We partnered with a renewable energy company to garner public support for placing wind and solar projects on privately-held agricultural land in multiple states. Winning approval for these projects required securing local government (city, county, state) support for permitting in the face of opposition from a small but loud group of activists. These opposition groups were organized and funded by anti-renewable energy interests.

We built a national organizing plan with state-based public engagement programs which include on-the-ground organizers, digital engagement strategies, and social listening tools. Through this effort, we engaged community members to understand the benefit of renewable energy projects in their community, organized them to support the completion of these projects, and activated them to take ensure passage of the required permits. The key to our strategy was to use local voices to build trust within the community. We hired and trained local organizers who were given a mandate and tools to engage their neighbors and persuade them to support the wind and solar projects.

We took a grassroots approach to engage community members on the benefits of renewable energy projects in their town, employed on-the-ground organizers, and built public support at key permitting meetings. 

Through these efforts, we:

• Mobilized supporters to attend key city/county/state meetings to support permitting process;
• Activated supporters to pressure local elected officials to support renewable energy projects;
• Developed and managed social media channels to consistently engage supporters and proactively share pro-renewable energy messaging; and
• Engaged in active social listening to be responsive to opposition activity via social media channels. 

Community members attended multiple local government meetings in support of permitting of the renewable energy projects. We were able to activate local community members to supporters and mobilize them for key events like community and town board meetings. Every project we built a community engagement around went through the public approval process successfully.