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Our Starting Place, Our Calling
The calling of Climate Hope Affiliates is to address the interconnected crisis of climate change and societal injustice. We fulfill this calling by empowering people of faith and conscience to act. We live into our calling by using the power of relationships. We develop ongoing relationships with members of Congress, the local media, and the community at large. Through relationships, we are able to maximize our influence in advancing justice.
We can visualize members of Congress as being on a ladder that extends from climate deniers at the bottom to climate justice champions and partners at the top. Most members of Congress are not climate justice champions, and our aim is to use the power of our relationships with them to move them higher on the ladder. |
Our Approach to Advocacy
Many organizations today offer transactional advocacy: sign the petition, transaction complete. Quick, easy actions like form emails without sustained engagement or empowerment are transactional advocacy.
Climate Hope Affiliates offers transformational advocacy where volunteers are trained, encouraged, and then succeed at doing things as advocates they often never thought they could do, like meet with a member of Congress and bring them on board to our issue, or have a letter to the editor published and, as a result, see themselves in a new light.
Many organizations today offer transactional advocacy: sign the petition, transaction complete. Quick, easy actions like form emails without sustained engagement or empowerment are transactional advocacy.
Climate Hope Affiliates offers transformational advocacy where volunteers are trained, encouraged, and then succeed at doing things as advocates they often never thought they could do, like meet with a member of Congress and bring them on board to our issue, or have a letter to the editor published and, as a result, see themselves in a new light.
A Proven Approach
Transformational advocacy has proven to be an effective way to bring about change with Congress. With organizations like RESULTS, Citizens’ Climate Lobby, and Catholic Relief Services, Sam Daley-Harris has pioneered this approach over the past 45 years.
Sam Daley-Harris on the three marks of an organization that practices transformational advocacy:
Transformational advocacy has proven to be an effective way to bring about change with Congress. With organizations like RESULTS, Citizens’ Climate Lobby, and Catholic Relief Services, Sam Daley-Harris has pioneered this approach over the past 45 years.
Sam Daley-Harris on the three marks of an organization that practices transformational advocacy:
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#1: Recruitment and Building Community
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If the organization is constantly bringing in new people, forming chapters, and sustaining their engagement with inspiring monthly whole-of-organization webinars, then it is confronting its members’ sense of powerlessness and discovering ways to overcome it.
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#2: Training for Action
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The organization is committed to providing training to their volunteers and equipping them to build relationships with and make key asks of elected officials. The organization is out to solve big problems and is constantly enhancing its members’ effectiveness.
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#3: Encouraging Breakthroughs
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The organization encourages its members to move out of their comfort zone, to step out of the way they see themselves and beyond what they think they’re capable of. That’s right: confidence grows and transformation happens when you’re encouraged and supported in doing things you thought you couldn’t do, and when you surprise yourself by making them happen.
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