Climate Event Organizing Guide
The ultimate resource for hosting your local climate event
There's nothing like getting people together who share a common purpose to save humanity.
This guide will help you host events on a scale of easy happy hours to a full on festival.
We will cover:
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Event formats
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Fundraising, logistics, and promotion
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Free assets you can borrow
Real Quick
Check to see if there are existing events and organizations you are not aware of.
- Climate Tech Cities
- MCJ Events Calendar, Climate Draft Events Calendar, 9Zero's events list
- Local channels in various Slack Communities, for example
#meet-seattlein the Work on Climate Slack - Email newsletters and Substacks - like the one for Seattle
- General climate change meetups - 350.org chapter, green drinks, etc.
- You can also search through event sites like Eventbrite and Meetup.com for things about climate change
Let's make this the best thing ever. You can contribute here 😊
Event Guides
Pick a format below, organized by the amount of effort:
Easiest Effort
Medium Effort
Rock star achievement
This will take some work but it can be the most rewarding.
Want more ideas?
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Climate Community Dinner (Example - Soapbox Seattle)
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Game Night - Play Daybreak it is execllent
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Speed networking - (Example: Climate Mayhem / Indigo Slate))
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Founders potluck - Example here / Use this template for organizing, and this template to coordinate the potluck
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Community barbecue
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Subject Matter Expert webinar - (Example: Work on Climate hosts these in the #founders channel)
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Action Group - (Example: PNW DERs)
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Outdoor excursion (Example Bike Ride)
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Karaoke - (Examples: Snocap / 9zero, or Cool Climate Collective / Pachamama Ventures)
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Film Festival - Climate Film Festival
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Weekend retreat - Summer Backpacking Example / or a Winter Cabin
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Activity Workshop (Example: Circular Spring)
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Minute Motifs - it's like a lightning talk, but more people participate and it's only 1 minute 1 slide)
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Pickleball
Facilitation / Icebreakers
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Interactive Q&A
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Spectrum
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The wind blows
More "Icebreakers that don't suck" from Soapbox Project
Interactive Q&A
Someone announces a question they have, for example, something about their job search.
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Everyone who has the same question, moves to form a single "QUESTION LINE".
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Everyone who has an answer to share, moves to a second "ANSWER LINE" directly across the QUESTION LINE.
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People from the ANSWER LINE take turns sharing their insightful answers to the QUESTION LINE
The Wind Blows
This is designed for like-minded people to figure out who they want to connect with.
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People take turns saying "The Wind Blows For _______" (then fill in the blank with something about your identity).
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For example: "The Wind Blows for the built environment" or "The Wind Blows for alternatives to meat" or "The Wind Blows for forest tech"
Spectrum
This is designed to spark conversation from a diverse set of perspectives.
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The group designates a "spectrum" line that goes from one side of the room to the other
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People will be standing on various points of the line, depending on their opinion about a certain topic
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On one end of the line, you have the "Completely Agree" section, and on the opposite end, the "Completely Disagree" section.
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Someone reads out an opinion statement and allows a few seconds for everyone to walk along the spectrum and stand where they feel best represents their own personal view
An example opinion statement would be: "selling carbon credits on the free market is the best way to incentivize emission reductions, compared to regulation like a carbon tax"
People then can share their view and elaborate on why they feel that way, based on where they stand along the spectrum.