Active Allie’s Project Managers, Anna Michel and Costanza Gonzalo.

March 24, 2020

We hope you’re staying healthy and safe. Amidst the pandemic, we see a ray of hope: the world’s COVID-19 response can become a preview for how humanity steps up to our Climate Emergency when we emerge from these dark times and look to our future.

Epidemiologists have long warned we wouldn’t be ready for the next pandemic. While we can’t yet know how this one will play out, already we can speak to how much harder it is to repair than to prepare! This heightened awareness can galvanize the world to really hear what Greta is saying now and what climate scientists and advocates have been saying for decades: delayed action risks everything. Now humanity has the chance to act decisively to rescue ourselves, based on scientific consensus and the deep recognition that we’re all in this together. 

The pandemic is giving many people the powerful understanding that compassion, not fear, is a productive approach to global threats — that we’re most effective when we cooperate and care for each other. We can apply the spirit and intensity that’s growing in today’s worldwide mobilization to protect our climate and build a safe, healthy future for all. 

Millions of youth climate activists insist on their right to a safe and healthy future. That’s why, even as the world’s attention is on the immediate COVID-19 crisis, we’re continuing to develop Active Allies, our new startup that enables young adult climate advocates to work on climate projects. We match them, as Project Managers, with Sponsors, who pay them, and with Mentors, who advise them.

In our soft-launch in the San Francisco Bay Area, we recently finalized core partnerships with 350 Bay Area and Climate.Careers. Both groups are critical to both the in-person and virtual climate movement, especially locally. Our immediate next step is to secure Sponsors for ClimateCareers’ co-founder and 350BA’s just-announced Youth Climate Organizer position. (See our Hiring page for more on both.)

We’re collaborating with 350 Bay Area to build and support the youth-led climate justice movement and develop pathways for their involvement, including employment, in climate solutions. We’ll integrate with the scalable platform at Climate.Careers to recruit and match candidates with climate-solutions employers. 

Other partners and collaborators include Airminers, the Anthropocene Institute, Climate Coalition, ClimateLink, The Climate Mobilization, the Climate Restoration Circle, The Determined, the Foundation for Climate Restoration, and Presidio Graduate School.

With lots of help and advice, we’ve put together Active Allies as a small but mighty team: Felix Kramer, ClimateChangesEverything Founder, plus the world’s first two Climate Project Managers, Anna Michel and Costanza Gonzalo, working with Evan Hynes, Climate Careers’ co-founder. Learn more about them and our current Climate Project Manager candidates at our showcase.

Felix and Anna are recruiting Founding Mentors to advise and recruit Sponsors and Managers. We picture a [renewable] pipeline of people in each role itching to find partners. And we’re presenting “missing pieces” Projects for collaborative efforts. 

Anna and Costanza say, “We Climate Project Managers are the older siblings of the middle and high school youth climate activists. Alongside Greta, they say it’s not their job to solve this. But it is ours! We’re ultra-motivated to work on climate, not just as volunteers on evenings or weekends, but with pay every Monday through Friday. And a big part of our jobs is to recruit other adults, young and old, to join us.” 

Active Allies’s near-term goal is to be ready to officially launch at the moment, whenever it comes, that many people can reorient to organizing for climate justice. Our stretch goal after launch is to expand beyond the Bay Area, with the support of our growing list of Partners & Collaborators. If you wonder how you, your friends, family, and colleagues can commit to climate action this year, we hope you’ll consider joining us at Active Allies  — as a Manager, Sponsor, or Mentor! 

See our first endorsements here. And thanks for sending this story to people who were made for this opportunity!