Orientation
Take a look through this short orientation packet to get to know more about the National Movement and our Dallas Hub. We'll schedule a one-on-one call with you soon to get to know you better & learn how best to plug you into our hub, so keep an eye out for things that pique your interest here!
The Basics of Sunrise Movement
Who We Are
Sunrise is a youth movement to stop climate change to create millions of good jobs in the process. We're building an army of young people to make climate change an urgent priority across America, end the corrupting influence of fossil fuel executives on our politics, and elect leaders who stand up for the health and well being of all people.
How The Sunrise Movement Came To Be
Sunrise Movement got it's start in 2017, using tactics like sit ins, protests, and electoral work - following in the footsteps of prior social movements like the Civil Rights era, the abolitionist movement, and the New Deal era following WWII
The plan was clear: make climate change the top election issue and win governing power to make change happen. During the 2018 midterms, Sunrise worked to oust candidates who would not refuse funding from the fossil fuel industry and rallied behind candidates who were proponents of renewable energy. After those elections, Sunrise set their sights on the Green New Deal to combat the climate crisis and ensure a just transition to clean energy, creating millions of good jobs in the process.
Our Theory of Change
People Power
We develop an active base of public support by having person-to-person conversations with our family, friends, neighbors, and communities and drawing people into meaningful moments of action through escalated moral protest.
Political Power
We help catalyze a critical mass of enthusiastically supportive public officials who will fight for our shared vision of a just future. We vote out corrupt officials and vote in real leaders who side with us.
The People's Alignment
We help to build an extensive network of movements and groups united by the shared vision of a government that fights for dignity and justice for all.
Our Principles
Take a minute to read through this page on the Sunrise National site to get familiar with our core principles.
Our Hub
How Sunrise Dallas Got Started
In November 2019, a group of friends got together to launch a Sunrise hub here in Dallas, TX. None of us had ever started an organization before but with the help of Sunrise Movement's network and our local community, we made it happen! Since then we've worked to expand the hub, engage in local politics, invest in the electoral process, and serve our community.
Hub Structure
Sunrise hubs are built on relational organizing in a decentralized, non-hierarchical structure. Our hub's work is project-based and democratized. Everyone in our Sunrise community is on equal footing and we make collective decisions on how we want to do things & what projects we want to focus on- typically by voting in meetings or via Slack. Our hub leaders ("Coordinators") are primarily organizers of people & information and don't have any more sway in hub decisions than other members. Anyone who engages regularly and does work can help coordinate our hub and/or particular projects.
Your voice is important to us! Make it heard by engaging consistently however you can.
What are we working on now?
In late 2020, we met as a hub to come up with our primary goals for 2021 and strategize how best to accomplish them.
We decided to focus hub efforts on these 4 projects.
2021 Dallas City Council Elections
We will elect progressive champions to city council alongside a coalition of local orgs.
2021 City Budget & Policy
We will develop and run a campaign to push climate justice initiatives into city council budget and policy.
Base Building
We will revamp recruitment and onboarding to build a cross-race, cross-class hub.
Mutual Aid
We will support and develop local mutual aid networks.
We also have teams for social media & harm prevention which have members from the 4 main teams.
Essential Hub Forms & Info:
By now, hopefully you have filled out our membership form. (If not, please do that now!)
Join our Slack: this is where it all happens! The most current & up to date hub communications are on Slack. Make yourself at home in the #general channel & take a look at the other channels we have too. If you haven't been added to Slack yet, make sure you've filled out the membership form then let us know in your 1:1 call or via email if you haven't been added after a few days.
One-On-One call: Someone on our Base Building team will reach out soon to schedule a 1:1 with you if they haven't already. These calls are really no pressure! We believe in the power of relational organizing and think having good relationships with the community & our members makes us a stronger hub & a stronger community. We want to learn about you & your background, what draws you to Sunrise, what kind of work you do, and how you see yourself plugging into our hub so we can connect you with work that excites you & support you as you join the hub.
Other apps: Most of our inter-hub documents live on Google Drive, but each project team may be using other apps or tools to support their work such as Word/Excel, Trello, Mailchimp, MiniVAN, Mobilize, etc. We won't ask you to use any tools that aren't free. Chat with your 1:1 onboarder or project team to get access to the tools you need to get the job done.