Tool Up
High school and college students interested in climate change in particular may be interested in attending The Sunrise Movement as a starting point.
The creators of the popular Story of Stuff film series are launching a Citizen Muscle Boot Camp in 2014.
Come election time, your political party is often eager for volunteers. This is a great way to build skills and familiarize yourself with the local political landscape.
GreenCorps provides training in community mobilization and advocacy. It is a highly competitive process, accepting a couple dozen applications per year from among the thousands they receive.
The Coro Foundation, a competitive fellowship program, provides training at different levels of experience including youth.
If you are an academic researcher interested in bolstering your advocacy and outreach skills, consider applying to the Earth Leadership Program.
Meet Up
Consider organizing a meetup to find other people with similar interests in your area. (As with any online tool that facilities meetings with folks you don’t know yet, be sure to use common sense strategies like bringing a friend to accompany you to the first meeting.)
Read Up
Here are some useful articles and books on grassroots mobilization and policy advocacy.
If you’d like to spread the word through social media strategies, see Green Memes, The Most Amazing Online Organizing Guide Ever: A Practical Handbook for Community Organizers Who Want to Leverage Social Media for Social Change, Green Memes, 2012.
Participatorymethods.org is an excellent source of information on techniques for bringing about social change.
Jeff Blodgett and Bill Lofy, Winning Your Election the Wellstone Way, University of Minnesota Press, 2008. (PDF posted online courtesy of the Wellstone Foundation.)
The Sierra Club published an insightful Grassroots Organizing Training Manual in 1999. Although the media discussion is somewhat outdated given today’s social media landscape, the rest of this free publication contains valuable tips and insights.
The Earth Leadership Program maintains a resources page with advice on everything from building teams to how to set up meetings with people in DC.
For effective communication of your cause through story form, see the methodology of Marshall Ganz of the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard here.
In a special issue of the journal International Environmental Agreements edited by Social Rules Project Director Paul Steinberg, university researchers share insights on how to introduce new ideas in the policy arena.
Geoffrey D. Dabelko, Speaking Their Language: How to Communicate Better with Policymakers and Opinion Shapers – and Why Academics Should Bother in the First Place.
Paul F. Steinberg, Bringing Political Science to Bear on Tropical Conservation.
Hans Bruyninckx, Academic Research In a Small Country: Called to Serve!
The following books offer practical advice on how to organize for change, and serve as logical follow-up readings for those who wish to put into practice the ideas described in Who Rules the Earth?
Michael Jacoby Brown, Building Powerful Community Organizations: A Personal Guide To Creating Groups That Can Solve Problems and Change the World, Long Haul Press, 2007.
Catherine Shaw, The Campaign Manager: Running and Winning Local Elections, Westview Press, 2010.
Kimberley Bobo et al., Organizing for Social Change, 4th Edition, The Forum Press, 2010.
For those who seek to bring about change while living under authoritarian regimes, see Gene Sharp, From Dictatorship to Democracy: A Conceptual Framework for Liberation, Westview Press, 2012.