Introduction
A webinar was held by PowerLabs called Campaign Lessons from the Fight for the Green New Deal in Apr 2022. Here is a link to watch the webinar and and links to resources mentioned in the webinar.
About the Webinar
Social movements can be experiences of empowerment and liberation, or on the other hand, experiences of burnout, confusion, or defeat – feelings that most often come about when it feels unclear how we can win or our plan to get there.
Campaigns are a sequence of activities that build towards a shared goal. Good campaigns feel empowering, have a clear strategy, and welcome the agency and creativity of people to participate. Good campaigns transform what is possible in our societies.
This PowerLabs webinar with Dyanna Jaye, a co-founder of Sunrise Movement, covers Sunrise Movement’s campaign for a Green New Deal from its launch in 2018 through the 2020 General Elections, with special focus on the planning and analysis that informed action.
Before the 2018 midterm elections, climate change ranked low in priorities for the Democratic Party, and any plans the party may have had were wildly insufficient to measure up to the scale of the crisis we face. Sunrise Movement and newly elected Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez launched the Green New Deal in late 2018. The movement maintained a popular campaign behind the demand through the 2020 General Election that mobilized an army of young people, transformed the conversation on climate policy, and made the crisis a top and unavoidable political issue.
This webinar helps you understand how Sunrise paired the big, inspiring demand of the Green New Deal with specific instrumental campaigns to move forward over a long campaign arc, and how Sunrise took action in opportune movements to bring attention and grow support for our cause.
Watch Webinar
Videos about Sunrise
- Reflections on Sunrise Movement’s Strike Circle Program: Learn How We Created Hundreds of Local Teams
- Behind the scenes of Sunrise’s volunteer-led phone bank program: Learn the volunteer team structure that powered 6.2 million dials
- School’s out, phone banking is in: Learn how Sunrise teens and twenty-somethings created fun and welcoming phone banks
- Projecting Power: Visual Strategy for Movements
- Saturday Night Live: Senator Dianne Feinstein responds to footage of her arguing with school children about climate change with a special campaign message. Watch the interaction that led to the parody video.
Readings about Sunrise
- Understanding Sunrise, Part 1: Strategy
- Understanding Sunrise, Part 2: Organizing Methods
- Winning the Green New Deal: Why We Must, How We Can
Concepts and content that were mentioned on the Webinar
- Sunrise’s approach to campaigns is influenced by The DeMarco Factor Transforming Public Will Into Political Power
- Momentum is the training institute and movement incubator that was mentioned. Sign up for their newsletter to get notified of their next training.
- Frontloading is the process of movement design and planning.
- Intensive training is a key component of Sunrise’s ability to have a mass movement that acts with unity and autonomy. Learn more about mass training programs in this webinar led by Dani Moscovitch of IfNotNow. The centrality of mass training is inspired by Otpor, the Serbian youth movement to remove Slobodan Milošević from power. Training materials from Otpor folks are available here.
- The Our Plan to Win house party guide. Links to the videos are on page 2. Sunrise also produces magazines as an organizing tool.
- Almost half of the people on the frontlines of the anti-abortion movement were pro-choice or had mixed views on the eve of their involvement in the movement. A summary of Ziad Munson’s research: How People Become Pro-Life Activists.