Madeleine Para Strategy/plans, WI Climate Voter Campaign

Courageous Voter Conversations: The Plan!

With all the discord surrounding our politics these days we know that there are lots of environmental supporters who need some extra inspiration and support to vote. Through conversation and personal networking, we can reach many people who are otherwise going to be missed by the campaigns. In a state like Wisconsin every vote counts, so our individual outreach can make a big difference to the outcome.

The plan: 3 workshops, followed by ongoing support on Zoom. These meetings are open to everyone who wants to learn this approach to “relational organizing.” We encourage you to find a buddy or two who wants to do this with you, if possible.  And as a bonus, the techniques you’ll learn will be helpful in many parts of your life.

We will learn tested techniques that help us listen with compassionate curiosity and help people activate their own values and reasons for being an environmental voter. Brandyn Keating, CEO of YOUnify, has years of experience with voter engagement and deep canvassing. She will lead us through three workshops on Zoom. They will be recorded and posted on cclwi.org, however you’ll get the most benefit by attending in person if you can.

  • Workshop #1, Thursday March 28th, 7 pm: Mapping your Social Networks. Learn how to identify the people in your life that you want to have conversations with about being an environmental voter. There are more of them than you might realize! Then get the basics about how to start those conversations and keep them productive using the BRAVE technique. Begin to make your plan for your courageous voter conversations.
RECORDING of Workshop #1

  • Workshop #2, Wednesday April 10th, 7 pm: Effective Conversations Using the BRAVE Technique. Learn and practice skills that help you listen well and activate people’s own stories that motivate them to be an environmental voter. Leave with a plan for how you will start having your courageous voter conversations.
Recording of Workshop #2

  • Workshop #3, Thursday April 25th, 7 pm: Extending and Debriefing our First Courageous Voter Conversations. Share your experience of having your first conversations, learn from others, and get your questions answered as you plan your next steps.
Register here for Workshop #3

On-going support on Zoom: Tentatively planned for every other Thursday at 6 pm:  May 9, May 23, June 6, June 20, July 11, July 25, Aug 8. (If that time doesn’t work well, we might move it.) It’s easy to lose sight of our intentions to have these conversations, or to get stuck when we hit a road bump. Madeleine Para will lead most of these Zoom meetings so that we can stay connected as we try things, and keep ourselves on track to meet our personal goals.

Vote August 13th and Celebrate soon after! All our teams will come together (date TBD) on Zoom to celebrate what we accomplished with our conversations, postcarding and phone banking to turn out environmental voters in the Wisconsin August 13th primary. Then we’ll lay out our plans for the November general election!

Jay Edgar Uncategorized, WI Climate Voter Campaign

Postcarding Parties in Madison twice a week!

Karen Carlson has graciously agreed to host two parties per week for folks to write postcards in the Arboretum Cohousing Community Room (1137 Erin St, Madison). Everyone is welcome! They will happen:

  • Every Thursday, 7-9 pm
  • Every Saturday, 10-11 am

Check the calendar (on this website) for changes to this event–the parties are currently scheduled through November, and we will remove the events once we’re out of postcards!

If Karen is busy, she will find a sub to host. However, it would be best for you to text Karen to confirm before making your way to the party. Text Karen at 608-515-6176 to confirm.

Bring a pen and your $0.53 postcard stamps and get ready to write! You can also buy stamps from Karen, she stocked up on them. We will be postcarding every week until the election.

See the calendar for updates to this and other events!

Madeleine Para Events, WI Climate Voter Campaign

Wisconsin Night at CCL National’s Phone Banking, April 3rd, 6-7:30 pm CT

2024 may be the most vital election year yet for our planet. With phone banking, we can mobilize hundreds of environmentalists to vote.

Please join and support our intern, Jun Gesteland, who will host our second Wisconsin Night phone banking session on 4/3 at 6 pm CT! No experience is required–Jun will train you. In the session, we will join other phone bankers from across the country to take part in a campaign for another state that has an upcoming election. At the end, we will have a team meeting to share our thoughts. These sessions will prepare us for when we run our own Wisconsin-focused phone banking sessions during the primary and presidential elections.

Register here

If Wednesday nights don’t work for you, you can sign up for other phone banking sessions on the Environmental Voter Project’s (EVP’s) website. If you have questions or would like to join our phone banking team, please contact jun.gesteland@gmail.com.

Madeleine Para WI Climate Voter Campaign

Resources and news for the 2024 Climate Voter Campaign

Resources:

News:

Postcarding: Over 11,350 postcards have been distributed so far and people have started filling them out. Names and addresses will be delivered around the end of the month. Email cclwisco@gmail.com to join the fun. Madison CCL is hosting postcarding parties twice a week thanks to the members of Arboretum Co-housing, where the group meets.

Courageous Voter Conversations: Our first training with Brandyn will be on March 28, 2024. 13 people have registered so far. Could we double that? Watch for an update laying out the training and support for that. Register here.

Phone banking: 5 Wisconsin CCLers joined CCL national’s phoning for Environmental Voter Project on March 13th. Jun Gesteland is leading the way in learning to host these sessions, and will be the host for CCL national on Wednesday, April 3rd from 6 to 7:30 pm. Let’s support Jun by having another “Wisconsin night” on 4/3/24. All of this is part of getting ourselves ready for our own phone banking in Wisconsin before the August 13th primary. Please encourage people to try it out!  Register for April 3rd phone banking.

Tabling: Phil Smith and Madeleine Para will be tabling at the Faith in Place Advocacy Day in Madison on March 21, 2024. The theme of the event is perfect: Climate Voices, Voter Choices! Please share your tabling successes at cclwisco@gmail.com to get included in future updates.

Jay Edgar Events, WI Climate Voter Campaign

Register for Effective Voting Conversations with Your Social Networks, with Brandyn Keating, March 28, 2024, 7-8:30 pm

Our personal outreach matters! Learn how to identify the people in your life that you want to have conversations with about being an environmental voter. There are more of them than you might realize! Then get the basics about how to start those conversations and keep them productive. 

This is the first of a series of trainings and support sessions we will hold this year. Your RSVP will also give you access to the recording, though we encourage live participation if at all possible because we will be working in breakouts much of the time. It’s open to all CCLers and any new buddies who might work with you on your Courageous Voter Conversations this year.

Register Now [closed]

Curious about our trainer, Brandyn Keating, and Wisconsin CCL’s climate voter plans? Watch this video of her presentation for Wisconsin CCL’s Giant Work Party on March 2, 2024

Jay Edgar WI Climate Voter Campaign

CCL Wisconsin kicks off get-out-the-vote project

CCL Wisconsin kicked off its get-out-the-vote project with a Giant Work Party on March 2 in Stevens Point. Seventy-two CCLers from across the state met to hear about plans to engage with 30,000 potential voters in Wisconsin who care about the environment but haven’t voted consistently in recent elections. Dan Dieterich and the Stevens Point chapter hosted the event at the Frame Memorial church.

Madeleine Para explained how we’ll use postcarding and phone banking to reach all of these potential voters before the August 13 primary and the November 5 general election. Brandyn Keating from YOUnify spoke about effective outreach, Larry Sleznikow from CCL’s La Crosse chapter briefed us about Wisconsin elections, and Kathy Kuntz from the Dane County Office of Energy & Climate Change described the many opportunities for tax credits and rebates under the federal Inflation Reduction Act. (See speaker videos here.) Co-state coordinator Jill Mitchler was the emcee.

There were breakout sessions for outreach: postcarding, phone banking, courageous voting conversations, social media, and print media. There were also breakout sessions for building electrification and efficiency, faith voter outreach, student voter outreach, and writing postcards. (See breakout summaries here.)

Madeleine closed out the day by describing next steps. To get involved, you can:

  • Join a team by using the Action Team Interest Form.
  • Monitor the CCL Wisconsin website (cclwi.org) for information and materials.
  • Email Madeleine and CCL Wisconsin state coordinators Jill Mitchler and Dan Dieterich at cclwisco@gmail.com to ask questions and share information.

It was inspiring to see all the interest in getting out the vote. As Madeleine said: “We’ll have an impact on people who are worried about democracy, the election, and the environment.”

By Steve Lewis, first published in the Madison CCL newsletter.