Asking people for money. . .

"Donors don't give to institutions. They invest in ideas and people in whom they believe." - G.T. Smith

As children in the Western world we are taught that it is rude to talk about money. While many of us examine and change the way we think about race, religion, sex, and parenthood as we become adults, a tendency exists for people to retain their parents' attitudes towards money.

This makes sense. Money is both the great equalizer and the great divider. It supposedly measures the significance of your life's work. It can become food, water, shelter, and luxury.

For all these reasons I was quite apprehensive about asking people for money. After knocking on my first four or five doors however, I soon realized what fundraising is really about. It's like a treasure hunt. You're not trying to force money out of everyone you talk to, you're searching door to door for the people who already believe in you and your work and who understand that money is needed to fuel that work.

Face to Face


Our contract with Credo Mobile for the Prop 23 campaign doesn't start until this Monday, so Green Corps needed to find something useful for us to do as we waited for our teammates who were driving across the country. We subsequently got our first lesson in fundraising by working for the Fund for the Public Interest. The Fund is the organization that raises money for the Public Interest Network and all of their subsidiaries, like Environment America and Green Corps. We went canvassing for Environment California, the biggest environmental NGO in the state. We were asking people to join as members, or give one-time contributions to support Environment California's work on the "Ban the Bag" campaign. Monday the senate will vote to ban plastic bags in California, and so we were out to muster funding for the last stages of media work around the issue.

Canvassing is challenging, and not just because you have to get over your initial fears of asking for money. Your job is to walk door to door and deliver a memorized "rap" about the campaign to people, which is designed to get your message and question across in the most succinct and least painful way possible. You do this from 3:45 pm - 8:45 pm, the hours that people are most likely to be home and awake. Walking for five hours certainly wakes up your legs, especially when your "turf" as it's called is in the hilly suburbs outside of San Francisco.

The other challenging part is dealing with rejection. The statistic is that for every 40 people you talk to, 5 will give you money. In my experience, 25/35 people who reject you will do so in a very polite way, i.e. open the door, listen for a bit, and then say "I support what you're doing but I never give money at the door/I already give to several charities." Four will reject you without opening the door by saying no from the other side, another three will be a little nasty to you, and three will argue with you about why the way you're handling environmental problems is wrong and why their way is right.

It's a fascinating way to see society - although some neighborhoods harbor different attitudes than others, most are near-perfect cross-sections of the public. Most are cooperative, some are fearful, some are negative and others are questioning.

I most enjoy the questioning people. Although we're taught to say thanks and leave as soon as we realize they're not with us (in order to save time and continue the treasure hunt), I enjoy hearing from them. For instance yesterday, I had a man explain to me how he believed that the free market would take care of environmental problems eventually. I believe this to be true, but I frankly don't want to wait until all of the terrible things happen that will then spur people into action. Another man told me that this money should be going to research, and that science is the answer. While I believe that science is a quintessential part of sustainable development, in my own experience I've come to realize that the solutions are already available for the most glaring environmental problems.

It will be interesting to see how I think of all this at the end of the year. Perhaps I will become disenchanted with grassroots organizing as well, and realize that all of these things must work together to make things happen. I'm really excited to see what I learn.

Living in Berkeley


A year ago I certainly wouldn't have guessed that I'd be living in Berkeley, California, one of the most fabled centers of progressive thought, academia, and fringe cultures. Walking down the streets you feel like everything's psychedelically rainbow coloured, and not just because there's colourful paintings and buildings all around. The people themselves are colourful. There's the very poorest to the very richest, the smartest to the most simple, a random jazz band playing on one corner, and a glass-walled yoga studio on the next with people bent into lots of different shapes.

My house is very colourful as well. It's green on the outside and orange, blue, purple and hardwood on the inside. There's a couple of psychologists in the apartment downstairs with a toddler and a new baby, and here with Larry and Netsy there's me, two temporary friends of their daughter, and a Sri Lankan student coming to stay tomorrow. Larry grew up in New York and he's got a great accent - straight outta da movies. He's a family therapist. Netsy's gutsy and smart; I'm not quite sure what she is but she researches policies on social issues like worker's and women's rights at UC Berkeley. I'm living in their daughter Sari's room who I just met today; she's working with people in transitional housing in the roughest neighborhood of San Francisco, and her sister Molly has just graduated and is working in New York. They're Jewish, and when they're together you have to work hard to get a word in edgewise because they're loud and want to know everything about everybody's loves - it's a wonderful surrogate family to be a part of. They get the work that I'm doing entirely.

Sign-Off


Soon I dive into this huge and urgent campaign. It kind of feels like I'm in a rubber raft headed for a water fall. I know it's there, but instead of being nervous I'm mostly excited, and I'm ready to just let whatever happens happen. I still have to catch myself sometimes, zoom out, and feel proud of how big a deal this campaign is. I'm working to protect not only the strongest climate change legislation in the U.S., but the world. No pressure eh?

Well, guess I've just got to put my head down and see what happens when I get to the bottom.

If you're going to San Francisco. . .

At the beginning of my training here in Boston, time was passing at a refreshingly slow rate. I didn't know my peers, the city, or really what I was learning here; all of these new experiences contributed to long, slightly-overwhelming days. However this week, just like the last week of summer camp, I've grown to love the people around me, be entirely comfortable with the city, and have a much better understanding of my job. This means that time is once again passing unnervingly quickly, and my departure to Berkeley on Sunday morning is fast approaching.

                                           Some of the Green Corps '11 Class kicking back

My First Task: Beat Big Oil

Yep - I'll be heading back to the golden state for my first placement. As I learned more about Prop 23, I realized that this is the chance of a lifetime to work on a campaign that will have significant implications for climate legislation in the U.S. and therefore the world.

Proposition 23 is a ballot initiative funded by two Texas oil companies, Valero and Tesoro. Both companies have oil refineries in California, which are among the top ten emitters of carbon dioxide in the state. In 2006 the California state government passed a clean air law, AB32, the "Global Warming Solutions Act," that requires industry to reduce emissions that threaten public health and contribute to global climate change. This legislation was the most progressive legislation in the country at the time, and in the wake of the federal climate bill failing in the senate this spring, it still stands as the country's strongest climate legislation.

Prop 23 would suspend AB32 until California's economy improves following the recession. Unemployment in California is currently at a grim 12%, and Prop 23 proposes to suspend AB32 until unemployment falls below 5%. On the surface this seems like a good idea, if AB32 is indeed standing in the way of new industry jobs. The caveat is that the unemployment rate rarely falls below 5% in California, and is not projected to do so in the foreseeable future. Therefore, Prop 23 would effectively kill AB32. The clean energy sector, which AB32 encourages and supports, has grown ten times faster than any other sector in California since 2005, and has created jobs in manufacturing and construction where others have been lost to the recession. At the most basic level, this campaign pits shortsighted special interests against long-term sustainable development - the very problem facing communities the world over.

I'll be working in Berkeley and the Bay area to educate the public about the issue, and organize a portion of "Get Out the Vote" (the program started during Obama's campaign to raise voter turnout). Voter turnout during presidential elections can be as low as 30%, and is even worse during midterm elections. The Bay area is very liberal, and harbors huge support for climate legislation, so it's my job to mobilize that support and get people to the ballot box. I'll also be recruiting for Green Corps at UC Berkeley which will be a blast; I'll get to relive my university days vicariously through my volunteers.

Credo Mobile, a California cell phone company, is funding the campaign. They're a company that allots a portion of their budget to socially responsible actions. Cindy Kang, the Director of Green Corps, said they had a tough time deciding whether to partner with a company, because they've historically only worked with non-profits. They decided to do it in this case because the stakes are so high and we're up against so much money. This made sense to me. While I think that environmental groups have to be very careful about which businesses they work with, I think it's counterproductive to draw a line in the sand between the corporate and non-profit worlds. If more partnerships like this one were made, it would strengthen the legitimacy of environmental groups and make them competitive against big coal, big oil, and big agriculture.

Thoughts of Home

Speaking of the big three, my favorite speaker in this last week of training was Lorelei Scarboro. Lorelei was born and bred in West Virginia. Growing up she ate fish from the rivers and whatever her Daddy brought home from hunting in the woods. Her father was a coal miner, as was her grandfather, and as was her husband, who died of black lung disease. Lorelei is now 55, and stayed at home her whole life raising three kids. Her husband worked underground, and it was only a decade ago when Lorelei first became aware of a new type of mining deemed "Mountain Top Mining," or "MTM" by the coal companies. It is better known to the public as "Mountain Top Removal," or "MTR," which is a much more accurate name for the practice.

                                           An MTR site in West Virginia

Mountain top removal mining is done by first clear-cutting the forest, and then literally blowing the tops off of mountains with ammonium nitrate and fuel oil. This creates flat moonscapes identical to those seen in the tar sands. 500 mountains in Appalachia have been flattened this way thus far, destroying thousands of acres of montane habitat. The health of those living in coal country is also significantly affected. The blasting carries coal dust and silica down the mountainsides, and heavy metals running off the sites find their way into community wells. In Prenter Holler, a small Appalachian town of 200, over 90% of adults have had their gallbladders removed due to cancer. For a news clip, see: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-6C5sUTIbbY Lorelei told us all of this in an endearing southern drawl that reminded me of Arlo Guthrie.

She has spent the last three years campaigning for a moratorium to be placed on MTR, and has met with dozens of senators and EPA officials. She's a champion of transition jobs. Her son-in-law works at an MTR site to support Lorelei's daughter and grandchildren, but would work somewhere else in a heartbeat if he had the choice. Lorelei is advocating for the government to fund habitat restoration projects at thousands of old mines, and is working with international clean energy companies to exploit the wind energy potential of the mountains.

All of this reminded me of the Tar Sands issue in Canada. There, the scale of development dwarfs these MTR projects, however it's taking place so far north that it is largely out of the public eye. It's incredible to think that here in the U.S. people are literally dying due to resource extraction practices, and despite being vocal about it, these practices are still being permitted by the government. I subsequently have no hope for the Tar Sands being shut down in Canada any time soon.

Despite this, one must do what one knows to be right, and so I will work in California to uphold climate change legislation that will hopefully, ever-so-slightly, move the world's biggest economy one baby-step closer to kicking the fossil fuel habit. It will be a long, frustrating, and rewarding road.

Over the border and into organizing . . .

"Young people come of age with a critical eye and a hopeful heart. It's that combination of critical eye and hopeful heart that brings change." - Marshall Ganz

Driving through Rockport and the other small seaside towns of Massachusetts with my parents, I had Vampire Weekend's "Cape Cod Kwassa Kwassa" in my head. Around me were colourful wooden houses like the one in the music video, and with their multiple stories and three-car garages they showed me what old New England money really means. I knew there was a lot of money in the United States, but to see so much affluence within and outside of Boston hit the point home. I imagined what I saw replicated (with different architecture of course) in New York, Los Angeles, Atlanta, Chicago, and the countless other American metropolises. I knew then that I truly was in the belly of the beast - the beast being our global economy.

After saying my goodbyes to my parents, I rolled my suitcase into Fisher College on Beacon Street and immediately found the registration room for Green Corps. After doing some quick introductions with the others in the room I sat down and tried to focus on tax forms which was incredibly difficult. My mind was whirring with big thoughts: new place, new people, first real job.

Words from the Veterans

After meeting everyone formally that night and being surprised that there are only 21 of us in the class this year, we dove right into training the next day. I've never had classes like this before. On the second day, we got a first-hand account of what life is like in the "direct action" camp of environmentalism from a bigwig: U.S. Greenpeace Executive Director Phil Radford. It was really neat to meet the man at the top of an organization that you hear so much (good, bad, and ugly) about, and be able ask him what he thought of his group's image. For the record, he supports his group's radical image, but stresses that their radical tactics are only warranted if they are effective. He noted that every campaign Greenpeace runs is based on a scientifically sound bottom line, and posited that "we have all the answers, we just haven't got the power." I've found that this is the sentiment tying everyone together in the environmental organizing community.

My favorite guest speaker thus far has been John Rogers, a Senior Energy Analyst with the Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS). Their group, which was founded in 1969 by nuclear physics grad students at MIT, works at the intersection of science and policy in order to ensure that technology is used responsibly. They have developed a Clean Energy Road Map for the next 50 years, illustrating how we can reach our GHG reduction targets to reduce the impacts of climate change. Their goal for the U.S? The 2030 energy mix they envision = 48% wind, 23% biomass, 8% solar, 10% hydro, and 11% fossil fuels (as they are phased out). They have also identified the policy tools necessary to achieve these changes, and are favoring a cap & trade strategy over tax restructuring. In his book Plan B 4.0, Lester Brown (World Watch Institute) argues for the latter based on the fact that this avoids fluctuations in carbon prices which can scare off investors. I don't understand enough economics to know who to believe - it's another thing to add to my "to learn" list.

Another bigwig we've heard from is Lois Gibbs, the passionate stay-at-home mother from Love Canal who many say is the founder of the modern environmental movement. Her story was incredibly moving; if you aren't aware of the saga, I suggest you Wikipedia Lois or hunt down the movie made about the case. To the budding organizers in the audience she said: "People out there want to do something; they just don't know what to do," and, in a tongue-in-cheek but forthright way, "Mothers and babies are the perfect tool to use against politicians - it's political suicide to ignore them!" Indeed, to win the Love Canal campaign she arranged for a handful of the community's cutest toddlers to toddle in and stand below the NY Governor's podium. I'm not planning to recruit babies for any of my campaigns this year, but I will have to come up with some smart and creative ways of getting politicians to listen and act.

The Art & Science of Organizing

When we're not listening to guest speakers, we're learning the nuts and bolts of organizing. I had no idea it was such a science. To get a certain number of new members to join the group, or a certain number of people out to a press conference, you must meet and ask a certain number of people at the right time. We're being taught how to design campaign plans so that we can set goals and reach them along the way, but it's all a lot more to do with numbers of people than I anticipated. It makes total sense though: the business world operates based on dollar figures. Money (which reflects individual power), is one change agent, and people are the other. Therefore, those in the world of social change balance their books with membership and attendance rates.

While learning all this, the Green Corps central staff has made sure that we gel as a group which means socials every night. It's wonderful spending every day with intelligent, friendly, and progressive people; I feel pretty spoiled. Boston also has incredibly cool things to do: we went to a Red Sox game at Fenway Park, and to Walden Pond to see where Henry David Thoreau and Ralph Waldo Emerson began the environmental movement in the 19th century.

                                           Red Sox vs. Indians

Getting my Hands Dirty in Vermont

I worked on a campaign with the Toxics Action Center for three days beautiful Vermont. I wasn't ecstatic about the campaign - in retrospect the science was pretty shaky on the side of the protesters. This emphasized to me that we organizers should be working on campaigns we know have just cause in order to maintain and build credibility, as well as not waste our time and energy (as well as that of the public on which we rely).

                                           The Green Mountain State

Despite this, the people on the campaign were wonderful. We stayed with an elderly but young-at-heart woman named Annagret. She lives in a beautiful A-frame nordic-style house. On the main wall of the living room hangs a tremendous blue and white oil painting, done by an artist she befriended while swimming in nearby Lake Caspian. Annagret has an audible but non-impeding German accent that makes all of the fascinating things she says sound just that much more interesting. She has an 18th-century dowry chest sitting in her basement that she had shipped over from Austria when one could still afford to do such a thing.

She had just finished insulating her basement to improve energy efficiency, and heats her house with a wood stove and heat pump. Her wood is stacked in the cellar in piles of two pieces, with each tier perpendicular to the next to encourage air circulation and discourage mould. She said her basement gets a little damp on account of the worm farm she constructed in an adjoining room. She uses this to feed her phenomenal garden, which was sporting lilies to rival those on Garden Island when I arrived.

The first night we were there fork lighting ripped through the skies and rain poured down as we drove to her house. Rural Vermont reminded me so much of home, probably because it's only two hours south of the border. The next day she took us to Hardwick and introduced us to everyone in town: the co-op owners, the progressive agriculture group, the elderly church-goers, and a contractor who has restored all of the buildings in town over the years while simultaneously growing a long blonde mustache and white beard down to his belt buckle. Many people we met were very upset about the issue we were campaigning about, while others were cagey and visibly upset because they didn't approve of what we were doing. That was definitely a good thing to experience, as I'm sure it's not the first time it will happen in this line of work.

Sign-Off

Thanks for reading this first entry. I would love any questions or comments you have; they'll help focus my writing and perhaps make it more than just an easy way to keep in touch with you all! *If you're puzzled about the blog's name, it came about because every derivation of social/environmental change agent was taken, so I decided to make up my own word to describe what I think this work is training me to be. I don't know where it will take me, but I do know that I already feel much more useful in the face of global problems, and know that I can do something about them for the rest of my life.

I find out this weekend where I'll be going for the next four months and what I'll be working on. The options are: Passing California's Climate Bill, Sierra Club's Beyond Coal Campaign, and Food & Water Watch's campaign to ban arsenic from chicken feed. I'd love to work on numero dos - phasing out coal-fired power plants on college campuses - but it's a choice that's only partially under my control.

We shall wait and see.