Working With the Media, Building MoMentuM in your CoMMunity, CaMpaign StrategieS, graSSrootS loBBying, FundraiSing StrategieS, Marketing your iSSue, getting your MeSSage out, eFFeCtive internet organizing, Working With BuSineSS
money isn’t everything
tools for grassroots activists conference
“The more barriers you have in front of you, the more creative you have to be.” ~Yvon Chouinard, at the first Tools Conference in 1994 Each environmental group we fund is made up of dedicated, passionate individuals working hard, often with scant resources and little outside help. They might be organizing roadblocks to protest coal-bed methane gas fields from destroying the Sacred Headwaters region of British Columbia, generating public comment on the removal of dams on the Snake and Columbia rivers to restore healthy salmon populations, lobbying Congress for the reauthorization of the Magnuson-Stevens Fisheries Act or fighting the Massey Corporation to stop the destructive process of mountaintop removal – all different, important, crucial battles that require a wide range of skills to effectively and strategically wage. Skills that every activist needs but often lacks. More than 10 years ago, we stepped back and asked ourselves what more we could do to help these activists acquire those much-needed skills. Patagonia had the knowhow to research, develop, design and market a high-quality product, we thought: Why not lend activists our marketing tools? It doesn’t matter whether you’re mar10 Takes from the Tools for Grassroots Activists Conference at Fallen Leaf Lake, California. Photos courtesy of Patagonia
keting clothes or trying to pull down a dam: The same skills will serve you. So we brought together our first group of activists in 1994, and every 18 months since, we’ve hosted our Tools for Grassroots Activists Conference. The Tools Conference invitation list is directed at those who will lead the charge in the environmental movement for years to come. And over the course of the conference, a community – a network – evolves that serves these activists long after they leave. In May 2008, we hosted the 10th Tools for Grassroots Activists Conference. In celebration of the occasion, we added an additional day of workshops and speakers to include a session on Internet organizing and media messaging. They joined workshops on the time-tested skills of lobbying, fundraising and community building. Passion and know-how are a powerful combination. The conference cost $98,965. Judging by activists’ response, it was money well spent. 11