Power is Local.

Building Black, Latinx, and Spanish–speaking power, to ensure that people most impacted by energy insecurity’s increasingly harmful effects on community wellbeing can develop critical policy action, through strengthening community ownership.

Collaborator: Jennifer Ulloa
In partnership with WE ACT for Environmental Justice

Inwood & Washington Heights community workshop

So, what is the Power is Local framework?

Power is Local is a framework for community organizations enhancing local ownership in policy campaign planning and fostering deeper democracy with an Environmental Justice focus. It provides actionable practices, methods of communication, decision making processes, metrics for evaluation, and facilitation guides.

The framework includes four elements:

Shared vision for the future
Principles for actionable implementation
Iterative actions needed to reach the vision
Indicators for measurement & evaluation

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Power is Local development

We collaborated with Northern Manhattan community members, agencies, and organizations to develop a policy campaign planning process for impactful local and state policy.

Planning workshops x4

Inform community members about how extreme heat and energy insecurity are increasingly affecting community health and wellbeing.

Create a shared space where community members feel comfortable and encouraged to share their experiences, concerns, and ideas regarding extreme heat, health, housing, and energy insecurity.

Create a shared space, where language justice is practiced, so community members can participate fully in decision-making regarding key issues that impact their health and community.

Strengthen community engagement by providing community members with the opportunity to occupy their power and further participate in the political process.

Power mapping

Identify people with power, resources, and influence to strategically target, to implement policy action that adapts/mitigates extreme heat and energy insecurity, because creating social change requires an understanding of both the power that prevents change from happening, and the power that we have in ourselves and with others to create change.

Community asset mapping

Build a strong foundation with Northern Manhattan community members for a pathway to ownership of policy development by identifying and leveraging community knowledge, resources, and assets to develop policy that adapts to and mitigates extreme heat.

Inwood & Washington Heights planning workshop educational portion

Inwood & Washington Heights planning workshop

Central Harlem community ideas & recommendations

English & Spanish planning workshop activity cards

Planning workshop Spanish event pamphlet, promotional flyer, & activity card

Planning workshop facilitation guide, promotional flyer, & Spanish event pamphlet

A visual representation of the Movement Strategy Center’s Spectrum of Community Engagement to Community Ownership

Theory of change (community power focused)

A deeper look into Power is Local’s iterative process focused on constant learning, synthesis, & analysis

Theory of change (energy insecurity focused)

A visual representation of some synthesis completed after the four planning workshops

A visual representation of what was heard from community members throughout the Heat, Health, & Equity Initiative, to explain energy insecurity and what energy security could look like in the future

Social media.

We also generated social media carousels for WE ACT to highlight the importance of community ownership and leadership when developing antiracist policies and raising awareness about extreme heat in NYC, the Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program, and NYC Cooling Centers program.