Partnering with Green Corps
We provide top-notch field support for critical environmental campaigns.
Your organization wants to kick off a campaign, build up a base of supporters, generate additional media attention or turn up the grassroots pressure on a decision-maker — but you don’t have the resources to permanently add staff to your organization, and you know that finding, hiring and managing trained grassroots organizers for short-term work is challenging. That’s where Green Corps comes in. We can provide a team of trained field organizers to work on your campaign for a 14-week or 7-week period. Our staff will hold news events, build coalitions, organize phone banks, collect petitions, recruit and train volunteers, hold rallies or districts meetings — whatever it takes to make your campaign a success. Green Corps will work with you and your staff to develop a campaign plan that takes full advantage of this new infusion of people power and leaves your campaign and organization better positioned after our work is done.
We help craft a winning campaign strategy.
Green Corps will work with partner organizations to develop the campaign: setting goals, devising a strategy, choosing tactics and evaluating progress along the way. This ensures our organizers are being maximally effective for your campaign while they’re on the ground.
We recruit and train volunteers.
Green Corps organizers will recruit student and citizen activists by conducting group presentations, petitioning and phone banking. We’ll train volunteers who have the skills and commitment to continue working on the campaign after our organizers leave so you have a lasting activist network for future efforts.
We mobilize the public.
Green Corps organizers hold public forums, community meetings, call-in days, rallies, and visibility events—all the things you’ll need to show a decision-maker their constituents care about the issue.
We shine a spotlight in the media.
Green Corps organizers will generate earned media for the campaign through events, news conferences, letters to the editor, op-eds, or editorial board meetings. We will work with our partners to ensure a strong, consistent message is always given.
We build strong coalitions.
Green Corps organizers will conduct outreach and build coalitions with targeted constituencies to ensure a strong base of support for your campaign.
Why Green Corps?
Hiring a team of Green Corps organizers is one of the best investments you can make if you want to make an impact on a campaign.
We can scale up your campaign quickly.
Even if you have no staff or volunteers in a particular location, by the end of the campaign each organizer will have generated a list of hundreds of interested individuals in each city.
Our organizers are high quality.
Our rigorous application process is designed to objectively assess a candidate’s demonstration of the skills and values we know make for a successful organizer. In 2020, we received 100 applications for every organizer we hired.
We take care of the oversight.
When you hire a team of organizers, you’ll also get an experienced campaign director to manage them. You’ll receive weekly reports and check-ins, a mid-campaign report, and an end of the campaign report that shares highlights and campaign goals versus actuals.
Our organizers are geographically flexible.
Wherever is the most strategic location for a campaign, we can send an organizer. Since our start in 1992, we have worked in almost every state in the country.
You have a pool of prospects for future jobs.
After our yearlong program is complete, we help all of our organizers find full-time jobs in the advocacy and organizing field. Many naturally gravitate toward working with partner organizations of Green Corps.
CAMPAIGN SPOTLIGHT
Green Corps, NRDC team up to protect the boreal forest
Harlan Schwartz via Shutterstock
The boreal forest in Canada is one of the most majestic and ecologically important forests in the world, home to wildlife such as caribou and bears. Charmin toilet paper, which is manufactured by Procter & Gamble (P&G), is made with 100 percent virgin forest fiber, much of which is sourced directly from forests such as the Canadian boreal. That’s massively unsustainable.
The Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) partnered with a team of two Green Corps organizers for a sevenweek effort in P&G’s hometown of Cincinnati. Organizers Hayley Berliner and Gwen Nahnsen hit the ground in Ohio after three weeks of training to convince P&G to set stronger commitments to reduce virgin forest fiber content in its tissue products. In seven short weeks, the team collected more than 1,600 petitions and generated more than 150 social media posts. Leading up to P&G’s annual shareholder meeting on Oct. 8, Hayley and Gwen ran a recruitment campaign to pack a rally in front of the meeting.
When the day of the meeting came, nearly 70 people turned out to the early morning rally, and two volunteers attended the shareholder meeting itself to ask questions of P&G’s CEO David Taylor directly. The rally generated 12 media hits and provoked a response from P&G officials, moving us one step closer to protecting Canada’s pristine boreal forest from being flushed down the toilet.
Teams and Placement
Organizers must be hired as a team, and our preferred team size ranges from five to eight organizers. In some circumstances, we would consider a smaller team of two to four organizers. A Green Corps team can be assigned to key states across the country or concentrated in one area, depending on which is the most valuable to the organization.
Timeline
Green Corps teams are available to work on a campaign for a 14- week stretch between either late August through early December or early January through early April. Contact Renee to receive the exact dates.
Cost
The fee is $1,800 per organizer per week, which includes all of the organizer’s time and benefits, as well as full supervision by a Green Corps Organizing Director. The partner organization must cover all field operating expenses (office rent, travel, materials, etc.). We recommend budgeting $4,000 per organizer for field operating expenses, though you are only billed for what is spent. The partner organization will also cover relocation travel for the organizers (estimate $500 per organizer), and cost for providing the organizers with a laptop computer ($100 per organizer).
Ready to partner with Green Corps?
To request an application to hire a Green Corps Field Team, contact Green Corps Organizing Director Renee Wellman at renee@greencorps.org or call (303) 573-3865, ext 375.
Applications are typically accepted up until May 31 for our fall campaign cycle and Oct. 31 for our spring cycle.
SAMPLE PROJECT BUDGET
For a team of four Green Corps Organizers
Field Organizers — $100,800
4 organizers x 14 weeks x $1,800/wk
Field Operating Expenses — $14,000
4 organizers x $3,500/organizer
Trainee Relocation — $4,000
4 organizers x $1,000/organizer
Laptop Computers — $400
4 organizers x $100/organizer
Estimated Total: $119,200
Payment Schedule
By no later than the launch of the campaign, 50% of the organizer fees are due. The remaining 50% of the organizer fees are due at the mid-way point of the campaign. Field operating expenses are due within one month of the completion of the campaign.