Sustainability Network Webinars: Engagement Organizing 101

Engagement Organizing represents a shift away from expert-driven, direct mail groups toward a model that focuses on nimble, data-driven, learning organizations that place relationship building and mobilization of supporters at the heart of their work. It is an approach that can be particularly useful for the savvy volunteer-run organization that focuses on building volunteer teams to do the bulk of its work.

The goal of the online training will be to share the theory and practice of developing successful engagement organizations that are driven largely, if not entirely by, volunteer leaders. Session leaders will describe real world stories and techniques of others doing this kind of work, and also tap into lessons from participants online.

These two webinars are a continuous 2-part series that will explore topics such as: engagement based theories of change; supporter recruitment; tools for managing supporters (that are relevant to largely volunteer initiatives); supporting leadership development; and distributed organizing models.

The webinars will be led by two leaders in the field. Lindsay Telfer is the National Project Director for the Canadian Freshwater Alliance – a national initiative designed to build and strengthen Canada’s freshwater constituency. She has developed a training program that is designed to support greater adoption of engagement organizing approaches and has adopted the approach across several of their current initiatives. Graham Saul has worked on global justice and environmental issues for 20 years and is Executive Director of Ecology Ottawa, a group that has embraced engagement organizing and that therefore has real world experience to share – successes and failures both.

This 2 part webinar will happen on April 4th and April 11th both times between 7:00 PM – 9:00 PM Eastern. This training is virtual and can be completed from any site with an Internet connection. Registration cost (both sessions count as one registration) is $10 for people from all-volunteer groups and $25 for those individuals who are based in staffed organizations.

For more information and to register please visit : https://registrations.sustainabilitynetwork.ca/engagement-organizing-101-for-volunteer-groups-harnessing-the-power-of-your-people-for-better-environmental-results/.