From Passion to Action: Starting a Local Climate Organization

So you’ve identified that your town or city is in need of a community-based organization (CBO) that focuses on climate and sustainability-related action, and you’re ready to take that step to turn your vision into a reality. But how do you get from an idea to a fully fledged organization?

This article reviews eight key steps to starting an organization that makes an impact in your community.

1. Identify your leadership team

An organization needs leadership of some sort to get off the ground, starting with the top-of-the-masthead leader — the executive director. This can be you, another person who might be interested in starting the CBO with you, or someone else. 

This person must embody characteristics needed to be an effective organization leader: You will ideally want someone with:

• A robust level of management experience either at a for-profit or nonprofit organization, who understands what it takes to run a business effectively. And yes — we said business. Even though we're talking about a nonprofit organization, this organization needs to be run as a business in order to survive and accomplish its mission. The only difference between a for-profit and nonprofit business is that one is trying to generate a profit and the other is trying to deliver impact according to its mission.

• As someone who oversees the overall direction of the organization, the executive director should also have experience in sales or development.

• They should also have or be able to establish strong relationships with various stakeholders in the community — they must be an effective communicator and leader who is well-regarded in your community and can thus encourage people to engage with the organization.

• Finally, they should ideally have a robust understanding of climate and sustainability-related topics.

2. Build a team

Once the organization has selected an executive director, it will need to build its board of directors, as well as a team of staff and volunteers to carry out its day-to-day operations. You will want to have at least four people on your board of directors, who represent a range of professional backgrounds and expertise — you might look for someone with a background in finance, someone who has experience directing or working for a nonprofit, someone with strong connections to complementary organizations in the community, etc.

A useful tip to keep in mind when you’re building your board of directors is to focus on looking for people who have at least one of the “3 Ts”: time, talent, or treasure (or alternatively, the “3 Ws” — work, wisdom, or wealth). You want people with the time to help out, the skills that you need to support the organization’s operations, or the wealth to donate or contribute financially.

But how might you go about finding people?

Begin by identifying which roles the organization needs (board members, marketing/communications, fundraising, project managers, etc.), then consider who might be interested in filling these gaps. The individuals you find may be full and/or part-time, paid and/or volunteers – be flexible; the makeup of your team will evolve over time. For both board and staff candidates, reach out to your network, and leverage others’ as well — this exponentially increases the amount of talent you have access to.

3. Define the organization’s mission

Once you’ve developed a team, you must refine and settle on the organization’s mission statement. A mission articulates the core reason why the organization exists, what its goals are, and how it will achieve them. A well-defined mission statement is crucial to establishing a clear understanding of the organization’s values and aspirations, guiding decision-making, and engaging employees. At a high level, it answers the questions: What are you trying to accomplish (your impact), for whom (your audience), and how? 

Key questions to consider as you develop the organization’s mission include: What is the demographic of your community? What do you want the scope of your services to be? What is your desired end result? 

An example mission statement might be: To provide education and tools for our residents to prepare for and react to severe weather events.

4. Create a business plan and budget

After you’ve defined your mission, it’s time to create your business plan and budget. You know what you want to do — now the question is how you get there. Typically, the board of directors and executive director collaborate to develop the business plan.

Sections of a business plan include:

• problem statement

• mission statement

• goals and objectives

• audience (customer)

• products and services

• operations (how to create and deliver products and services)

• expenses

• revenue, and

• timeline.

The organization should also have a rough three-year budget. For a younger organization, this can be the result of educated guesswork that is modified as your team gains more information and experience, but you need a rough idea of how much money you need and how you’re going to get it.

5. Incorporate as a business and apply for nonprofit status

This is mainly done to cover your organization’s back on the legal side. Incorporating your organization, which typically happens at the state level, means that you are registering your organization as a separate legal entity so that you, as the owner or a member of the executive leadership team, are legally protected from personal liability if there’s ever an issue with your organization. 

You will also want to apply for nonprofit status, which happens at the federal level.  By applying for and getting nonprofit status, you will exponentially increase your opportunities for most types of funding.

There are several things to prepare and steps to follow but don’t be discouraged, we made it easy, just follow the “Steps to Becoming an Official Non-Profit”.

6. Establish yourself in the community

After you’ve taken care of various logistical and legal matters, it’s time to get out into the community and introduce the organization to as many people as possible. You should have a rough ten-minute presentation or pitch prepared that you share with different constituencies — city councilors, the school committee, various neighborhood or civic groups, business groups, charitable groups, and more. 

Doing so has two key advantages: One is the obvious benefit of increasing awareness and bolstering engagement, but the other, perhaps less obvious, benefit is that this is also a way to recruit people to join your team. By exposing the organization to as many groups as possible, you have a greater chance of finding people with the 3 Ts to work with you.

7. Secure funding

Of course, no organization is complete without funding of some sort. Admittedly, it’s a bit of a chicken-and-egg situation where you can’t build up your organization if you don’t have the funds to do so, but if you don’t have basic foundational components of your organization in place, you won’t receive any funding. Check out our article about funding strategies and how to maximize funding for your organization.

8. Implement scalable systems

Finally, your organization should also begin to put scalable systems in place. These are things like an email domain, shared documentation storage, a website, donor portal, etc. Putting these basic systems and processes in place during the first month or so will allow you to be more efficient down the line.

Once you’ve built a foundation for your organization, it’s time to keep repeating these steps and scaling up.  Ideally, your organization is always growing and you should be revisiting these steps as it grows.

Does this sound intimidating? It doesn’t have to be; you don’t have to do it alone. Green Community Catalysts’ mission is to help people like you create your own local CBO. To make this easy, we created the Green Transition Incubator that includes localizing a playbook where you flesh out the key areas described above and much more.

Let us know if you have any questions.