Organizing Toolkit

How to Build an Earned Media Event

In order to get press to report on an event, you need to do some pre-planning, pitching and organizing to ensure you have an event with an “eye-catching” message. You should also reach out to the campus environmental group that is most active to help you with the event.

1. Call your local media outlets and introduce yourself to the field reporters in the newsroom. Exchange your contact information. Let the reporters know you are going to be organizing an event on campus and invite them to attend.
2. Draft a press release outlining the details of your event: who, what, when, where and why. If possible, ask a student leader, professor or local elected official to submit a quote for your press release, explaining why your event is important to youth involvement in our clean energy movement – both locally and nationally. Send to the reporter you spoke to on the phone.
3. Build and promote your event anywhere and everywhere on campus and online:
   • Create an event on Facebook and post to the Consequence Events page
   • Flier in the cafeteria, dorms, sororities & fraternities, the library, etc. after getting permission from your school.
   • Put fliers and posters on public posting sites and areas
   • Post your event to community and campus calendars
   • Send email blasts to relevant university listserves, student government, club leaders and professors.
4. Take lots of pictures at the event! Send photos to all media outlets, student newspapers and post on social networks with a brief description of what happened at the event and follow up with a phone call.
5. Follow up. Follow up. Follow up. This is probably the most important piece to garnering media for your event. Whether press shows up to your event or not, you should always send a follow up press release with pictures to local media outlets to further push the story. Importantly, call all media outlets and field reporters who came to your event and thank them personally. Persistence and graciousness is how you get published!

Get a Letter to the Editor Published – Sample LTE

Submitting a letter to the editor (LTE) is a quick and easy way to make your voice heard on the important issue of climate change. Here are Four Easy Steps:

1. Use our LTE tool on the Consequence website as a guide for your letter
2. Think about which climate issue angle you would like to write about (jobs, global warming, security, etc)
3. Write your letter and submit it to the editor of a local paper
4. Forward a copy of the letter to a local validator (professor, mayor, etc) who can ask the newspaper about the status of the letter on your behalf
5. Keep a look out for your letter in the local paper everyday

Helpful Hints:

• Choose one main topic and stick to it. Don’t try to give every reason why we need climate change legislation
• Explain your personal experiences and reasons for supporting climate change legislation
• Make it locally relevant
• Be brief (Some papers have a 200 word maximum limit)
• Have fun!

Upload Clean Energy Videos

Join thousands of fellow supporters in a historic call for clean energy. Add your voice by collecting videos to post on the Wall.

1. Film videos from yourself or others on campus. Be sure to tell us why you support a clean energy future for America.
2. Go to http://www.repoweramerica.org/wall and upload your videos. (Note: You can either upload a video from your computer or use a YouTube link.)
3. Copy the URLs of your videos and report them to earn points for the Challenge

Some tips for making your videos great:

• Get Ready: Make sure people are ready to be filmed. They should be happy, comfortable, and given enough time to practice before you begin recording
• Get Comfortable: Get people comfortable with the questions before you film them and don’t worry about them going off script slightly.
• Get Rid of Question and Answer: We want to avoid having back-and-forth on the questions being recorded in the video. Go over the questions with people before rather than going back and forth in a Q&A. If they miss a question, that’s fine. Get a full clip with them telling their story.
• Get to the Question: Focus people on answering the questions as part of their testimonial e.g. “I think it’s important to address climate change because we’re using up the earth natural resources and leaving an unsustainable future for our children.” “I believe we need to transition to a clean energy future so that we can create millions of good-paying jobs that can’t be shipped overseas.” “I think our leaders need to act now because before too long it’s going to be too late.” People’s instinct will be to answer the questions: force them to recite the questions in their answer
• Get it Right: If people make a mistake, it’s natural. Let them start over and delete the clip later. If it takes a few takes, it’s worth it. Don’t strive to be perfect, but don’t be afraid to do a second take

Write a Hand Written Letter to Your Senator – Sample Letter

1. Check out our example on the Consequence website as a guide for writing your letter.
2. Make it personal. Give your personal reasons for supporting this issue. Is it important for national security reasons? Are you worried about your future? Are you worried about the economy and competing with foreign countries?
3. Let the Senator know who you are. Where do you go to school? Did you vote for the Senator? Will their action on this issue affect your vote in the future? What part of the state are you from?
4. Keep the letter brief but be specific and detailed on your reasons for writing. Letters shouldn’t be longer than one page.
5. Ask for a response from your Senator. Hold them accountable for providing answers on this important issue.
6. Do not date the letter. It takes a while for Senate offices to get through the mail. You do not want an old date to take away the relevance and urgency of your letter.
7. You can find your Senator’s office addresses at www.senate.gov

Call Your Senator – Sample Call Script

Make your voice count. By calling your Senator, you are using your right to speak freely and to organize to be heard! There is no better way to convey why the Senate should pass clean energy legislation than by telling their office directly. Here’s How:

1. The easiest option is to use our click-to-call tool.
2. You can also call the United States Capitol switchboard at (202) 224-3121.
3. A switchboard operator will connect you directly with the Senate office you request.
4. Most Senate office phones will be answered by an intern or an office assistant who will track the purpose of your the call.
5. Be sure to tell them who you are, where you are from and reference the bill number you are calling about ( S. 1733 – Clean Energy Jobs and American Power Act).
6. Let the office know that you are calling in support of the climate bill and you urge the Senator to vote in favor of it.

It is also helpful to call your Senator’s district offices in your state. The Senator’s local offices need to hear from their constituents just as often as the DC office.

Petition Drives – Sample Petition

Petition drives may be the easiest way to build your contest points as well as our supporter base for the clean energy movement.

1. Recruit your friends, peers and club leaders to help you set up a table in high traffic areas on campus and in town.
2. Ask Permission. You may need to get permission from school administrators to set up the table, which may require a group sponsor.
3. Set up a schedule for yourself with interested volunteers to petition during the week and on the weekends to ensure action is happening in an organized way.
4. Identify high pedestrian trafficked areas and prioritize where you send volunteers. Make sure they know where they are going.
5. Visibility is important! Decorate the table with appropriate visuals and supply the table with enough materials.
6. Track all petitions and remain as organize as possible in collection and counting. This is crucial to evaluating which volunteers and traffic areas are effective for your operation.