A November to remember:
I hope your Thanksgiving went well and that your in-between holiday period is going smoothly. November was a big month for my Activism Training business and I’m looking forward to a lively December. I thought you might be interested (or at least a bit curious) about what I get up to across a month of Activism Training as an independent business, so here’s a round-up!
Top November news: I’ve now trained more than 330 advocates across North America this year! When I first started this back in February, I wasn’t really sure how much demand there would be from folks looking to get training to be more effective advocates. But now that I’ve worked with 335 people from 35 U.S. states and 4 Canadian provinces, it’s increasingly clear that there are a LOT of people who’d like help learning how to fight more effectively for what they want.
In November, I trained 63 people across:
Private trainings for two boards of directors – both looking to spin up a broader coalition and grassroots advocacy.
Three free group online trainings (“A beginner's guide to getting better bus service in your community," my first non-transportation training “A beginner's guide to winning the political changes you want," and “How to build a coalition and win bigger”).
Nine one-on-one and small group trainings with folks wrestling with a range of issues, like splitting off and starting their own group, clarifying product offering for a new business, holding an anti-bike mayor accountable, and expanding rural bus service.
The main way I’m reaching folks is by directly contacting the ~270 local, regional, state, and federal bike & pedestrian advocacy groups and ~80 transit advocacy groups across the country to introduce my services. It’s fascinating to see the wide range in focus, attitude, organizational sophistication, size, and level of political engagement among these groups. One thing they have in common is they have a ton of work on their plate. I worked with some groups to better tailor my service offerings and am testing out these top offers:
"Planning, Launching and Owning a Campaign" workshop to teach volunteers in their network how to take on their own campaigns (I did this for a group in Pennsylvania)
Spinning up a local chapter (Currently helping a California group do this)
A semester of activism coaching for volunteers selected to develop into leaders
For transit advocacy groups, coalition-building services seem to be in higher demand. Across metro regions, what sort of organization is doing the transit advocacy work varies widely. Some areas have dedicated transit advocacy organizations and in others, justice organizations or business coalitions are the voice of transit advocacy. It makes it a bit more difficult to figure out who is actually doing the organizing to support transit (I cannot figure out who is doing it in Dallas for example), but it’s a fun puzzle.
I’m also reaching out to the world of traffic violence prevention folks and various technical professionals in the transportation space – and I look forward to having more updates on that soon!
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This month I experimented more with the advocacy training materials I’m putting out via social media to reach a wider audience and bring in clients and donors. In November I had ~3,100 views across 12 TikToks and ~2,000 views across four Substack pieces. I’ll keep experimenting and always welcome your feedback!
I think social media can eventually be a good way to bring in clients and donors, as there are a LOT of angry people online who want the world to be different. In theory some of those angry people are both: A) Interested in doing the work or are already doing the work to make the world better, and B) Interested in learning how to be more effective and strategic. Or maybe people are just happy to be angry online ¯\_(ツ)_/¯. Time will tell!
Outside of the “Carter Lavin Activism Trainer” business, November has also been a jam-packed month. The California legislative session is starting soon so I’m working in a few different state-wide coalitions around the topics of transit funding, stopping highway expansion, and street safety & the criminal legal system. 2024 is already shaping up to be an exciting year. This month I also planned three meet & greets with candidates for State Senate that I’m hosting in December (Dan Kalb, Kathryn Lybarger, Jovanka Beckles).
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And lastly, my co-creator and I made a lot of progress in refining our board game “Beyond the Ballot.” The game helps educate and empower people on making change happen. After debuting it at the board game convention “Big Bad Con” in September and getting universally positive reviews and feedback, we have been refining the game and getting it ready for its next round of play-testing (likely January).
Here’s a little peek at one of the 200+ unique cards from the game:
I’m so excited for the next round of playtests! When we’re ready for more playtesters I’ll put out the call in this new newsletter. As you can see, a lot is going on these days so I set up this monthly newsletter to make it easier to update you and other allies on the big picture — in contrast to the Substack, which is about the actual advocacy education.
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I’ve also finally set up a Patreon where folks can donate to help sustain this work and make it easier for me to offer more free training sessions. If you’re in a position to help with a contribution, I’d deeply appreciate your fiscal support. So far this year, I’ve trained over 300 advocates, and if I had the resources so that I didn’t have to turn away people who lacked funds, I’d have trained over 400. You can contribute directly here.
If you’re up for helping in a separate (or additional) way, please forward this email around to some political/community-minded people you know. I also always love introductions to new folks. As I wrote earlier, countless people out there are trying to make the world a better place, and I’m here to help as many of them as I can.
Wishing you and yours all the best.
Sincerely,
Carter Lavin