How to Start Your Environmental Activism Journey

Medium
This article is deemed a must-read by one or more of our expert collaborators.
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Giving Compass’ Take:

• Saurav Pathak discusses ways that aspiring activists can get involved in environmental issues, from diving deep into research to uniting like-minded people.

• How can we all start putting our ideals into action? These are some good, basic steps — but it’s up to everyone to forge their own path.

• Looking for some impact investments? Here’s why environment-related bonds are catching on.

For most things in life, from keeping a bug collection as a hobby to putting a satellite into orbit, taking off is the hardest part. The same happens even for activities people are really passionate about. There are a lot of people around the world right now who feel they need to get involved in environmental activism but put off the effort for tomorrow.

Here are some ways to get involved.

Stick to the facts. Every time an issue or bill related to the environment comes under discussion, the furore is caused by skeptics who tend to downplay the impact. They would cite the lack of concrete evidence or turn to misinformation to strengthen their position. At such a situation, it is natural to want to take them head-on and prove them wrong. Fighting the naysayers is not worth your time. Reach out to the undecided individuals and get them to participate.

Contest for an influential role. It is likely you would feel insignificant to affect policymakers’ decision on a matter on your own. If the issue is a local one or affects your community, you should gear up for a position where you can influence change. Stand for election to your city council or a position in your municipal board.

Reach out to decision makers. Even if you cannot commit to contesting for an election or organizing a public event, you could still do a bit every day for the environment. That is you can call your local congressman’s office to let them know your position on the issue. The opinion of their home constituents matters for representatives and senators because they face re-election every few years.

Read the full article about how to get started with environmental activism by Saurav Pathak at Medium.

Advocacy and Policy is a complex topic, and others found these selections from the Impact Giving archive from Giving Compass to be good resources.

  • This article is deemed a must-read by one or more of our expert collaborators.
    Click here for more.
    Recommendations for Better Grant Reporting

    Giving Compass' Take: • PEAK Insight Journal gives us some pointers for more effective reporting in the grantmaking process, including stating purposes in a clear, concise way and finding better structures. • Reporting can often be a burden for funders and grantees alike, but establishing a more effective format could be a game-changer. Any organization struggling with communications would do well to take these guidelines to heart. • It's also worth asking this question: Since grant reports are broken, are they even worth trying to fix? What if we told you that one of philanthropy’s most ubiquitous practices is nearly always a burden to nonprofits and a disappointment to funders? The biggest news from PEAK Grantmaking’s survey of grant reporting practices in the field might be the extent to which survey respondents are not satisfied with the way reporting is implemented and used. Indeed, we could argue that grant reports are set up to fail. Often conceived as an opportunity for organization-wide learning, their insights rarely make it off the desk of individual program officers to inform grantmaking strategy or advance grantee goals. Rather than serving as a launching point for meaningful dialogue and support, Lisa Ranghelli from NCRP suggests — at least from the grantee perspective — grant reports often disappear into a mysterious void. And even as an “accountability tool” — often cited as the core purpose of grant reports — our survey and field conversations suggest reporting is an imperfect, often disregarded measure of grantee progress. We did find bright spots of intentional, sensible, streamlined, innovative reporting practices. They are out there but appear less frequently than they could or should.

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