Have you ever wished you could solve a problem in your community but didn’t know what to do or even where to start? This month, Green Foothills Leadership Program participants learned the secrets of how to plan and carry out a successful campaign to create change. They also began brainstorming ideas for creating their own environmental campaign plans to solve a problem that matters to them.

Each campaign is a planned effort to achieve a specific goal, in response to a specific threat or opportunity. Many participants begin the Leadership Program’s 8-month training course with a general idea of what they wish they could do to protect the environment, such as reducing pollution, protecting wildlife, or fighting climate change. This month they worked on sharpening their focus to choose a specific, measurable, and achievable goal to work toward – for example, a participant who wants to reduce pollution might plan a campaign to convince their city to create bike lanes, to encourage people to bike instead of driving.

Alice Kaufman, Policy and Advocacy Director for Green Foothills, talked the participants through the story of the Protect Juristac campaign that Green Foothills is currently working on, and described challenges that campaign has faced, and how we and our partners have overcome those challenges. Participants then learned about the initial steps needed to plan a strong campaign so that they can be prepared to meet the challenges they may face. The steps discussed were:

• Identifying decision makers. Who do you need to influence?
• Identifying stakeholders. Who is invested in your issue, and are they likely to be your allies or your opponents?
• What are the regulatory, political, economic, and community contexts affecting your issue?
• What is the history of your issue? It’s important to understand what has happened before now, in order to envision what’s possible for the future.

The participants also brainstormed campaign ideas together. A major focus of the Leadership Program is for participants to create their own campaign plans, which they work on for several months and present at graduation in August. Some of the topics under consideration this year relate to access to nature, food justice, and accessible transportation, among other topics. Participants are now in the process of narrowing down their campaign ideas to be more specific. We look forward to seeing what they come up with!

The Leadership Program is made possible thanks to Applied Materials Foundation Community Fund, the County of Santa Clara, North Santa Clara Resource Conservation District (NSCRCD), Sand Hill Foundation, Silicon Valley Community Foundation, Wildlife Conservation Network’s California Wildlife Program, and Green Foothills donors. Please consider making a donation to support the Leadership Program.