This report details the anatomy of the campaign and strategy that achieved the groundbreaking Portland Clean Energy Fund (PCEF), a multi-million dollar fund that addresses climate, economic, and racial justice in Portland, OR. It exposes some of the unsavory corporate opposition tactics used both pre- and post-election, and provides critical insights for advocates and municipalities seeking to follow Portland’s climate justice model.  

Advocates should explore this detailed report's Table of Contents to identify the areas of insight that will be most useful to them in their work. There are detailed explanations of several important pieces of building up to a major policy win, including:

• Background and context for why this campaign mattered (Introduction)
• How the coalition was formed and developed (Chapter 1)
• How the political strategy was developed, including key policy deliberations (Chapter 2)
• Details of the campaign launch (Chapter 3)
• Post-election learnings and implementation (Chapter 4)
• Several appendices that house resources used by the campaign, including a sample toolkit for campaign messaging (Appendix G)

It draws from 30 interviews conducted with the people who played central roles in the PCEF initiative and campaign between 2015-2018, hundreds of pages of archival documents, and the author's own recollections and reflections as someone deeply involved in PCEF throughout this period.

This report was created with support from the Climate Advocacy Lab. For a more interactive exploration of this campaign case study and report, check out our webinar with members of the Portland Clean Energy Fund Steering Committee.