Growing the Movement for Climate Action

by | May 18, 2021 | Featured, Instagram, News

The First Touch of Spring by Charles Schott

A few years ago, when I had just started at Iowa IPL, I used to say, “the great thing about leading a faith based organization is that I can honestly say, I’m not sure how this is going to work out, but I have faith it will.

The point of saying that, beyond a lame attempt at humor, is that part of having faith is having the confidence that when we do the right thing, good things will follow. In the case of Iowa IPL, I realized that if we had faith in our mission, we could do great things, even as we faced challenges.

We are building capacity to empower Iowans of faith and conscience to take bold and just climate action. We are excited. We are celebrating. And we are hiring a new staff person. Here’s why it’s time to grow our staff. 

We’ve just finished one of our most successful fundraising appeals. Thank you to our amazing supporters who take action and donate financially to support this work. This commitment to action and to financial support gives us confidence to grow.

Our programs and advocacy are grounded in a belief that there is joy in climate action. Iowa farmers, students, religious leaders, business owners, families and Iowans from every walk of life and corner of the state are joining together to advance clean energy and regenerative solutions to shape a hopeful future. We need another full time person to help share the joy.

We now have a top flight website and communication tools. All of the metrics we use to gauge our success and help direct our planning point to an opportunity to reach more Iowans and to better connect the work of Iowans of faith and conscience across the entire state to advance climate solutions.

We are integrating Faith Farms and Climate with Called to Climate Action this year. We’re exploring opportunities to empower farmers to lead their own, collective effort to advance ecosystem services on their farms. And our Called to Climate Action student leaders will be planning our statewide gathering this fall focusing on how Iowa farmers are called to provide agricultural solutions to climate change.

All of this means we need to hire another full time member of the Iowa IPL staff. We’ve just posted a job description for a program associate. This person will work with me, Irene, our board, and our entire network to help expand hopeful climate action grounded in environmental justice and powered by joy. Yes, there is joy when we work together to help solve the climate crisis.

To be fair, we are facing tremendous challenges when it comes to environmental justice in our great state. Watching the news, reading the paper, or following things on social media can often leave us feeling frustrated, hopeless, even angry. But faith calls us to move forward even when we aren’t entirely sure what the future holds. We invest. We risk. We grow. We invite. We believe. And we rejoice in being able to do all of this together.

Thank you for being all-in with our small but mighty organization that is all-in to build broad, bi-partisan, multi-generational, urban and rural and everywhere in between interfaith solutions to the climate crisis. Please help us spread the word by sharing the job announcement for our new program associate. And stay connected to Iowa IPL to be part of the joyful, loving work that lies ahead.

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