Quoting a good – and wise – friend: “I do not have hope because I believe that the world is good. I choose hope as an act of will to empower me to make the world good.”
May it be so for you.
Photo by Thomas Bormans on Unsplash
Choose Hope
Category: changeblogging
Association Climate Action Coalition Launches Resource Library
The Association Climate Action Coalition, a Community of Practice of experienced association consultants, executives, and advisors who have convened to address one of the most pressing issues of our time, has just launched our new Resource Library.
The library offers podcasts, webinars, white papers, articles, tools, news, and other resources related to the Anthropocene climate disruption; the ways it will affect associations’ internal operations, member-facing programs, products, and services, and the professions and industries associations serve; and what associations can do to develop resilience and prepare to adapt to the challenges we currently are facing and will face in the future.
Main categories include:
- Adaptation: Resources for changing how we work, associate, and live
- Association Climate Good Practices: Share your own or other good practices you find
- Climate News: Latest information on what’s happening with our changing climate
- Conversations: Webinars, podcasts, and interviews on associations and climate change
- Data & Statistics: The science of the climate crisis
- Government & NGO: Laws, regulations, and official acts
- Opinions: What do you think?
- Tools: Resources to help you calculate and reduce your carbon footprint
The information is organized around our three guiding principles of knowledge, culture change, and action.
Join us on the AC3 Breezio site (you will have to create a user account, but it’s free thanks to the generosity of the Breezio team) to learn more and share what your association is doing to respond to this “wicked problem.”
Big Footprints: How Associations Are Becoming More Sustainable
In the latest episode of the “Engaging in the Next” podcast, I had the opportunity to chat with Colby Horton and Frank Humada about why it’s crucial for associations to take action on climate change and sustainability.
Our conversation addressed the importance of measuring and actively reducing carbon footprints, urging associations to move beyond relying on carbon offsets. We discussed examples of innovative practices within the association space and encouraged organizations to set small, attainable goals while leveraging their collective power to advocate for impactful environmental policy changes.
(We also got into being a foodie, heated sports rivalries – GO BIRDS! – and jazz.)
Check it out at:
The whitepaper we discussed is freely available at https://associationclimateactioncoalition.com/.
Also, the Association Climate Action Coalition has a free online community (thanks to the generous support of the team at Breezio) where association execs can gather to share resources and good practices, ask questions, and get advice for developing resilience and learning how to adapt to climate change at https://ac3.breezio.com/.
Associations, Chapters, and Climate Change
My co-author Shelly Cumbie Alcorn and I recently had the opportunity to sit down with Mariner Management’s Peggy Hoffman to discuss The Time Is Now: Association Resilience and Adaptation and the Anthropocene Climate Disruption, our new whitepaper on associations and the climate crisis.
The focus of our conversation was on the critical role we believe components play in helping associations develop resilience and prepare to adapt to the intensifying changes that are happening in our world that are affecting EVERY association and EVERY profession or industry associations serve.
Recognize that local is key: Localization is critical to both resilience (the ability to bounce back after a crisis) and adaptation (the ability to change the ways we live, work, and play). And for associations, strong chapters – the locus of localization – are essential when facing the impacts of climate change.
Download the FULL conversation here.
Photo by Mika Baumeister on Unsplash
Don’t Stop Thinkin’ About Tomorrow
Fourteen years ago, I had the opportunity to attend a futurist session held in honor of the 50th anniversary of the CAE program.
After a dense presentation by facilitator Marsha Rhea, we broke into 10-year, 30-year, and 50-year discussion groups. I found myself in the 30-year group (2040) and discovered that my fellow discussants could not seem to wrap their minds around things like sea level rise and the encroaching crisis in fresh, potable water. In other words, climate change.
At the time, I was thinking a lot about generations, and posed, as a final thought:
We will need someone to lead us, and nonprofit organizations could fill that leadership vacuum. Assuming we survive the larger global forces at work.
I still believe that associations have significant role to play in addressing climate change, as evidenced by my latest collaborative whitepaper The Time Is Now: Association Adaptation and Resilience and the Anthropocene Climate Disruption.
We *could* have led on this 14 years ago. We *must* start leading on this now, today. There are SO many ways associations can play a significant role in addressing climate change:
- On operations of our organizations as businesses: making choices about office space, commuting, work from home, LEED certification (not just of new builds, but also retrofits), and investment of reserves that reduce or eliminate carbon emissions.
- On our member-facing work: reducing the carbon footprint of our in-person gatherings, building resilience through greater localization (aka, build up your components, whether those be formal or informal groups), and communicating information about the effects of the climate crisis appropriately with members and other audiences.
- On our outward-focused work: making different lobbying choices and leading on concepts like thinking vertically and the circular economy for the professions and industries we serve.
If this all sounds like a good idea to you – and I hope it does – come join us at the Association Climate Action Coalition and our free Community of Practice around climate education and solutions (thanks, Breezio!).
Photo by Drew Beamer on Unsplash
Of Crowdsourcing and Cassandras
Reupping this post I wrote back in 2009 about crowdsourcing, because my larger point is, I think, even more relevant in 2024.
Jeff Howe, who is credited with coining the term “Crowdsourcing,” was the opening keynoter at the 2009 ASAE Technology Conference, where he mad the point that no matter how smart the people around you are, most of the smartest people work somewhere else.
Crowdsourcing, he went on to explain is a result of:
the perfect storm of the amateur renaissance, the open source revolution, democratization of production, and the rise of online community.
As I wrote at the time:
AND THAT’S ALL LOVELY, really it is. And it’s happening whether we want it to or not, in our new world where the locus of community is less about geography or biological relationship than it is about affinity. And most people have a desire to create something. But I have to wonder: What about the people who lose not only their jobs, but their careers?
Eventually you’re the last guy making buggy whips and then the industry folds because no one needs buggy whips anymore.
At the time, I was worried that Howe had no answer, which then – and now – seems to me to be the crux of the matter: There are some highly technical skills that probably can’t be crowdsourced. But if there’s always someone willing to do what I do for free, then what?
In an era of gig work and generative AI, this only seems more pressing.
On the gig work front, there are multiple problems. Most significantly, the workers themselves are often exploited, with no OSHA protections or wage guarantees. But also, have you noticed that your rideshares are a LOT more expensive lately? Because the model may always have been to push the cab companies out of business by offering the service WAY below actual cost and then, once cab companies were disempowered and consumers were accustomed to summoning rides via an app rather than a raised arm or whistle, to jack up the price. Which revenue, may I remind you, is NOT necessarily going to the workers. “Disruption” at work, and it may be coming for the profession or industry your association serves, particularly with the rise of generative AI.
Speaking of, those services are ALSO being offered below cost – even, in many cases, for free. And we’re starting to see professions being disrupted – copy writers, technical writers, bookkeepers, data analysts, paralegals (Pew has done a VERY detailed analysis of professions, and the demographics of the people in them, most at risk). What happens when you’ve fired all your marketing coordinators because you can get ChatGPT to do that work for you for free? One, something tells me ChatGPT will no longer BE free. Also, what’s then the on-ramp for becoming tomorrow’s Chief Marketing Officer?
I don’t have any answers either, but I think it’s a conversation that needs to be engaged.
Photo by Shane Rounce on Unsplash
Associations and Climate Change: The Podcast
Many of the options for responding to climate change we’re offered are at the super-macro (UN COP meetings) or super-micro (get an electric car!) levels.
What about all the stuff in the middle? You know, like ASSOCIATIONS?
Shelly Alcorn and I recently had the opportunity to join Cecilia Sepp for the Radio Free 501c podcast to discuss our new whitepaper, The Time Is Now: Association Resilience and Adaptation and the Anthropocene Climate Disruption.
The conversation focused on associations’ role as vehicles for social change, the business imperative to act, and specific steps we can take within our sphere of influence to address this global “wicked problem.”
Are you interested in partnering with your fellow association executives to share good practices and take on projects related to how you can address climate change in your internal operations, member-facing work, and/or as a leader and representative of the profession or industry you serve?
- Download the whitepaper.
- While you’re there, take our three-question pulse-check survey.
- Also while you’re there, share your contact information so we can keep you in the loop about next steps (it’s entirely voluntary).
Associations Creating Community to Address Climate Change
Shelly Alcorn and I recently sat down (virtually) to talk with Whiteford, Taylor & Preston’s Jefferson Glassie about The Time Is Now: Association Resilience and Adaptation and the Anthropocene Climate Disruption, our recently-released whitepaper that lays out the case that associations both can and should take the lead on addressing climate change for our own industry, for our members, and for the professions and industries our associations exist to serve, not only for moral reasons but as a critical business imperative.
The whitepaper details the scope and extent of the impact of climate disruption on associations large and small and emphasizes the wide range of options available to associations to support their respective and concentric communities.
Shelly and I are working on creating an association community of practice to assist in these efforts. We believe that providing a space for association executives to share their insights into conduct, actions, and practices they are undertaking is critical to our success as a community in addressing this “wicked problem.” If you’d like more information, please visit https://associationclimateactioncoalition.com/ and give us your name and email address (scroll to the bottom for the comment form).
As Jefferson pointed out in the podcast, this discussion relates to perhaps the most important community to which we all belong, the human community, and illustrates how we must take concerted action to protect our human and non-human relations.
Navigating These Wicked Waters
Shelly Alcorn and I recently had the opportunity to be interviewed by KiKi L’Italien for Association Chat on association leadership strategies for climate chaos.
We talked about our new whitepaper, The Time Is Now: Association Resilience and Adaptation and the Anthropocene Climate Disruption; shared some stories of associations that are doing good work in this area; discussed how we ourselves stay motivated to work for change even in the face of bad news and seemingly daunting odds; highlighted the fact that (to quote Global Optimism) “stubborn optimism is a deliberate mindset;” and revealed the bigger project Shelly and I are in the process of launching related to this work, the Association Climate Action Coalition.
The Time Is Now
Climate change and sustainability are increasingly in the news and showing up as a key topic for the association industry. Association execs are realizing that climate change is not just a moral imperative, it’s a business imperative.
To quote ASAE from their well-attended webinar on this topic back in May: “Either as part of Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) initiatives or looking at impact and legacy, associations are increasingly grappling with the role sustainability plays in supporting their work and advancing their missions.”
In The Time is Now: Association Resilience and Adaptation and the Anthropocene Climate Disruption, Shelly Alcorn and I provide a brief overview of data on climate change, address the psychological barriers to action humans face, and bring to bear the concepts of resilience (preparing to bounce back from challenges) and adaptation (learning how to live and work differently) on the specific effects the climate crisis will have on associations’ internal operations, member-facing programs, products and services, and on the professions and industries we exist to serve.
Our goal is to help associations better understand how this “wicked problem” is going to affect our industry and begin preparing to better respond to the challenges that will face us all in the coming years.
The whitepaper also includes:
- Case studies with the American Association of Geographers, Stand.earth, and the Strata Community Association (our first international case study!).
- A sidebar on climate change and US national security.
- Stories of positive change to inspire you.
- A series of thought questions for you to use to spark discussion with your team.
- An extensive list of resources in case you want to dig deeper on any of the topics addressed.
I’ll be blogging about the whitepaper more in the coming days, highlighting some of our major findings, but in the meantime I invite you to download your free copy at https://bit.ly/48jfB4X – we don’t collect any data on you to get it, and you won’t end up on some mailing list you didn’t ask for. We just use the bit.ly as an easy mechanism to count the number of times it’s been downloaded.
However, Shelly and I realized that there’s potentially something much bigger here. We’re hoping to put together a true Community of Practice of associations who are ready to lead change. When you download your copy, you’ll have the option of taking a three question survey and sharing contact information if you’d like to be kept in the loop about that.
Get your copy at https://bit.ly/48jfB4X.
And don’t forget to check out some of the other FREE Spark collaborative whitepapers, too, on topics ranging from content curation to digital transformation, blockchain, DEI, lean startup, member-centric engagement, and more!