Overwhelmed? Not getting to your policy priorities?
Every elected official comes in with the best of intentions, but a lack of time, tools or confidence can hold you back from making progress on the issues you ran for office to champion. The good news is that we can help. The BC Climate Leaders Coaching Program was designed to help you overcome these obstacles and what better time than one year into a new term to get more tools under your belt.
What is the Climate Leaders Coaching Program?
In 2019, the Community Energy Association (CEA) and the BC Municipal Climate Leadership Council (BCMCLC) launched the Climate Leaders Playbook to help provide frameworks, information and tools for BC-based local government leaders to accelerate climate action in their communities. But every good playbook is better with coaching so in 2020 CEA and BCMCLC launched a pilot coaching program which was a great success.
Since then, we’ve been building on what we learned and offering small group and individual coaching focused on:
- Identifying your goals
- Providing tools for effective time management when you’re overloaded
- Creating a power map and a strategic campaign plan
- Strategies for building and mobilizing broad public support for your new policy initiatives
- Assessing which communications tools can best support your efforts
Fall 2023 to Winter 2024 Climate Leaders Coaching Offer
The 2023 Climate Leaders Coaching Program beginning with a group coaching offer consisting of five webinars led by Andrea Reimer and Norman Gludovatz. Participants must be able to attend all five sessions and complete two to four hours of field work per month that includes pre-reading and/or post coaching session activities. The webinar topics are:
Wednesday, November 29, 4 to 6 pm Pacific Time
One of the biggest challenges in elected office is just managing the sheer volume of work. This webinar will look at the basics: managing the demands on your time, setting up a good digital filing system, and maintaining and growing your relationships while staying focused on your key priorities.
Wednesday, December 20, 4 to 6 pm Pacific Time
How many times have you seen great ideas take much longer to come to fruition than they needed to, or even fail all together, because people or internal politics got in the way? It doesn’t have to be that way! This webinar will give you a foundation in understanding different kinds of power bases and provides you with tools to observe, map and effectively navigate power structures.
Wednesday, January 17, 4 to 6 pm Pacific Time
A key tool for mobilizing change is being able to connect your story with that of your community in a way that points to effective collective solutions. This webinar will walk you through the public narrative approach developed by Marshall Ganz to give you a framework for connecting your key priorities with community priorities in a way that connects with hearts and minds.
Wednesday, February 7, 4 to 6 pm Pacific Time
Understanding and observing power is the first step: learning how to pull different power bases together into an effective coalition is ultimately the goal of successful policymakers. This webinar will give you tools to build and maintain coalitions that can work across different perspectives and lived experiences.
Wednesday, February 28, 4 to 7 pm Pacific Time (3 hour session instead of the usual 2 hours)
As a publicly elected official, people expect that you are regularly connecting with them about the work you’re doing on their behalf. When managed well, this can also be a great strength of your work. This webinar will look at the basics of setting up a communications plan that matches your strengths with your community’s needs.
The program is open to all local government elected officials and Indigenous leaders. With much gratitude to our funders this coaching program is offered free to elected officials and Indigenous leaders, but the value is immeasurable, so sign up now. Thank you to BC Hydro, the Real Estate Foundation of BC, the Province of BC’s Climate Action Secretariat, and Vancity.
Copyright © 2021 · Community Energy Association