The New Climate Narrative

Humanity faces an existential crisis because of the devastating effects of climate change. Other macro forces of change—from pandemics, to resource scarcity, to rising political violence—are accelerated and complicated by the threats to our climate and the total global response to those threats. As an organization dedicated to renewing, reimagining, and realizing “the promise of America,” New America has a role to play in responding effectively to the climate crisis. While many programs include work on climate and climate change, we do not have a formal program, initiative or partnership focused solely on addressing climate change.

As New America charts goals for the coming years as part of a robust strategic planning process, we recognize the need to more intentionally define and design an approach for how we can meaningfully contribute to and engage in work that addresses how communities, governments, and other decision-makers might respond to climate change. Since March 2022, we have worked to operationalize this priority and explore where New America might be able to have the most impact on climate-related opportunities and challenges both domestically and globally. This brief will outline our process thus far, shedding light on our analysis and implementation framework, sharing some of our key learnings and potential impact areas, and outlining next steps for our continued work on climate change. Though the process is ongoing, this brief seeks to inform partners and stakeholders on how we approach new bodies of work and the steps we are taking to develop a theory of change on climate issues at New America.

It is important to provide the structure of our process that informed our decision to pursue climate as an impact before delving into how we see our work taking shape in this space. Our strategic vision and roadmap is driving this inquiry, and the planning process has been divided into three broad but overlapping parts: (1) roadmapping, or the exploration and identification of possibilities for broad areas of focus for our substantive and organizational work, as well as identification of specific and emerging opportunities for further consideration; (2) design of the key components and possibilities for our work and organization over the next five years, which included discussion and feedback with key stakeholders across the organization; and (3) implementation, or the prioritization and continuation of work streams that support the plan.

The first phase, in partnership with sparks & honey, centered around a 10-week “roadmap sprint” to address two guiding questions:

• What are the global cultural forces influencing New America’s mission as an organization over the next 5 to 10 years?
• What opportunities emerge to transform its system of initiatives and social impact?

The sprint, as a whole, was intended to focus on ideas for consideration and to set an initial methodology and structure for on-going prioritization, evaluation, and planning as we continue growing New America. It was intended to point us in the direction of possibilities, including ways to deepen existing work and explore new areas of critical concern. As expected, throughout the process we talked about the work of existing and former programs at New America as a way of putting opportunities in a familiar frame. However, the sprint was not intended to be a programmatic evaluation or a complete mapping of all potential opportunities. That work will continue as an iterative process, and our exploration of climate change is an operationalization of this thinking.

A critical objective from the outset was to include a range of stakeholders with different perspectives on the current work and priorities of New America. We engaged about 45 contributors throughout the initial sprint. We invested a significant amount of time curating a range of New America staff from all levels and teams, including program and central staff as well as a younger generation of staff (key stakeholders in both the “New America” and the “new America”). We also made it a priority to include members of the Board and outside experts at various points in the process which included one-on-one interviews, work sessions, and surveys.

It was through this sprint that we identified a set of external forces (broad vectors of change in society) as well as related impact opportunities (potential areas of focus and impact for New America’s work). Of those cultural forces, systemic resilience arose as both an area of immense social need and a point of intersection around which we could coordinate existing and emerging bodies of work at New America.

New Climate Narrative: Developing initiatives that bring about the radical change necessary to mitigate the devastating effects of climate change.

Developing a “new climate narrative” emerged as one of the impact opportunities that came across most emphatically in our conversations with our stakeholders and sparks & honey’s analysis. Specifically, the chance to develop initiatives that explicitly acknowledge the immediate, existential threat posed by worsening climate conditions seemed to be a ripe opportunity for New America—with a focus on bringing about the major, positive shifts needed to mitigate its effects on individuals and communities. This framing was a point of departure for exploration of how we might engage on the issue. A group of internal stakeholders used that topical frame to assess whether New America had a clear theory of change and action around this critical work, to evaluate New America’s current capacity to engage around the issues related to climate, and to align on our perception of whether engaging in this work would have a real-world impact on society.

Based on this assessment, we are clear on the urgency and imperative to address the effects of climate change. Further, given the work that New America has done, and continues to do, in areas related to climate, we had a good foundation of knowledge and talent on which to build. However, while responding to the climate crisis aligns with our visions across the organization, we recognize that we have not yet articulated a clear theory of change to organize all the work and do not currently have a base of sustained funding for that integrated work. These three points—determining the societal impact of this work, assessing our existing capacity, and developing a theory of change—served as the basis for moving forward in our analysis of climate change work at New America.

Assessing climate change as an impact area has been a process within a process. Before we could begin the discovery work, we moved through the design phase of our strategic planning process to establish frameworks to effectively articulate our theory of change and integrate our work for impact. The three interconnected frameworks we developed (Core Clusters, Core Lenses, and Core Capabilities) for our strategic planning allowed us to address the “what” and “how” of our work across the organization. These lens proved to be critical components to considering a body of work around climate change.

Taking a birds-eye view of all our workstreams, we see that there is a continued focus on democracy and political reform, education, care, jobs, housing, global affairs and security, and technology. We have always operated with multiple programs working across those areas, with unique approaches and outputs, designing solutions to advance equity, to contribute change at the federal, state, and local levels, and to affect meaningful change in the lives of people. When we look across all of them, we see five broad clusters: Education from Birth through Workforce; Family Economic Security and Wellbeing; People and Planet Centered Global Politics; Political Reform and Civic Cohesion; and Technology and Democracy (the “Core Clusters”).

In addition to clarifying and structuring the specific subject areas for our work, we have also clarified work that cuts across the Core Clusters: Equity; Narrative Change & Storytelling; Field & Pipeline Building; and Local Impact, Participation, & Engagement. These are our “Core Lenses”—cross-cutting commitments that show up in every cluster and they are unique approaches to advance the work. Combined together, the Core Clusters and Core Lenses provide an organizational architecture for the “what” of our work, the broad areas of focus that are critical for societal transformation.

Taking a people-centered approach, New America’s model has been to work at the intersection of ideas and action. That approach has generated and supported a range of outputs and activities, including specific recommendations for policy; designs for technology platforms and tools; data models and analysis; coalition building and participation; live public events and convenings with partners; and physical and digital products like books, films, and podcasts. Our strategic planning process served as an opportunity for a clearer synthesis of our “Core Capabilities,” which we describe as the “four Ps”: Policy, Products, Platforms, and Practice.

We believe that all of these capabilities, integrated together, are necessary to catalyze the kind of thinking and action that puts people first. We can make progress towards renewing, reimagining, and realizing the promise of America by designing public policy that meets the needs and experience of people first (Policy); by creating and sharing research, resources, tools and stories that center the lives of people impacted by those policies (Products); by convening and working in partnership with diverse voices, coalitions, and new efforts to design solutions for individuals and communities (Platforms); and by deploying a range of action-oriented approaches to figure how to make government work at the practical level to identify and meet critical areas of need in society (Practice).

These multi-layered frameworks provide the foundation from which we can intentionally explore New America’s nuanced and generative impact in the climate space that both informs and is informed by our existing work. Moreover, they serve as guides for moving from analysis and design to implementation by revealing how we are best positioned to contribute to this critical issue.

The roadmap sprint and analytical frameworks established through our strategic planning process provided the impetus to take a deeper dive on climate change as an impact area for New America. We reenaged with sparks & honey to help us design a multi-step process that involved a deep examination of intersections with current New America verticals and the external landscape of climate work and funding from related organizations and existing and potential partners; workshops with stakeholders to explore specific opportunities arising from our internal analysis; and a mapping of potential next steps for engagement. Though the original impact area we identified was framed as building a new climate narrative, it was through this process that we broadened our perspective on how New America could best approach climate work.

The first step in our process was to conduct an analysis of the internal assets and capacities New America already had related to climate change and the external landscape of peer organizations and potential funding partners. An understanding of the foundation from which we could build and the opportunities for project partners and long-term sustainability were critical to moving forward in this process. Similar to our work to determine the Core Clusters through our strategic vision and roadmap, these landscape surveys allowed us to spot patterns and capabilities across the organization and understand where we could direct our energy in a way that would be additive to the work of other organizations in the field.

Our internal landscape survey identified seven programs and initiatives that have already conducted work related to climate, including resource security; land and housing; education and labor; international security; fellowships; political reform; and justice, health, and democracy. (See Program Matrix.) The opportunity, then, was to build forward from here. Given the number of intersecting issues, there are many potential paths forward for New America to address the climate crisis beyond narrative work.

It became clear through this mapping that, across the existing Core Clusters, areas of focus, and Core Lenses, we have intersectional subject matter expertise that would be valuable to climate-related work. From understanding the intersection of climate change and land use, to analyzing how climate-related disasters will affect national security, to telling the stories of those communities on the frontlines of the climate crisis, we found that New America was well-positioned to take action internally.

Through our Core Capabilities (including platforms and products generated by the National Fellows), we are well positioned to convene and include diverse perspectives that can fuel narrative change and future issues of equity in the work. We also have access to partners, like Arizona State University, that have unique data and analysis capabilities at scale, and there is an overall willingness to develop the additional capabilities to strengthen feasibility. In addition, our external analysis revealed clear opportunities for partnership at peer organizations, novel approaches that aligned well with our capabilities, and potential funding partners to support building out a body of work.

From there, we worked with sparks & honey to synthesize our analysis in a digestible way and designed a workshop of internal stakeholders to discuss our findings. We convened a working group featuring a range of voices from across New America to do some initial exploration. This group included three National Fellows; representatives from several programs including International Security, Future of Land and Housing, Political Reform, and the Justice, Health, and Democracy Initiative; and members of our Development, Content, and Editorial teams. Having a cross-section of the organization participate in this workshop, featuring programmatic and operational perspectives, was incredibly important to begin making connections between the substance of potential climate-related work and the organizational structures and administrative capabilities required to make that work happen. We also chose to double-click on specific programs that we thought best represented New America’s unique value-adds in the space—our Core Capabilities of narrative development and local engagement. Drilling down in this way allowed for a deeper exploration of how we could be generative to the fields of climate change and climate justice.

From this workshop, four broad themes around how New America might be able to engage in climate-focused work emerged: equity, justice, adaptation, and community. Given our existing work and partners across New America, as well as the community of peer organizations and funders working in the space, we do see an opportunity to contribute to the advancement of climate justice and adaptation as possible paths that would bring about the major, positive shifts needed to mitigate its effects on individuals and communities. Our approach would build on our Core Clusters, Lenses, and Capabilities.

With these themes framing our work, we moved to reconvene the working group six weeks after the initial conversation. In the intervening weeks, teams across New America continued to produce work around climate. A recent edition of our publication The Thread’s monthly newsletter was dedicated to “Our Changing Climate,” including perspectives on empowering women to lead on climate solutions and future-proofing our emergency networks for the next disaster. Over the six weeks, we also saw multiple distinct but related tracks of work developing.

Through Future Tense, our partnership with Slate and Arizona State University that examines emerging technologies, public policy, and society, we released “The Future of the Coasts,” a series of op-eds that reimagines our climate future, from flooded coasts to inland “climate havens.” This project serves as the foundation for work we are looking to continue on changing the narratives around climate change, adaptation, and resilience. As the war in Ukraine rages on, our Future Frontlines program is investigating how the green energy transition will be key to winning peace against Russia. As we track the shifting nature of international conflict and security, the changing climate and its consequences will play a central role in our analysis. And we are partnering with The Rockefeller Foundation on the Future of Institutions project, working with leaders across the globe to envision and reimagine the institutions of the future that we will need to avert and prepare for our changing climate. This big-picture thinking will connect with our locally-focused work to provide platforms for those communities on the frontlines of climate change.

These work streams served as the basis for discussion for our second workshop. Bringing these concrete ideas to the working group allowed for further ideation and discussion of how we might move toward implementation—from project structure to staffing to funding. Moreover, across these work streams there was an agreement on themes that should be central to our work, as we move forward with these projects:

• Climate policy and funding tends to concentrate on the same voices and institutions, and the solutions are often generated using the same top-down structures. New America should consider how we can open these conversations to include new voices, especially those on the frontlines who are often a part of communities of color and underserved communities. That said, we need to be intentional about engaging people from these communities in a way that is equitable and considerate of their time, perhaps through stipends or grants.
• New climate narratives are emerging around innovative technologies and climate justice (e.g., carbon capture and justice), and new disciplines are engaging in the climate conversation (e.g., architectural design, sociology). We need to engage the thinkers and doers in these spaces and this kind of forward-thinking approach could serve as a novel way for us to engage on climate issues.
• Given New America’s proximity to policymakers and corporate leaders, we also need to think about how we can engage and activate them. The Biden administration launched the Interagency Working Group on Coal & Power Plant Communities & Economic Revitalization in April 2021, identifying 25 priority area communities where the government would prioritize funding and local stakeholder engagement. How might we leverage our capacity to amplify this work? And we should also be thinking about jobs and a just transition in the corporate context—there is an opportunity to connect to business leaders, who will be integral to enacting climate policy.

We used our second workshop to plot out a structure and cadence for further collaboration through the working group and an expansion of our internal planning to a larger group of New America’s internal stakeholders. And the workshop allowed us to map our project concepts to potential funding models. These organizational considerations are critical as we continue to map our approach for climate-related work. In alignment with our Core Cluster structure, we are not assuming that our approach must be a new program. In fact, as a result of our internal analysis and workshops, we see this as another area of thematic focus (like care and global polity) that integrates the work of several programs—and partners—in order to affect meaningful change.

Our initial exploration of climate as an impact area reveals a number of converging pathways for our work in this space. Narrative change and equity are the two lenses through which we see our current climate work taking shape, which correspond with areas of need and opportunity surfaced in our engagement with external partners. New America’s ability to serve as a platform and connector between community members on the frontlines of climate change and the policymakers dictating climate legislation is a specific opportunity we plan to expand on before the end of the year. We also see a throughline from this work to our thinking on the future of international institutions, captured in the question, “How can we ensure the experiences and stories of those most vulnerable to climate change are embedded in strategies on climate governance?”

This question will serve as the foundation for the next phase of exploration. As we think about the next year, New America will develop a unified and articulated theory of change for how we do climate work in a more integrated way (internally and externally). Though we are still determining the programmatic components of this theory of change, outcomes surfaced throughout this process related to institutional design, climate storytellers, and communities of practice will guide us as we frame our approach. And as we chart a concrete path forward, we will use our measurement and feedback loop framework to codify a clear set of benchmarks to evaluate our work, provide evidence of our contributions, and develop a plan to attract sustainable funding to support that work.

From this exploration, we learned that New America must approach climate change not as a discrete programmatic area but instead as a global force that affects all of our policy domains. Climate change has fundamental equity concerns, both in terms of who is most affected by its impacts and who is privileged with the authority to make climate policy decisions. With that in mind, a focus on climate must be a critical component of New America’s commitment to equity, shaping the organization’s strategy and goals for each of our five clusters moving forward. These considerations will shape our theory of change on climate impact, which we hope to share in the coming months. As we move forward with this work, and looking ahead to the next five years, climate change will play a crucial role in how we transform New America for the new America.