Action Planning

Before you can do anything else, you’ll need to sit down with your team and put together an Action Plan for how you’re going to make this event happen. There are many models of action planning. Here’s one that we recommend:


The G.O.S. Model: Goals, Objectives, Strategies
Break your planning into vision, number goals, and details. These events are about education, engagement and action. No matter what, make sure to include all three components in your events.
  • GOALS: Large over-arching vision for the event - don’t get too specific, think big picture.
     
  • OBJECTIVES: The numbers that you’re shooting for - these will give you something concrete to help you keep track of your progress as you organize.
     
  • STRATEGIES: The specific things you’ll do to help you acheive your objectives

This is a tool for helping use time and resources to the best of your capacity - the more clear and specific you can be in the planning process, the less drama you’ll have to deal with as you get closer to the event. Sometimes it helps to get all your ideas out there, then reorganize everything into this action plan. Have fun with it!

Goals
Start by thinking about how your event can add to what’s already happening. This may mean that you’ll want to target specific legislation, a dirty industry, or a set of cean energy related issues in your area. Frame your event around those issues. Be local.
If your community/state is already a leader you can orient your discussion towards accountability as well as how you can serve as a model for other states and communities. If your Congressperson hasn’t been a legislative leader on clean energy, focus on moving them into that role. When creating your goal, go beyond just a specific policy you’d like to see - and more toward how you’d like the event to be significant for the national movement. Think about community, empowerment, and mobilizing peoples’ voices on the issues relevant to your district.
When creating your goal, go beyond just a specific policy you’d like to see - and more toward how you’d like the event to be significant for the national movement. Think about community, empowerment, and mobilizing peoples’ voices on the issues relevant to your district.

Objectives
 Numbers are your friends. Seriously. Think carefully about your capacity - not just its limitations, but also it’s potential. When setting numerical goals, consider the skills of each team member and the opportunities of your surrounding. Push the envelope. Be ambitious, but not unreasonable. Shake things up. (And don’t hesitate to call us with questions about how to set up your metrics.)

Strategies
 The rest of this guide is to help you with the meat (vegan-option available) of your organizing: your strategies for making this thing amazing. These are the day-to-day tasks that will help you make history.

 

    

Next: Event Planning
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