Greenovate Boston Leaders
Our outreach program aims to increase awareness and understanding of the climate impacts Boston is facing. We want to involve Bostonians in developing and advancing our action items.
Join us in sharing key findings from the Climate Ready Boston report with your community group, organization, family, and friends. Our program gives you the materials and support you need for climate discussions.
Ready to become a Greenovate Boston Leader?
Have questions? Contact us:
Interested in attending Greenovate Boston Leaders events? Sign up for updates, or check out the Greenovate Boston events calendar.
We developed our pilot program to train local leaders to lead conversations about climate change preparedness. The program is growing and changing. We're responding to the feedback we received from the first cohort of leaders and the attendees of their events. Recently, we renamed this initiative the Greenovate Boston Leaders program.
One of our goals is to connect with City residents who know and experience challenges in their communities. We want to support them in leading direct action in their neighborhoods. We're excited to continue to connect with more people and groups working at the intersections of climate, health, equity, and justice.
Sign up for a trainingWe're getting ready for the next Greenovate Boston Leaders cohort to begin! The first step to being a Greenovate Boston Leader is to sign up for a training, which will be in October.
- plastic-free potluck
- podcasts and videos
- walking tour of the Seaport
- science experiments and climate education with local Boys and Girls Clubs, and
- local neighborhood conversations about compost, resilience, and preparedness in Roslindale, Jamaica Plain, Dorchester, and more!
The first cohort of trained leaders offered more than 35 events, reaching more than 600 people across the City and surrounding metro area. The second cohort hosted 40 events, reaching more than 700 people. Together, both cohorts were able to connect with more than 1300 residents! Sign up for updates if you want to stay up to date on with the Greenovate Boston leaders are up to.
Greenovate Boston Leaders documents
If you attended the Leaders training, find more support materials below. Email greenovate@boston.gov for access to the shared Google Drive.
- Digital event proposal and scholarship request form (preferred submission method)
- Hard copy event proposal and scholarship request form (send scanned hard copies to greenovate@boston.gov)
- Digital presenter feedback form (preferred submission method)
- Hard copy presenter feedback form (send scanned hard copies to greenovate@boston.gov)
- Hard copy participant feedback form (print these out to pass out at your event, then compile them into a PDF and submit with your presenter feedback form above)
The Greenovate Boston initiative aims to engage a broader diversity of Bostonians in Climate Ready Boston. Our goal is to provide residents the resources they need to hold climate events and conversations in their own communities. Leaders share feedback from these conversations with the City. They also work with Greenovate to help shape Climate Ready Boston.
Who can become a 'leader'?Everyone is welcome to become a "leader." We hope to engage all of Boston's diverse communities and encourage participation from people-of-color, women, lgbtq, and minority communities.
What is my responsibility as a 'leader'?Leaders attend a three-hour training on the Climate Ready Boston findings and recommendations. This includes a mock presentation. Following the training, you should submit event proposals to the Greenovate team about the conversations and events you're interested in hosting. Each event should engage at least 30 community members with our resources in the following three months. Community members include:
- family and friends
- co-workers
- students and youth groups, and
- neighborhood associations.
Scholarships are available to support leaders in hosting their events. These are coordinated and distributed by the Green Ribbon Commission. If you are interested in applying for a scholarship, please submit a budget proposal along with your event proposal form.
Once you hold an event, you’ll submit a feedback form on your experience as a meeting host and the forms of those who attended your meeting. These forms help us better understand and address the concerns of specific neighborhoods and communities. They're a very important piece of the process.
Please share any photos with us from the event as well using #GreenovateBOS. We will hold a final program gathering later in the spring to celebrate the second cohort’s great work raising awareness of climate change in Boston!
What can I use my stipend for?Scholarships are meant to compensate your time to organize and lead an event. They can also go toward event costs, such as food, printing materials, or space rentals.
- October 2018: Greenovate Boston Leaders trainings
- Winter 2018: Leaders host events
- Spring 2019: Celebration
We don’t want to enforce any rules on you. Our goal is provide you with the resources you need to hold climate conversations. By working with us, you'll help us reach further into the Boston community than we’re able to. A meeting can be:
- a gathering of friends
- a lunch-and-learn session at work
- an add-on to an existing community meeting or event, or
- whatever else you have in mind.
If you can’t reach at least 30 people in one meeting, you can break it up into smaller group conversations. Be creative in your proposals, we want to support your ideas!
What if I can’t answer a question raised during a meeting?We are not expecting you to be experts, just passionate and interested community leaders. The goal of these conversations is to share the findings of the Climate Ready Boston report and what the City is doing about climate change. We want conversations that discuss what climate change means for communities, and what actions people want to take. From your feedback forms, we’ll put together questions and answers to help future leaders. We'll also make sure to direct participants to the right resources.
How do I stay engaged after my community meeting?There are many ways to stay involved, including:
- coming to the next leaders gathering
- volunteering to help with the next round of leaders
- posting and staying informed on our Facebook page
- becoming a mentor to a new leader
- updating us on how you're engaging with your community, and
- continuing to spread the message.
