Idea List #3 - Variety Mix
Idea List #3 - Variety Mix
Ways To Get People Talking, Making Change, Making News, & Voting
Shift the Country is a unique nonprofit set up to drive voter turnout with ideas that people & groups can use for activities to raise a ruckus, to influence the narrative, & to get voters fired up. We can compel change that creates a more equitable, resilient, & sustainable democracy.
HOW TO DO THIS: Pick An Idea, Get Started
Use this or any other Shift the Country idea list from the Take Action page to help us make big shift with a zillion actions everywhere.
Use this idea list in combination with the “Big Shift Guide.” See the Take Action page for more. Ideas here may be general; or may be focused on an issue like a hot messaging topic or critical part of society. Idea List #1 lists ideas by activity type.
Get some people or a group to work with. Any individual, group, or coalition can do this. Set a goal to take some action together. Commit. Support each other as you go. Learn & evolve.
Pick any idea/activity/event. Don’t get overwhelmed. Don’t overthink stuff.
Just start somewhere. Use the 5 Things approach & the Big Shift Guide to implement & execute ideas. Work forward from there to ramp up attention, activity, & ruckus. Keep an eye on logistics & communication for max success.
Be creative. This is all flexible, adaptable, & scalable. Adapt any idea to a focus or issue that fits what you or your group are fired up about, you priorities, or where you are.
Create a buzz. The random menagerie of options on these lists are meant to give ideas for action, to plant seeds, & to inspire other options for activity that will get people talking, inspired, engaged, and voting. These lists are intended to facilitate some aspect of the 5 Things, to contribute to the synergy, to be done by communities & coalitions, & so on. It’s all meant to be messy & to get everyday people + news people talking in-real-life, online, & in the media.
Keep at it. Work with the 5 Things to grow what you’re doing, who you reach, & who you’re working with. It’s a good year to go all out.
25 Ideas
For activities, events, engagement, & pressure —
Create A Media Pressure/Coordination/Fast-Response/Alerting Team, Initiative, or Mechanism — Put mechanisms, a team, and/or a plan in place to pressure the media at every level to do more accurate reporting, to stop normalizing fascism, to better call out false information rather than just playing clips, etc. Groups exist at various levels working on this, to include the Media And Democracy (MAD) Project here.
Conduct a high-profile billboard campaign in a community / region / state that gets people talking or is absurd or highly noticeable. Lots of examples. A “super-spreader event” billboard with an arrow pointing to a Trump campaign event in 2020 got media coverage & went viral as a meme. Leverage fundraising capabilities locally &/or from sponsors/business partnerships, or contact Shift the Country for options about bringing in funding for specific projects (this is in development). Indivisible and Alliance for Justice Action Campaign have funding option basics for long-term organizations; Shift the Country has some of this set up with some flexibility (just not yet much funding).
AI — Artificial Intelligence! Have forums, panels, or community conversations on this. Relate it to local job market, economic development potential, local academic resources, political options locally/state/nationally, local priorities or opportunities for action, etc.
Events/activities to show welcoming & inclusion of new immigrants to the US.
Events/activities that demonstrate/illustrate class & wealth issues in communities that need attention… such as a town hall or panel with break-out sessions where teams explore options/challenges. Include follow-up & next steps.
Neighborhood Food Sharing. Get a group together & find ways for neighbors to share produce with each other locally. For example, a protocol perhaps like the little lending libraries. For example, a central Iowa neighbor puts a sign out about which vegetables in their garden that neighbors can help themselves to, & includes a container with plastic bags for people to use to gather produce.
Start new neighborhood or community gardening projects for food security & resilience. We’ll need more of these as disasters increase & intensify, as war situations are escalating, & as critical infrastructure & supply chains are under increasing pressure.
A seed-saver initiative or seed sharing for a community, neighborhood, or coalition via partners. Connect with community gardening but also offer separately. May include heirloom or other species for resilience. This grows food security & resilience.
Community conversation / problem-solving potluck series to solve a local food problem. Plan a regular get-together to address a local food challenge over a given period & make a commitment. Like “identify & pursue options to address rural food desert issue for our community in 1 year.”
A pollinator planting effort. Or tree planting. Or native plant planting. Make sure to coordinate with locals &/or people with expertise or plans for various areas. Existing local action groups or coalitions may have more info or some efforts already underway.
Vision work for team/towns/party/groups/region/state.
Awareness/events/education on electrification and rewiring America, what all that means, & how we get there so we can do advocacy & create pressure to get there. Civic engagement ideas to advocate for electrification & why we need it. Electrification work to help society be open to / ready for infrastructure not anchored to oil & gas. Includes needs for local strategy, code changes, etc. Examples: local building codes that allow solar on rooves, codes/laws on who can sell power back to grid & related limits/processes, laws on where windmills can be located, joining the electrification caucus, becoming a local leader for electrification, campaigning to rewire schools, etc.
Campaigns/advocacy/pressure campaigns at scale for daily life changes to better (more efficiently) use or conserve energy. Lifestyle changes can include turning up A/C or turning down the heat, wardrobe & policy changes that can help, awareness of where heaviest power use occurs, building thermostat settings, changes to office buildings when not in use, etc. The point is to grow work/awareness on this subject as it would be very helpful for mitigating climate damage. This used to be called “energy conservation.” Now climate mitigation is often referenced as “green building” or “efficiency” but we rarely talk about conserving — yet we could start.
Placemaking &/or social infrastructure initiatives, vision work, or coalition-building to build more intentional communities, neighborhoods, downtowns, parks, etc.
Community conversations on the fusion of economic development, the local job market, the local entrepreneurial ecosystem, placemaking, & social infrastructure. How are these things or the lack of them helping/hurting our community? How do we address that & do planning & pressure for change?
Have a “Tour of Dreams.” Plan a tour a community, park, neighborhood, or downtown tour & conversation for your community. Invite community members & key players in government, economic development, etc. Consider touring vacant properties to consider short-term ideas for filling spaces, or consider longer-term vision work. Do follow-up brainstorming. Give door prizes or other incentives/thank yous. Follows idea from rural Iowa community used for economic development. Could be used for strategies to build a coalition & political/public pressure to revitalize or transform an area.
Critical Infrastructure Conversations — Town halls, tours, community conversations, vision sessions, or other looks at local/regional critical infrastructure. Option to tour/highlight American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) or Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) or COVID investments. Consider interdependencies cascading effects in case of infrastructure disruption or failures; explore local options/plans for infrastructure restoration. Explore options to keep community people & businesses intact planning to remain in the community long-term while infrastructure outages are occurring. Of note, US infrastructure is not in good shape & we are generally not resilient in this area. Of note, local/state/Tribal/federal governments have taken great care in assessing critical infrastructure vulnerabilities, assets, locations, etc. Of note, many of these vulnerabilities are now in the possession of far-right domestic violent extremist (DVE) groups including but not limited to accelerationists (more here & here) who seek to push society toward apocalypse conditions where those with guns would have all the power (& governments would no longer be able to protect citizens).
Community Resilience Series — Community conversations or active resilience-building work for disaster, community, &/or economic resilience. Great activity for coalitions, partnerships, infrastructure owners & operators, & for business participation (especially for continuity of business, etc.). Can tie to FEMA’s “Whole of Community” work, local emergency response teams, etc.
Team / ‘Hood / Building / Group Teams for Disaster Resilience, etc. — Teamwork to help us coordinate with our neighbors, friends, relatives, group people, or whoever to do work to help us get more ready for disasters, crises, etc. There are existing Community Emergency Response Teams (CERT) in some communities that may or may not be worth connecting with. Also be advised some far-right groups have moved into this space & are ready to show up after a disaster in certain regions & help certain populations but of course not usually all the people who need help (while also building local goodwill in some groups for their cause). Teamwork/coordination/training in this area can also emphasize the power/value of connection & community in disasters, & also how it’s good to have existing relationships & connections before the crisis for all kinds of reasons.
Team / Neighborhood / Building / Group Phone Trees for Disasters, Crises, etc. — Mechanisms to check in on our immediate neighbors and/or people we’re connected to in various teams/groups in miscellaneous crises; especially given specific risks in a geographic area. May or may not tie to related teamwork, or to other group/church/party group work.
Disaster response fundraising or community support effort to help another community survive/recover from a disaster. Focus efforts to raise/send money & not stuff but may include local drives to raise funds.
Blood drive following an incident nearby or nationwide, or just to raise awareness & do good. This is always needed. A good volunteer & awareness effort for any party/organization.
Any “Whole of Communities” disaster-related partnership-building or coalition-building work to increase neighborhood & community resilience, disaster resilience, economic resilience, infrastructure resilience, etc. There’s tons of material on this through FEMA’s Whole Communities initiatives, public private partnerships work, Community Emergency Response Teams (CERT), etc. See note above about other groups active in this area. Also see existing groups via local/state/national Voluntary Organizations Active In Disasters alliances (NVOAD or similar at different levels). Local nonprofit alliances or community foundations may also have existing coalitions already coordinating a bit in this area.
A “Resilient Kids” session, workshop, or series — how do we support kids with all the challenges they are dealing with now? For example, from active shooters to substandard COVID-19 behavior of governments with regard to schools to book bans to “don’t say gay” laws to increasing disasters, etc. Lots of options for events/activities on this that also align with the values of the Democratic party and its allies. How can parents & the community better support kids during this time of intensity & transformation?
Sad Infrastructure Tour! Or Scary or Dangerous Infrastructure Tour! Another take on the “Tour of Dreams” idea above. An event to highlight infrastructure where you live that’s vulnerable, that needs investment, or that is dangerous. Add featured content before or after the tour about what could happen if the infrastructure goes out or down — like what would the cascading effects be in case of a power outage, bridge collapse, etc. Could include visionary session or strategy on ways forward, to include follow-up plans/commitments. Relates to our 10 critical parts of society on economic resilience, community investment, energy/environment, & infrastructure.
Check out the Take Action page for the main Big Shift Guide & for more Idea Lists.
“Light up the darkness.” — Bob Marley