Organizational Development

The Momentum model is a synthesis of best practices from diverse sources including: research from the field of civil resistance, social movement theory, labor and community organizing, organic systems theory, and the long history of socialist strategy as well as through on-the-ground experimentation within our own community of practice. Momentum sees itself as descendants and students of social movements from around the world, such as the anti-apartheid movement in South Africa, the Civil Rights movement in the US, the Color Revolutions in Eastern Europe, and decolonization efforts throughout the Global South. Momentum trains and supports organizers in a living model to build social movements that change public opinion and institutionalize wins on the most pressing justice issues of our time. This living model contains foundational frameworks and practices as well as core tools to deploy based on a particular movement context.

A broad current of the US Left has been practicing the “inside/outside” strategy—building powerful organizations and protest movements outside the halls of power, while also electing champions to work the inside game. This episode features a panel on the inside/outside strategy hosted by Momentum and moderated by Hegemonicon host William Lawrence. The panel asks: What have we learned about bridging the outside and the inside? How close are we to our goal of actual governing power? How important is it to deliver material wins to communities through political action while building “political instruments”? The four panelists each have built a somewhat different political instrument for their own contexts: Lizzy Oh of NYC-DSA; Kamau Chege of Washington Community Alliance; Asha Ransby-Sporn, Chicago organizer; and Evan Weber of Sunrise Movement and Our Hawai’i.

The Hive Fund is co-creating a strategic, place-plus grantmaking approach, supporting constellations of groups in key geographies across the US South in leveraging these new federal climate programs to build and scale community-driven climate solutions. This includes: Continuing to make multiyear grants to groups who are reducing pollution and building clean energy alternatives in their communities and across regions. Identifying and funding up to ten iconic IRA climate justice zones that will offer concrete examples of how progress can happen in the South. Helping grantee partners across the US South prepare to access $3 billion in EPA block grants for community-based organizations in disadvantaged communities, coming available as soon as early 2024. Building the capacity of community-based lenders to access capital from the Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund and other new programs to finance community projects, explore new lending products, and increase access to resources that meet community needs. Coordinating with equity-aligned climate re-granters to raise and move new philanthropic funds quickly and strategically to place-based groups in disinvested communities.

Many in philanthropy argue that there’s not enough time to overcome systemic barriers to engaging marginalized groups—and that even trying will slow down the process of reducing climate pollution. In fact, the exact opposite is true. Make multiyear, general support grants to community-based organizations that will be engaged in developing, financing, implementing, and communicating about clean energy and other climate justice projects. Support regional hubs and coordinated networks. Fund collaborations among partners taking transformative local solutions to scale.

The Inflation Reduction Act presupposes a private sector–led transition, but battles over its implementation could build the political constituencies and expertise needed to take on the fossil fuel industry. It’s understandably hard for those who supported Green New Deal proposals for transformative investments in public goods to see the IRA—a bundle of tax credits whose benefits accrue largely to corporations—as a consolation prize. the forces backing a Green New Deal lost. But they had enough power to fundamentally shift debates at the highest level about what climate policy in the twenty-first century should look like, convincing lawmakers to abandon their commitment to narrow market tweaks and to focus instead on investment and job creation. The weakness of the bill that resulted from that shift reflected the power of polluters and a private sector eager to have the state step in to subsidize its profits. It’s time to get ready to win and run the big green state in the new normal the Green New Deal created.

The Inflation Reduction Act is ambitious climate policy, but history shows that ambitious policy is not always followed by ambitious implementation. In this episode, Hahrie Han of Johns Hopkins University and David Beckman of the Pisces Foundation talk about Mosaic, a grant-making coalition that aims to help build a robust movement infrastructure to ensure that vulnerable and underserved groups can take full advantage of the significant funding offered by the IRA.

Last month, President Joe Biden announced the launch of the American Climate Corps, or ACC — a program that will train some 20,000 young people in careers in climate and clean energy. In this resource, Sunrise Movement co-founder Evan Weber discusses the years of Green New Deal organizing that led to the landmark new jobs program to address the climate crisis. A broad paint brush of tactics contributed to the win that is the American Climate Corps. These tactics included 500 young people getting arrested for blocking the White House in the summer of 2021 while demanding a fully-funded civilian climate corps in the Build Back Better negotiations. They also included behind-the-scenes lobbying and policy negotiation, coalition building and the electoral work that delivered some of the highest youth voter turnout in modern history — with climate being the reason that happened. The latter is also the reason President Biden went more aggressive on climate and updated his climate policy.

All projects receiving 2021 Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA) and 2022 Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) funds from funding opportunity announcements (FOAs) require community benefits plans (CBPs). CBPs establish the community and labor benefits project developers promise to embed within their project. Data for Progress is developing a series of resources to guide successful and strong implementation of CBPs, CBAs, and PLAs on climate-related development projects. If done right, these agreements can help redress past environmental injustices while providing good-paying jobs to impacted communities and ensure the United States is on a path to rapid decarbonization. These resources offer best practices, policy recommendations, and polling to underpin a progressive approach to project agreements and community engagement to achieve net-zero emissions equitably. The guides include: “US Clean Energy Projects Need Public Buy-in. Community Benefits Agreements Can Help,” “Community and Labor Benefits in Climate Infrastructure: Lessons for Equitable, Community-Centered Direct Air Capture Hub Development,” “Community Benefits Agreements Offer Meaningful Opportunities to Include Voters’ Voices in Development.”

New York State passed the Build Public Renewables Act in May 2023. In this resource, Olúfẹ́mi O. Táíwò spoke with three organizers from the NYC-DSA Ecosocialist Working Group who campaigned for the legislation. Socialists in New York City spearheaded the Build Public Renewables Act (BPRA) to authorize and mandate the public power authority, the New York Power Authority (NYPA), to build, develop, and own renewable energy in the state to meet the climate goals set in 2019 to decarbonize the state’s energy system. DSA also wanted to create discounted utility rates for low- to moderate-income communities because people are struggling to pay their energy bills, as well as close down all of NYPA’s gas peaker plants, which are primarily located in Black and brown neighborhoods. The campaign built relationships with environmental justice organizations like WE ACT, other DSA chapters, groups like Sane Energy Project, For the Many, Food & Water Watch, and Sunrise NYC—and it was tougher to power map to get labor unions to support the bill and get it over the finish line. DSA-endorsed legislators were crucial to pushing the policy inside the state legislature. This long-form interview includes many other descriptions of the campaign.