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 or op-eds. Organizers can also create content and take photos that can be shared with decision-makers and highlighted on your organization’s social media and communications. We will work with our partners to ensure a strong, consistent message is always given.
We build strong coalitions.
Green Corps will work with you to identify new audiences or target constituencies you want to mobilize or build new relationships with and make a clear plan to engage them with targeted events, tactics, and messaging.
What our past partners say
"The Green Corps team was an enormous value-add to our program this year. Of course, they deliver when it comes to organizing — connecting with new individuals, event planning, and coaching leaders. But they also provided essential strategy support as we considered the best way to build out teams around a complex new campaign. We left our partnership with two strong community teams, and helpful lessons learned from their three months on the ground."
— Jenny Zimmer, Co-Executive Director of Mothers Out Front“If we are committed to protecting the environment, we must organize people to build power for environmental protection. No organization does that better than Green Corps.”
— Glenn Hurowitz, CEO, Mighty Earth“Alaska Wilderness League benefitted greatly from our work with the Green Corps organizers. Each was able get hundreds of contacts to Congressional offices, host numerous public programs, build active and energized student teams, garner press attention and strengthened the knowledge and continued engagement of even long-time members and supporters of AWL.
The organizers proved that one person can really make a difference, and together their results were phenomenal with over a thousand citizens reached. Their efforts continue to be invaluable in ongoing work for the Arctic and Arctic National Wildlife Refuge protection.”
— Lois Norgaard, Alaska Wilderness League's National Field Organizer.CAMPAIGN SPOTLIGHT
Protect the Arctic
On behalf of the Arctic Defense Campaign, five Green Corps organizers educated the public about the ecological and cultural importance of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and the current efforts to open it up for oil and gas development. The team collected more than 6,000 petition signatures, drove in 777 calls to Congress, and generated 26 different media hits. The coordinated educational events with community organizations including local Audubon chapters, bird alliances and wildlife artists.
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
Organizing for Colorado’s Clean Energy Future
Colorado is at an energy crossroads, with a chance to lead the nation in wind and solar power. Expanding these technologies can cut chronic air pollution and reduce the risks climate change poses to the wild places that make Colorado so special.
Yet at the same time, some utilities are backtracking on commitments to transition to clean energy and retire coal-fired power plants on schedule. Instead, they are investing in new fossil gas infrastructure and asking residential customers to subsidize the cost of massive new data centers, decisions that could lock Colorado into decades of higher emissions and rising energy bills.
In response, the Sierra Club’s Colorado Chapter launched a statewide campaign to hold utilities accountable and build public support for stronger clean energy policies. To expand this effort, Green Corps provided additional field organizing capacity for the Colorado Sierra Club, working to recruit and mobilize community members across the state to join their grassroots volunteer teams.
Organizer Olivia West led outreach efforts in Colorado Springs, engaging students, local residents and volunteers. She recruited volunteers for lobby days at the state capitol, organized creative actions like writing valentines to legislators about clean energy, and brought people together through “Clean Energy Teach-Ins” and “Retirement Parties” for a local coal-fired power plant that the local utility wanted to delay closing.
Across Colorado, our team hosted dozens of educational events, including clean energy tours, panel discussions, agrivoltaics workshops and tabling at schools and film festivals. These efforts reached thousands of residents and built a growing base of informed advocates.
The results are inspiring. Green Corps organizers gathered nearly 4,000 petition signatures and letters, along with 100 business endorsements, all delivered to local utilities and Governor Polis’ office. Media coverage in the Denver Gazette, the Colorado Springs Gazette, on local television stations and these outlets’ social media pages amplified these efforts and highlighted public support.
In addition, organizers mobilized Sierra Club supporters to make more than 500 calls to legislators, and 36 volunteers met directly with elected officials to advocate for better clean energy policies and guardrails around data centers.
As the 2026 legislative session wrapped up, the bills most problematic for clean energy progress stalled, and Green Corps organizers trained volunteers to continue to support the Sierra Club’s work to protect Colorado’s climate and advance policies for a clean energy future.
Ready to partner with Green Corps?
To request an application to hire a Green Corps Field Team, contact Green Corps Executive Director Renee Wellman at renee@greencorps.org or call (303) 573-3865, ext 1559.
Applications are typically accepted up until July 4th for our fall campaign cycle and November 15th for our spring cycle.
Teams and Placement
Organizers are ideally hired as a team, and our preferred team size ranges from 2 to 8 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 14 or 15 weeks between either late August through early December or early January through early April. Contact Renee to receive the exact dates.
Green Corps can also provide capacity for “quick hit” campaign work at certain times throughout the year, particularly in August, December, and January. For example, we could send 8 to 12 organizers to work in 1 or 2 locations for a week to generate grassroots campaign product and visibility during a Congressional recess, before a public hearing, or to help launch a campaign. Contact Renee to discuss the possibility in more detail.
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).
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
50% of the organizer fees are due by the halfway point of the campaign. The remaining 50% of organizer fees and field operating expenses are due within one month of the completion of the campaign.
CAMPAIGN SPOTLIGHT
Break Free from Plastic
Our organizers also launched the Break Free From Plastics new effort to increase awareness of microplastic pollution and impacts for human health. This team coordinated microplastic “nurdle” hunts featured in the Dallas Morning News, plastic clean ups, and documentary screenings while educating more than 5,000 California and Texas residents about this issue. They partnered with groups ranging from Keep Dallas Beautiful to Surfrider to Turning Point. They also recruited 1,500 people to complete an in-depth “Plastic House Challenge” Survey for an in-depth analysis about microplastic exposure in Americans’ daily lives.