Community Leadership for Equitable Climate Resilience

Examples of Leadership Development Programs from River Network Members

Hands in a fist forming a circle. Each wrist has a green bracelet with white lettering, reading, "Honor. Release. Relax. Reflect."

As communities continue to respond to and plan for the risks posed by climate change, it is increasingly important to learn from community leaders who are approaching climate resiliency in intentional ways.

Urban and rural communities alike are bearing the burdens of flooding, water scarcity, and droughts, with impacts experienced disproportionately by marginalized populations. These burdens are intensified by climate change and threaten local economies, communities, and cultures. Local nongovernmental organizations play important roles in advancing equitable solutions to such challenges; critical to this effort is elevating the expertise of their community partners. This collaborative approach is key to building momentum toward equitably resilient communities; that is, communities where climate change solutions are accessed equally by everyone and barriers to such access are considered and addressed.

Tools for Equitable Climate Resilience

Cover images of River Network published toolkits on Equitable Climate Resilience. The left image is shades of blue, focused on Community-Led Research. The right image is shades of green, focused on Community Leadership.

With support from the  Kresge Foundation  in 2019,  River Network  set out to explore climate resiliency strategies and equitable engagement of communities in climate resilience work. In addition to consulting with community organizations, the results of this work include a two-part toolkit highlighting both  Fostering Leadership Development  and  Fostering Community-Led Research and Knowledge  as essential tools for addressing the diverse risks posed by climate change.

The tools are interrelated. Community-led research helps to identify community leaders; and community leaders are necessary to move research into action. To date, River Network has partnered with five locations to promote Leadership Development programs and 14 locations to support Community-Led Research work. This story map focuses on Leadership Development. To learn more about Community-Led Research, access another story map  here .

To date, River Network has partnered with 5 locations to promote Leadership Development programs and 14 locations to support Community-Led Research work .

Leadership Development

Using the Fostering Community Leadership toolkit, River Network works with organizations to catalyze members of their communities stepping into leadership roles by engaging them meaningfully in defining local climate change risks and impacts, and formulating and implementing equitable solutions that address community priorities.

The toolkit includes information on over 20 leadership development programs from across the country that can serve as models for organizations who aspire to embark on this important work themselves or hope to adapt existing programming to better meet the needs of community members and emerging leaders.

The threats of climate change and pollution are greatly exacerbated in under-resourced and under-represented communities, generating a legitimate need for those experiencing the impacts firsthand to be involved in developing sustainable and creative solutions for climate mitigation, adaptation, and recovery. Under-representation is observed in local government as well as on boards, commissions, and other decision-making bodies.

Community organizations can provide training and support to help prepare residents for both formal and informal leadership roles; there are countless ways community members can be a part of decision-making processes. See Table 1 below for some examples.

Benefits of Leadership Development

Leadership development programs are diverse in their approach to preparing individuals to serve in leadership roles as well as their target audience; however, they generate similar positive outcomes for communities:

  • Equitable representation and outcomes by uplifting the voices of those with local knowledge.
  • Cohesive and effective coalitions by bringing focus and securing resources in support of shared goals.
  • Meaningful civic engagement when community members feel represented and heard by local leaders.
  • Long-term and multi-generational community engagement, tapping into knowledge of elders and innovations of youth.

Building a Leadership Development Program

Whether you plan to design a leadership development program from scratch or re-tool an existing program to address new needs, the following steps are important to create a program that will have lasting impacts.

Convene a Planning Team

New programs benefit from a dedicated planning team in the early stages. To determine who to involve, think about your organization's current capacity and existing relationships. Also consider offering a financial stipend to compensate community members for their participation in this planning team.

Assess Community Needs, Gaps, and Interests

Review demographic data for your community, schedule deep listening sessions, attend community forums and meetings, survey other local nonprofits and institutions in your area about what leadership development opportunities might already exist, and take note of the gaps that community members identify in their own skillsets or capacities.

Define a Measurable Goal

Based on community needs, articulate a goal for the program and identify a set of metrics to measure success, whether success is defined as a  single desired outcome or a set of outcomes. Many leadership development programs rely on qualitative metrics, rather than quantitative outcomes.

Identify Community Partners and Resources

Consider what other expertise or resources you will need to implement your initiative and who you can partner with to make your program a success. This might include finding local experts and elevating locally-sourced knowledge within the community your program will serve.

Recruit Program Participants

Successful programs use a variety of recruitment strategies: word of mouth, professional/partner networks, social media, direct mailing, print media, and direct outreach. Use recruitment strategies that align culturally with the community you want to reach.

Consider Program Costs and Accessibility

Two costs are important to consider: the cost to facilitate the program and the cost for individuals to participate in the program. Many programs compensate individuals for their participation, to honor the contributions of community members’ time and talent.

Fund the Program

The major funding mechanisms are common: fee-for-service, sponsorships, and grants. A combination of these three, as well as pulling from general operating funds and private donations, provide the dominant funding structure for leadership development programs.

[Please note, this story map is not designed to dig deeply into each of these steps; refer to the  Fostering Community Leadership Toolkit  for more details and information. There are many examples of successful programs also highlighted in  Appendix 1  of the toolkit.]

Case Studies

Using the Leadership Development toolkit and associated resources as a guide, River Network—with financial support from the  Kresge Foundation —has provided five communities with technical support and funding to design and implement leadership development projects related to climate resilience and water equity. Click on the place marker on the map or the logos to the left to find more information about each location.

Click on the place marker on the map or the logos to the left to find more information about each location.

Cheverly, MD

Defensores de la Cuenca

Gaylord, MI

Huron Pines

Raleigh, NC

Partners for Environmental Justice

Portland, OR

Verde

Guelph, ON

Wellington Water Watchers

Cheverly, MD

Mission: Our name means Watershed Defenders. A non-profit dedicated to helping the Latino community connect with the natural world through knowledge, shared experiences, and opportunities to preserve and defend the Chesapeake Bay watershed for a healthier mind, body and soul.

Gaylord, MI

Mission: To conserve and enhance Northern Michigan’s natural resources to ensure healthy water, protected places and vibrant communities. 

Raleigh, NC

Mission: Partners for Environmental Justice (PEJ) is a group of citizens working to advocate for the human and natural communities in Southeast Raleigh.

Portland, OR

Mission: Verde serves communities by building environmental wealth through Social Enterprise, Outreach and Advocacy.

Guelph, ON

Mission: Water Watchers empowers people and communities to work in solidarity towards social justice through the unifying lens of water.

Defensores de la Cuenca

Location: Cheverly, MD Program: La Academia de Defensores Contacts:  Abel Olivo 

Just one-mile from the Washington, D.C. border, Cheverly is within Prince George's County as well as the Anacostia River watershed.  Defensores de la Cuenca  is a  Latino-led nonprofit organization  working to connect Latines and Spanish-speakers to nature by offering opportunities to preserve and defend the watershed.

Communities of Color are most impacted by climate change/severe weather. We live in areas with low tree canopy coverage, lots of impervious surfaces, limited access to green space, and poor air and water quality...Defensores de la Cuenca is working to reverse this through our holistic and inclusive programs.

Partnering with the Anacostia Watershed Society (AWS), Defensores de la Cuenca expanded AWS’s  Watershed Stewards Academy  to include a Spanish language program— La Academia de Defensores . La Academia has a stronger focus on leadership and skill-building while incorporating some faith-based components in alignment with the Latino community. The program compensates participants for their time and provides community leaders with training, resources, and tools to elevate water issues and advocate for solutions in their community.

Specific modules covered in the program include understanding water systems & stormwater, water quality and pollution, trees and native plants, trash reduction, environmental justice, nature and public health, and advocacy strategies for improving the local watershed. The modules are taught by trusted local experts and incorporate  locally-sourced knowledge. After completing training modules as a cohort, each participant chooses a community capstone project to apply and showcase their new knowledge and skills.

When designing the program, Defensores took into consideration things like transportation costs, childcare costs, the expense of lost wages, and other financial factors that might influence someone’s ability to participate in La Academia. While offering a Spanish-language program significantly increases its accessibility to the community, the intentional inclusivity across multiple components of this program addresses more wholly the diverse lives of folks in Latino communities, helping meet the program’s goal of developing leaders to serve as point persons in their communities on watershed issues and solutions.

Huron Pines

Location: Gaylord, MI Program: Building Leadership Development Programming into Northern Michigan Community Programming Contacts:  Abigail Ertel  and  Samantha Nellis 

Located in Northeast Michigan,  Huron Pines  has 50 years of experience working with communities on conservation in the Great Lakes Basin.

 Lake Huron Forever , an initiative led by Huron Pines & a regional steering committee, was developed in 2019 by shoreline community foundations and conservation partners from the United States and Canada. The shared goal of Lake Huron Forever is advancing water quality protection and supporting sustainable communities on all sides of the lake.The initiative supports efforts to design and implement on-the-ground projects that strengthen the health of communities and their natural resources.

As part of the initiative, Huron Pines adapted the Ontario-based  Coast Watchers  program from the  Lake Huron Coastal Centre  and started a companion program in northeast Michigan. The Huron Pines Coast Watchers program includes leadership development training alongside community science opportunities. Participants in the program are trained to measure air and water temperature, observe seasonal changes, and look at both sensitive and invasive species. With the incorporation of leadership development tools and curriculum, the community volunteers not only collect important data, they also serve as neighborhood ambassadors. Coast Watchers programming provides these ambassadors with the tools and skills needed to share stories that increase civic engagement around climate change and promote the water issues important to them.

From its inception, Lake Huron Forever sought to include the voices of American, Canadian, Tribal Nations and First Nation partners. Through the unified vision, and by leveraging shared resources and expertise, they are inspiring communities around Lake Huron to put their common waters first as they plan and implement projects for the benefit of residents

Staff and community members share and learn together. Photo: Huron Pines

Partners for Environmental Justice

Location: Raleigh, NC Program: Walnut Creek Watershed Learning Network Contact:  Don Singletary 

In the mid 1990s, a group of people from Saint Ambrose Episcopal Church and two sister churches collaborated to address issues of environmental justice in the Rochester Heights community, one of the first African American communities in the City of Raleigh. The group, which came to be called  Partners for Environmental Justice  (PEJ), focused on a shared concern about the injustices facing this community such as flooding, trash dumping and wetland ecosystem degradation as well as outreach to city officials, other nonprofit partners, and funders.

In the late 1990’s, PEJ envisioned the creation of an urban wetland park and commissioned the master plan for what is now the  Walnut Creek Wetland Park . Today, PEJ’s work continues to address historic and current environmental justice issues in Southeast Raleigh, to advocate for equitable development policies that improve community resilience, and to promote the multiple benefits that green infrastructure provides to communities and watersheds.

Continuing their community-based work today, PEJ has expanded programming to help local youth and adults learn more about water quality, stormwater infrastructure, and equitable resilience practices. The  Walnut Creek Watershed Learning Network  (WCWLN) is an adult community education and empowerment initiative modeled after the successful  Atlanta Watershed Learning Network  and the subsequent development of the  Watershed Learning Network  materials.

Walnut Creek Watershed Learning Network - Highlight Video

Supported by PEJ’s highly collaborative relationship with the  City of Raleigh’s Department of Sustainability  and  The Conservation Fund , the program offers modules that address topics ranging from environmental justice and green infrastructure to communication skills and local advocacy. WCWLN runs twice per year, producing cohorts of trained community advocates with the knowledge to care for their local watershed and their community as a whole.

I have learned a whole lot and seen parts of Raleigh I knew about but had not ever visited. Places I want to return. And I have met some interesting people...It was nice to see so many people who are interested in learning about local environmental stewardship. It was also great to see such a wide variety of people: all ages, all sorts of people. -David (2021 participant)

Verde

Location: Portland, OR Program: Water Justice Leadership Institute Contact:  Cheyenne Holiday 

Situated in Cully, one of Portland's most diverse and impoverished neighborhoods,  Verde  is an environmental nonprofit "by and for low-income communities and communities of color."

Partnering with Oregon Water Futures—and using findings from a community outreach and engagement process that resulted in the  Oregon Water Futures Project Report —Verde launched the Water Justice Leadership Institute (WJLI) "to train frontline community members across Oregon to be leaders and local champions for policy change in their communities."

To develop the program, Verde created a survey and hosted exploratory calls with community-based organizations to gain insights on community learning interests.  The WJLI curriculum was then created based on the community input, including content on water systems, drinking water affordability, emergency preparedness, infrastructure needs, and outdoor recreation. The creation of these modules leaned heavily into adapting K-12 environmental science and water curriculum for adults: many of the activities in the program center human-nature connections and acknowledge the trauma inflicted on people by water systems and lack of access to water and recreation. The activities also encourage play, exploration, and curiosity. When possible, they are legitimately fun and center joy.

While WJLI is designed to be a virtual program reaching folks across Oregon, there are planned opportunities for field trips and other in-person engagement: celebration and place-based learning are big parts of these experiences.

With 15-20 participants in each cohort, the goal of the WJLI is to create a community of leaders throughout the state as well as a larger water justice network.

Wellington Water Watchers

Location: Guelph, ON Program: Climate Leadership Development Program Contact:  Dani Lindamood 

Beginning as an organization opposed to Nestlé Water Canada's water bottling operations,  Wellington Water Watchers  (WWW) has expanded to become a resource to grassroots water protectors across Ontario. Much of their work focuses on supporting locally-based campaigns to protect water resources and the environment.

To build upon their existing programming, Water Watchers integrated leadership development components into ongoing campaign support for their network, and designed flexible learning modules and lessons that are accessible when leaders need them.

Working with focus groups from their network, WWW gathered information from grassroots environmental leaders about how they learn, their experiences learning during pressing environmental protection campaigns, and gained a better understanding of how leadership resources could improve environmental protection outcomes. In combination with staff resources and experiences, WWW developed learning modules to support leadership development across their network.

These modules include reflections on theories of change, explorations of group dynamics, guidance for assessing local community needs, and suggestions for building knowledge and capacity. The program’s approach to learning is anchored in the  Popular Education Model , which includes a focused intention on how people relate to themselves, one another, and the world around them based on their experiences.

Providing this additional training to at least 30 leaders each year increases the community impact on environmental protections and climate advocacy. In addition, grassroots organizations are well-equipped to expand the impact by sharing key learnings with their supporters.  This leadership resource also served as the basis for a leadership course meant to provide people outside Water Watchers’ campaigns an opportunity to learn similar skills and concepts through the lens of campaign organizing.

Get Started with Community Leadership Development

Through the efforts of nonprofit organizations to build local capacity and power, community members are becoming more confident and better equipped to serve in leadership roles, through which they can help assess risks and find solutions to local climate change impacts. Elevating community members into leadership positions helps bring novel perspectives that inform more equitable solutions to increasingly common issues like flooding, heat islands, and sea-level rise. The opportunities for more diverse leaders to engage with such issues are numerous.

Whether the focus of a program is engaging community members in local advisory boards or building networks of advocates for specific policy changes, a focus on accessible programming and elevating local expertise is critical to the success of any leadership development initiative.

Tap into existing networks and coalitions, like the  Urban Waters Learning Network  and the  Urban Sustainability Directors Network , to support your leadership development work. River Network also provides technical assistance, connections to experts, and continued learning from local practitioners.

Reach out to River Network's Resilient Communities Manager,  Hannah Mico , for more information about support for leadership development programming.

Staff and community members share and learn together. Photo: Huron Pines