climate change seriously. We have to embrace our role as underdogs, since we won’t out-spend our
opponents who pay off politicians with favors and cash. And, in fact, many people across the globe have already taken it
upon themselves to make change happen in their villages, cities, and countries. Our friends at WiserEarth.com have over
100,000 civil society organizations around the world dedicated to making change. We have the grassroots networks – we
just need the coordination.

Here are a few ways in which 350.org helps local actions translate into a larger international strategy that will build the
movement to get an equitable and strong international climate deal:

Making the Invisible Visible
It’s a supreme irony that the people who are bearing the brunt of climate change are those with the least voices in the
international negotiations. 350.org is committed to making those voices heard – not by speaking on their behalf, but by
building capacity and power behind those spokespeople and groups fighting for strong and just targets. Together, we are
moving beyond the stale rhetoric of North vs. South and Developed vs. Developing. We are helping concerned citizens all
over the planet bring their messages to world leaders directly, making what was previously invisible, visible.

Pioneering Online Advocacy
What makes 350.org unique is our ability to harness the incredible innovations in online campaigning in the last few years.
The barriers to collaboration, group formation, and collective action have all but collapsed. 350.org will continue to pioneer
a new kind of mobilization --what we're calling “open-source activism.” Harnessing the best tools out there, we'll be
exploring new ways to catalyze action, tell a collective story, and enable people all over the world to own and co-create
the campaign as it unfolds.

Building Diverse Leadership for a Global Movement
We enter 2009 with a great core team of talented organizers. The folks who did Step It Up understand political organizing
in the internet age as well as anyone in the world. They are founding members of a global youth climate movement with
connections to youth leaders in every continent. Our staff’s diversity and talent has been greatly expanded in the last year,
with organizers in Budapest, Berlin, Quito, Barbados, Cape Town, Sydney, Kuala Lumpur, Washington DC, San

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Francisco, Mumbai and Delhi.

Creating a Media Moment
Step It Up 2007 garnered more than 500 press hits over the course of 3 months. We know that building a truly global
narrative is the only way to compel our leaders to action. October 24 will be a day to spark a global movement, and we
hope to reach traditional and new media outlets large and small, on every continent and in every language. Surround-
sound viral and traditional media about people all over the world calling for a fair Copenhagen agreement that gets us
back to 350ppm will make it impossible for the world’s leaders to ignore us.

Taking Our Message to the Leaders
350.org staff all over the world are poised to take advantage of key decision-making moments on the international stage.
We have helped to mobilize people for on-the-ground rallies during international meetings in Germany, USA, Indonesia,
India, and Poland, and we have plans to take our message to the Major Economies Forum in France, the UNFCCC
intercessional meeting in Germany and, of course, in Copenhagen, Denmark at the end of 2009.

In addition, we are working with partners and international youth to influence decision-makers in key countries. We have
recruited well-known ‘350 Messengers’ such as David Suzuki, Sheila Watt-Cloutier, Van Jones, Vandana Shiva, Desmond
Tutu and others to spread the message far and wide, and luminaries such as Al Gore and the Dalai Lama have endorsed
the 350ppm target.

We will continue to work with grassroots organizers around the world in the leadup to October 24 and through
Copenhagen to ensure world leaders feel pressure to step forward and enact bold national and international policies to
deal with the climate crisis and ensure a prosperous, clean energy future for every person on the planet.

Building a Movement
In the end, this really is a movement, and our small team is surprised and thrilled day after day by all the people that
contact us with stories and news of the work they are doing in their communities. Spontaneous artwork in the Czech
Republic, ongoing 350 aerials in India, anti-coal actions in the US, churches ringing bells 350 times, farmers hand-cutting
350 into crops during harvest, 350 has begun to pop up in the least likely places. We want the world to own 350
completely, and that’s why we’re excited to hear that 350 has moved out of our control and into the hands of ordinary
citizens around the world.

50


Team Work: Practicing The Story of Now

GOALS

The teamwork you’re asked to do here is to coach each other in how to tell your story of now. The goal of this team
work session is to focus on outcomes you could work together to achieve to advance your common interests. Which
urgent challenges or opportunities do you have to face?

What could you achieve if you could face them together? What are some possible outcomes? What might be some of
the tactics you could use? How might you continue to strategize together?

As you work together as a learning team, continue to think about the dynamics in your team. Practice your norms and
help your other team members take leadership on their chosen roles.

Agenda

TOTAL TIME: 55 min.


2. Take time as individuals to silently develop your “story of now” 10 min
using the worksheet on the next 2 pages.

group has 3. min to offer feedback.

Story of Now Coach leads the team in giving feedback to each
storyteller.


larger group. Give them pointers to prep again to tell their story
a third time.

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WORKSHEET

“STORY OF NOW”

Use these questions to help you to put together your story of now. You should draw on your own current work on clean
energy, and if possible Energy Action & Power Shift’s Campaign strategy to fill in the answers to the questions below.

Take a moment to reflect here on your challenge. What makes it urgent to you and your audience? Why must you
collectively take action now? Once you have identified that, you then need to lay down your strategy – what you think you
can do together to confront the challenge. Most importantly, what is the action step that people can take to join you in
collective action towards a solution.

Why is it urgent to take on clean energy now? What makes it urgent relative to other problems? Who are you
serving in your community and the world by taking on leadership in this area?

What is your strategy to help alleviate the problem, create real tangible change? How will you know that you
have developed an effective solution? What will the outcome look like if you are successful?

What is the single most important first step(s) can people take to join you in this strategy? What form will
their commitment take? Is it clear what they should do? Is it clear when they should do it?

Now flesh out your story of now in vivid detail.

52



What is the challenge we What specific choice are you What specific outcome
face? What images make asking us to make? What could happen as a result of
that challenge real? specific action should we our choice? What hope can
take and when? it give us?

Record Feedback/Comments from Your Team Members Here:

53


Coaching Your Team's “Story of Now”



54


Session 11: Putting it all Together
Think back to the Barack Obama video we watched. How did he tie together the Story of Self, the Story of Us and the
Story of Now. Your role as an organizer is to tell the full story of who you are, climate change, how it affects your
community, and how we can take action. Use the below worksheet and your team to practice telling your full story.

Tying it all together in a successful public narrative.

SELF US NOW

What are your experiences and What is your reason for believing Why is it urgent to deal with
values that call you to take in the possibility of the people you climate change? What is your
leadership on building a clean will be speaking to? What is their strategy to overcome this
energy future? story? challenge? What is the first step
that each person can take to be
part of your solution?

C
H
A
L
L
E
N
G
E

C
H
O
I
C
E

55


O
U
T
C
O
M
E

NOTES:

56


Session 12: Building a Campaign
"First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win"
- Mahatma Gandhi

In the “Story of Now” we talked a bit about campaign strategy, and how we as citizens can organize towards a goal. Now,
let’s take a minute to go into a little more depth about building a campaign.

So what exactly is a campaign?

A working definition of campaign (n.) is an organized course of action to achieve a particular goal.

Now, not every organized course of action is a campaign. For example, while making yourself a grilled cheese sandwich
may be an organized set of actions that reaches the goal of feeding a hungry climate activist, it’s missing a few critical
pieces.

Let’s break down our definition into two key parts:

1. An organized course of action
2. A particular goal

It’s helpful to think about a campaign starting with what you want to achieve – the goal – and then moving backwards
through the organized course of action. That way, you have in mind what you’re trying to achieve while figuring out how to
get there, instead of finding yourself sidetracked by creative ideas that don’t get you what you want.

We often talk about 350.org as a campaign, rather than an organization, because we planned it in this way. We run a lot
of different projects, but they all lead to the common goal of a bold international climate deal commensurate with what
science and justice demand. All of the actions we organize on October 24 of this year (and beyond) will bring us closer
to achieving that goal, and that’s why we’re all here today. This workshop will help us refine our organizing skills so that
we can make October 24 a success in communities all over the world.

Goals, Targets and Tactics
While we may all have the same particular goal, the way we go about getting there may be different. It’s important that we
all show a unified front, build people power behind the 350ppm target and the international climate agreement, and that’s
why we’re all going to use the number 350 in our actions. However, each organizer will have to decide on national,
regional or local goals that link to the international aim. In the past, climate activists have taken on a number of related
issues, including:

• local food and agriculture
• clean water
• human health

57

350.org workshop guide

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