Goals and Strategy
There are three overall, long term goals of the Campus Climate Challenge:
Goal #1: Reduce your campus’ global warming pollution to zero as quickly as possible. Long term, the goal is for the administration to adopt a plan to reduce its global warming pollution to zero. The short term goal, however, is to get the administration to adopt global warming solutions that can be implemented next year. These steps will range from replacing all university lighting with efficient compact fluorescent bulbs to putting a solar panel on the environmental studies building.
Goal #2: Instill a lasting ethic into the student body about our responsibility and ability as a generation to tackle global warming. This goal is equally important if we want our work to have a lasting impact as our generation graduates and assumes leadership in the “real world”. Ideally, global warming and its solutions get woven into the very fabric of the classroom, becoming a subject matter in every class and discipline. But this also means a steady stream of speaking events, visibility campaigns, and demonstration projects on the quad that appeal to everyone.
Goal #3: Promote your work off campus. We need to invigorate the public’s imagination and to use the work on campus to pressure key decision makers. Ideally, you will take every policy win to the press and expand the public’s imagination for what is possible. You will meet with local elected officials like mayors, city councils, state legislators, and Members of Congress to challenge them to match our leadership in the legislature and Congress. After each win, you will get a press release out to local media and plan to have face to face interaction with each elected official who represents the campus. This point is at the crux of catalyzing the global warming movement in America.
For more ideas about how to create maximum influence on your broader community with your campus victories, see the "Beyond Campuses" section.
Here's a set of steps and questions to help you plan the best campaign possible.
- Assemble a Challenge Team. You should ideally start with 3 (or more) committed students and if possible, a faculty advisor who can help you navigate the intricacies of putting pressure on your college administration. Register this group as a Challenge Team at www.campusclimatechallenge.org . Then work your way through this document, putting together a detailed campaign plan.
Who is a part of your challenge team? Who has worked on this Campaign Planning Matrix? What is your organization’s name? How many people are currently involved?
- Research Existing Policies. You should investigate what energy policies your school has in place and whether students are already involved with this issue, either directly or indirectly. Has my school done a greenhouse gas inventory? Does my school have hybrid, efficient, or alternative fuel vehicle fleets? Can my school measure energy consumption by dorm? What new building projects are planned or in need of renovation? Has the school attempted to increase energy efficiency? Does the school purchase clean energy from its utility provider? Does the school have potential for on-site energy production?
What are the current energy policies at your school? Are other students already involved? Is your school taking any steps to reduce its environmental impact?
- Decide on Campaign Goals. Pick from the specific clean energy solutions listed in this packet or look at what other schools have accomplished (see http://www.energyaction.net/documents/new_energy.pdf for more examples). Evaluate your school’s options for reducing emissions and decide what you will pursue in your Campus Climate Challenge campaign. Goals should be clear, shared and communicated, well articulated and generally quantifiable, like “Get the administration to agree to go purchase 100% clean energy and go carbon-neutral within twenty years - 2026.”
What are your goals for clean energy at your school?
- Set Organizational Goals. At the end of the campaign, you should have a bigger, stronger organization that can go onto work on energy campaigns in your community or state, or pursue other campaigns on campus.
How will you use this campaign to grow your organization and develop new leaders? How many group leaders, active members and supporters (i.e. email list signups, new core leaders, new coalition partners) will you recruit during the campaign?
- Think about your group’s Strengths and Weaknesses. Maybe you have a member who is a great artist and can design flashy posters, and you have a member who is a natural resource major and can spearhead a Greenhouse Gas Inventory. But if this is the first clean energy campaign ever run on your campus so you will also need to do lots of public education. Think about strengths and weaknesses in terms of people, money, time, and connections.
What are 5 strengths of your group and how will this impact the campaign? What resources do the group and individuals bring to the campaign? What are 5 weaknesses and how will this impact your campaign? How will you try to address these weaknesses? How can you try to strengthen your group?
- Think about Potential Allies. What are specific student groups that you could reach out to for support in this campaign? Also think about people or groups in your administration or school who could slow down or oppose your campaign. Consider a diverse group to work with: Environmental, Labor, Feminist, People of Color and religious groups, local area residents, families, etc.
Are there specific groups of supportive students who you should direct outreach and recruitment towards? What are some student groups, academic or administrative units at your school that would support your campaign? Who are some unexpected but potential allies? Who are the leaders of these groups? Who cares about global warming and your campus enough to join you in your campaign effort? Who can you bring in to help? (i.e. Professors) Who else is affected by the issue you are working on? Who might oppose your campaign? What are you opponent’s strengths and weaknesses?
- Decide on a Vehicle for Victory and Targets. Decide on the venue in which you can win your goal. If your goal is to install solar panels to power 10% of the campus, will your venue be approval by the Board of Trustees, a student vote to approve clean energy student fees, or the President signing off the plan?
Will you win by getting the college President to approve a plan? Winning a student referendum? Through a different venue?
A primary target is a person (or group of people) who has the power to implement your goal.
Who do you need to convince in order to win? What power do you have over your target? What kind of relationship do you have with your target? How does your target view your group? Does your target have any vested interest in listening to or working with your group? Is that person a friend, an enemy or neutral?
Secondary targets are people who have influence over your primary target.
Who besides your group has power over your target? What motivates or interests your target? Who are some influential people on campus who could help convince your primary target? Who has contacts or is friends with your target?
See the section on Power Mapping to better strategize how to approach secondary and primary targets.
- Develop a Public Message. This should be positive and communicate what someone can do to help and why. Messages can be most effective if they are framed as a story where global warming (or inaction in stopping global warming by our leaders) is the problem and our colleges and students can be the heroes by supporting clean energy.
What is your campaign and why should someone support it? Why should people care about stopping global warming and supporting clean energy? What can they do to join you and help? Stay positive and use language that will appeal to a broad range of people. See “Talking About Global Warming & Building Coalitions”
- Decide on Tactics. Tactics are actions taken by your group that will bring the desired response from your target. Carefully choose if you want to work in cooperation with or take actions that could alienate your targets. Both can be effective, but make sure that you think about the consequences of your actions on the group in the future: How will other students and groups view your group in light of the tactics you choose to use? Tactics should be fun and demonstrate real power. Tactics can raise the morale of your members, get media coverage and demonstrate your power directly to your target. Think about tactics that can bring lots of people to your cause, put pressure on the administration, and escalate in volume until you win!
Examples: Rallies, tabling, literature drops, scorecards, street theater, banner drops, letters to the editor, petition presentations, meetings and sit-ins. See the box “Ideas for Tactics” on the next page for more ideas.
Brainstorming: For each target, list the tactics that the group can best use to make its power felt.
What tactics will you use to build support for your campaign and put pressure on your primary target(s)? In what order will you use these tactics?
- Timelines and Deadlines. Create a detailed campaign calendar with deadlines for tasks to be completed. Read through the “Five Steps to Create Policy Victories” and set a timeline for following them. Clearly establish who will do what by when. Distribute work equitably: get many members of the group involved in the planning process. Remember that if you step back a little, it leaves space for others to step up.
Create a shared timeline that lists when you will to approach your allies for support, hold events, what tasks need to be completed in each week leading up to the event, when your regular meetings will take place and when you will WIN!
Tips for how to structure the project on your campus: Have Two Sub-Groups, Education and Policy
We suggest that you divide your campaign into two sub-groups: education and policy. The policy group would be responsible for fulfilling the first goal outlined above while the education group would be charged with the second.
We suggest this setup primarily because education organizing and policy organizing each require a different set of activities – each with their own unique challenges - it is better to let two groups of students “specialize” in those kinds of activities rather than try and do both at the same time.
Obviously it is important to make sure both sub-groups coordinate with each other, and to that end, we suggest a project structure in which there is an overall Campus Climate Challenge Chairperson who will recruit and work closely with both an Education Coordinator and a Policy Coordinator, each of whom is responsible for overseeing their sub-group.
In addition, in the interest of pulling off a very large and extensive education event/week surrounding Earth Day in April, it is recommended that each Campus Climate Challenge chapter appoint an Earth Day coordinator who will spend most of the semester planning the Earth Day event.
