Vision: A well-coordinated and collaborative ecosystem for organizers working in solidarity with frontline community leaders in a world centered in climate justice.
Mission: To foster collaboration and connectivity for increased climate action and impact in Boulder County, Colorado. We inform, coordinate, and incentivize collaboration across the climate justice movement, shifting the paradigm of how our community/ies work together.
Effects of climate chaos are impacting the most vulnerable among us, first and most. The root causes of social injustice are also the causes of the climate crises: in Joanna Macy’s words, the Industrial Growth Society and the sense of separation that fuels it. Local governments, numerous organizations, faith-based communities, businesses, and schools are shifting gears to mitigate the devastation and face historical inequities. However, independent efforts fall short of the essential collective participation and systems change needed.
In an effort to de-silo conversations, coordinate more effectively, and incentivize collaboration, Naropa University’s Joanna Macy Center for Resilience and Regeneration and Boulder Dot Earth have created the Hive to bring together various community-based climate justice efforts. The Hive collects and shares up-to-date information about who’s doing what and where, ‘cross-pollinating,’ if you will, with the many climate and community actors across neighborhoods and sectors in Boulder County. The Hive illustrates the formal, informal, and potentially collaborative networks in an easy-to-navigate, interactive online map that can be shared through any participating organization’s website.
Beginning with the 14 member organizations of the Climate Justice Collaborative (CJC) in Boulder County, the Hive illustrates a community of organizations that offer access to resources, community information, and opportunities to advance climate and social justice. By centering, from the start, communities who are impacted first and most, the Hive seeks to make sure that communities who are traditionally marginalized from governance and even organizing tables are setting the tone for the systemic changes needed in this time. From this beginning, the Hive will weave in more and more of the important climate justice efforts happening in the community.
About You
As a member of the Boulder County Climate Justice Hive network, you will become a part of coordinated and collaborative ecosystem of organizers working in solidarity with frontline community leaders towards a world centered in climate justice. You will bring transparency to your efforts in this space, while finding accessible ways to coordinate and collaborate with others. Our mission is to connect and support your efforts throughout our ecosystem of networks.
Please learn more about our current project mapping the climate justice landscape of Boulder County and developing an online digital platform to visualize this data.
Please contact us for more information and to get involved with your program or organization.
Please learn more about our current project mapping the climate justice landscape of Boulder County and developing an online digital platform to visualize this data.
We have gathered data on almost 200 organizations. We want to get yours right! Please contact us for more information and to get involved with your program or organization.
About Us
The Hive turned two in September 2023! Here we are celebrating with members of the BoCo Climate Justice Hive, the Climate Justice Collaborative of Boulder County, Brújula Comunitaria, Naropa University, University of Colorado, Boulder County Public Health, Town of Superior, and friends!
What have we learned? What have we done?
Winter Solstice 2023 finds the Hive having grown, developed and deepened so much in our second year!
By finding out who is doing what and where in Boulder County, the Hive identifies potential supports, resources and partners for climate justice efforts, and works to increase coordination and encourage collaboration across the movement.
The highs have been high, and the lows have been low. And through it all there has been a strong commitment to relationship, communication, and community. Co-leads of the Hive, we couldn’t be more proud of what we have navigated this year and the way in which we have done so.
We partnered with the Climate Justice Collaborative of Boulder County (CJC), with support from Boulder County’s OSCAR (Office of Sustainability Climate Action and Resilience), and four stellar graduate students from the University of Colorado’s Masters of the Environment program to map, enroll and align institutional support for climate justice efforts.
We mapped over 350 unique organizations, including:
>15 organizations already affiliated with the Climate Justice Collaborative;
>60 CJC-identified allies;
>170 faith-based congregations;
>75 organizations, producers, and service providers in the food and farming arena
We developed a database to collect, organize and synthesize all this information so it can be used to advance climate justice on a systemic level to unite and meet ambitious climate justice goals, center frontline community priorities, and encourage collaboration.
Furthermore, we kicked off the development of an innovative tech tool to be able to display this information and the relevant connections in ways that make it accessible and usable. We worked with a phenomenal group of professionals to help us learn the agile scrum model of tech development and produced an early prototype to begin to display and share the information we’ve been collecting.
We deepened relationship with many community collaborations in addition to the Climate Justice Collaborative, like GreenFaith Boulder County and the Food Security Network, as well as individual organizations too many to mention.
Throughout, we were part of supporting Naropa University’s involvement in the broader community through internships, facilitating a showing of the film Fracking the System: Colorado’s Oil and Gas Wars, and seeding more connection between local climate justice actors and the Joanna Macy Center’s Nuclear Guardianship efforts. The Hive was the connective tissue for Naropa to host climate justice cafecito gatherings, including a recent information session with frontline community members about the proposed Valmont Power Station cleanup.
We shifted from a mostly volunteer effort on a budget of $20K, to a team of paid independent contractors with a budget of over $125K through our fiscal sponsor Open Collective Foundation. We grew from a support network of four donors to a community of over 65 contributors! We can’t begin to thank you enough for believing in us.
We maintain a robust and vibrant climate justice events calendar and tend multiple relationships with climate justice organizations, frontline community groups, government officials, philanthropists, the Community Foundation of Boulder County, academic institutions and faith-based organizers. We have a slide deck, funding kit, intro video, budgets of various sizes depending on the degree of support we get in 2024, and financial visuals. For a young organization, all these pieces are huge milestones!
And most importantly, we came together in solidarity and support during periods of loss, disruption and war during the past year. Showing up for each other honestly and authentically is incredibly precious.
We are poised to enter 2024 deepening into strategy, project development, and continuing our mission to coordinate and encourage collaboration for climate justice!
