How I Built This with Guy Raz - How I Built Resilience: Varshini Prakash of Sunrise Movement

Episode Date: November 5, 2020

Guy talks with Varshini Prakash, co-founder of Sunrise Movement, a grassroots organization that's fighting to make climate change a top priority in the US. The group launched in 2017 and has since grown into one of the largest youth movements in the country. These conversations are excerpts from our How I Built Resilience series, where Guy talks online with founders about how they're navigating these turbulent times.Order the How I Built This book at:https://smarturl.it/HowIBuiltThisSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

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at Airbnb.ca.ca. slash host. Hey, really quick before we start the show, the How I Built This Book is now a New York Times and Wall Street Journal bestseller. So thank you to all of you who ordered it and for your support of this show. If you haven't picked it up and you want to learn the secrets of how to develop an entrepreneurial mindset, how I built this, the book is for you. It's now available wherever books are sold and in most countries around the world or by visiting How I Built This.com or Guy Raz.com. And thanks. Hey everyone and welcome to How I Built This Resilience Edition. On these episodes, as many of you know, we talk with entrepreneurs and change makers about how they're meeting today's challenges with new strategies and ideas.

And today, we're going to hear from Varshini Prakash, the co-founder and executive. executive director of Sunrise Movement. It's an organization founded by young people to mobilize against climate change and to make the issue a top priority in the United States. Varshini launched Sunrise in 2017, along with just a handful of like-minded activists. And it's since grown into one of the largest youth movements in the country. We were just young people who were fed up with seeing politicians kicking the can down the road, sweeping. what is the greatest threat facing our generation under the rug and refusing to deal with the reality of the crisis at hand and realized, you know, at the young age of, well, I was 22 at the time, there weren't any adults in the room. And we had to step up and take action.

How did you begin to organize what would become sunrise movement? So it's you and a few friends, I guess, and you're all committed to climate activism. I mean, it was a number of us who were kind of getting activated in the Obama days, right? So I was working on a fossil fuel divestment campaign at UMass Amherst, where I went to school. Others of us were working on the international climate negotiations or fighting against the Keystone XL pipeline or so on and so forth. And I think we realized that the sort of culmination of the Obama years that much had been won. But at the same time, the power of our movements were not keeping pace with the, the rising seas, the worsening storms.

Essentially, there was a crisis that was becoming a full-blown emergency, and we didn't have a force that could contend with the disaster that would be upon us. And so we actually went into a period of study. We gathered about 12 young climate activists from around the country. We went into a period of study for a year, learning from other social movements, the civil rights movement, LGBT movements. So far as, you know, Indian revolutionary,

movements to understand how to build mass movements. And then we also realized as we were watching Bernie Sanders gain power, but also Donald Trump, when we reckoned with the fact that the climate fight, the climate crisis was not an urgent political issue by any means in this country that we had to combine our social movement organizing with political power. And so when we launched in the summer of 2017, we had our theory of changes largely around building a critical mass of enthusiastically supported public officials on the issue, building a large and active, vocal, disruptive base of young people and combining those two strategies for long-term change.

So Varshini, it's so interesting because there's so many parallels, right, between what you do and what an entrepreneur does when they start a business. You are an entrepreneur in that sense, and I hope that's okay. Yeah, that's fine. It's an entrepreneurial venture, and it's not just about businesses. It's also about things like this. Building a mass movement can't happen spontaneously. You can't just say to everybody, hey, let's show up here at 5 o'clock.

There is real hard work to organize people, right? Because once you organize people, then you amplify an idea through thousands, tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands of voices. So how do you begin to organize people? from one cell, one small group to thousands. Yeah, I mean, I will say the beginning days of sunrise were not nearly as pretty as the actions at Pelosi's office or whatever else that people might know us from. We had literally six of us or eight of us at the beginning. It was all over the country.

So some of us were based in Kentucky, some in Michigan, some in California, all over. And the first thing that we ever did as sunrise was we took 15 of our friends. And we canvassed, we went and talked to like over a thousand people at the People's Climate March in April of 2017. Two months later, we brought together 20 of the top leaders that we had worked with in the climate movement up until that point to Pennsylvania, to Philly, where we trained them in the basic sort of theory of change, the strategy, the story that encompasses sunrise movement. And issued a call to action. Like, we want you to go back to the communities that you came from and start a local chapter in sunrise and start pushing your politicians to get off of fossil fuel money, to put forward climate plans that are commensurate with what the science is mandating. And that kind of grew and expanded. And we did trainings.

I remember, like, sleeping on the floors of just people I barely knew in Colorado or, you know, going out there and doing some trainings that like three people. showed up to in the beginning days because no one knew who we were or what we were up to. But slowly and slowly, we built chapters across the country. But I think everything came to ahead when we did this quite dramatic direct action at Nancy Pelosi's office about a week after Democrats took back control of Congress in 2018 and said, you know, our generation just helped you get back into office. Now we need you to take action and have our backs by back the Green New Deal and by mandating that any Democrat that wants to claim the mantle of leadership in this party swears off of oil and gas money. And I think because that moment, people weren't

used to seeing people issue challenges to Democrats. People weren't used to seeing youth movements taking action. And because there was just a real moment around the climate disasters that were taking place during that time and the IPCC report that had just come out, And this new leader in Congress, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, who joined us at that action, I think it created this moment of the whirlwind. Just in six months following that action and all of the action that took place afterwards, we went from having just 20 chapters to having over 400 in six months. So, I mean, it's an important lesson, which is that had you tried to kind of grow the movement simply by just reaching out to other activists, it might have been a slower. Totally. But by doing something dramatic, going to Nancy Pelosi's.

sitting in there, you got a lot of media attention. And that essentially enabled you to attract enough attention where a lot of other young people were like, well, what is this thing? Let's let me let me check it out. Right. Exactly. And so it's it's coupling these big viral moments that garner media attention, but also just spread the word organically to potentially millions of people who have never heard of a movement like this before, but would totally want to participate in one. And then giving them routine, consistent opportunities and structures within their own communities that they can take action on the day to day. So it's like, yes, come to D.C. We issued the call and over a thousand young people came to D.C. within 10 days, three weeks following this action at Pelosi's office. And then they

went back to their communities and started local chapters where they could continue the work. And so I think, you know, both combining the viral moments, but also the brass tax day-to-day, grassroots organizing that is what builds power in local communities. You know, after the pandemic began, there were so many people who really wanted to help frontline healthcare workers, for example, or people who were doing essential services. My wife got involved in a group called frontline foods and literally overnight. And this was really a lot of the people who kind of built this movement came from the tech sector. And what her observation was how remarkable they were able to scale this organization.

to becoming a huge organization with millions of dollars in a matter of weeks. And these people have experienced scaling movements or scaling businesses. So for them, it was like, okay, here's the playbook. And it was so interesting to hear that perspective. I wonder whether there's something to that with what you're doing because what you're doing is life or death, right? It's not about building the next tech company or how to get CBD delivered to your house faster with a lot of, you know, or like how to get a pizza robot mate. This is about like our lives and the lives of our children what you're trying to do. So do you look to those models for kind of inspiration on how to how to scale what you're doing to something that is so big that it cannot be ignored?

Absolutely. I mean, that that has to be the plan. I think for us, we are also recognizing when you consider the expanse of what it means to tackle the climate crisis. It isn't just, you know, okay, we decarbonize or whatever. There is a whole, I mean, we probably have to pass dozens of pieces of legislation at the federal level over the next decade of time, which means that people with our values have to govern and hold on to governing power for perhaps a decade or longer. I mean, growing up sort of at the line between the death of bipartisanship and the birth of

political tribalism. And it is almost inconceivable for me to even imagine the federal government being able to pass that level of policy. So for us to exert the kind of pressure both outside the halls of Congress as well as electing the kind of people who can exert internal pressure, that will require a movement of millions. And what Sunrise is attempting to do is taking direct action, but also ultimately we are going to have to create a movement that has millions of people that can quite literally bring business as usual to a halt. in this country that can say, you know what, like our institutions, our governments, our towns, our cities, they cannot continue to operate as though this crisis is not upon us. And that will

require many, many more millions of people being in the streets. For Sini, it's very frustrating, I think, for many people that climate change has become a political issue because gas hurricanes kill Democrats and Republicans. I live in Northern California. The choking smoke damages the lungs of people on the left and the right. It doesn't matter who you are. Climate change is real. It's a scientific fact. And the fact that it's controversial is insane.

But that's the reality. So opponents of what you do, of what you're trying to do, they have played a very powerful game of seizing power and of pursuit of power at the expense of things like bipartisanship and compromise. Do you now believe that people in your generation and people with your political values have to, actually do the same thing, but from the other side of the aisle? Yeah, absolutely. I think we realized very early on, we cannot continue to just rail against a set of people in the political establishment who do not come from our communities, who do not hold our values. We have to kick people like that out of office, and we have to replace them with people who

will fight for our communities. And that might not happen in the next two years or the next three years, but We are showing right now that young people, you know, people in general are ready to get politically activated. There are lots of Democrats who, while they may purport to understand the science, have not taken action or heated the dire warnings and are not fighting with a deep understanding and visceral understanding of what the calamities are ahead of us. And so, you know, we saw Jamal Bowman oust Elliott Engle in New York 14. Sunrise teenagers, literally teenagers, made 800.

150,000 of the 1.3 million phone calls that were made to voters in his district, ultimately helping him defeat Elliott Engel. Like, I'm watching 14-year-olds who can't even vote in this election, who are training and leading hundreds of other young people in how to get politically activated. So this is a possibility. I feel a lot of hope around that. And I think our next generation is fully activated. When we come back in just a moment, Varshini talks more about How Sunrise brings new voices into the movement and also how it responds to criticism about its tactics. Stay with us. I'm Guy Raz, and you're listening to How I Built This Resilience Edition from NPR.

And one more thing. The New York Times best-selling book, How I Built This, is now available. It's a great read and a great gift for anyone looking for ideas, inspiration, wisdom, and encouragement to have the courage to put out an idea into the world. It's filled with tons of stories you haven't heard about how some of the greatest entrepreneurs you know and respect started out at the very bottom. Check out how I built this, the book, available wherever you buy your books. Hey, welcome back to how I built this Resilience Edition, and I'm talking with Varshini Prakash, the co-founder and executive director of Sunrise Movement. And earlier, we heard her talk about the sit-in that they did at Nancy Pelosi's office back in 2018.

Today, a lot of people tell Varshini that that was a great strategic move. But at the time, Sunrise got quite a bit of pushback. That day, I was getting call after call after call from reporters being like, why on earth are you going after Democrats? Why on earth would you do that? Why would you make these choices? And I mean, we've also gone after Republicans in the same way asking, like, why do you need to use these sort of disruptive conflict-oriented tactics?

But the truth is, like, it has sparked the conversation. You know, many of these tactics that were used, really, we learned from studying the civil rights movement who were expert strategists. Amazing organizers. I mean, the bus boycott is one of the best. Anybody wants to start a business should read about the bus boycotts. Right. And how in the methodical, careful planning that went into that. Exactly.

Organize thousands of people and then create, you know, carpels to be. bring people to work. And Project C in Birmingham stood for project confrontation. And this was, you know, these were, you know, strategically wielded moments of action that were aimed at forcing an entire nation to grapple with the reality of black Americans in this country. And you saw kids getting shot at and fire hosed and unleashed dogs upon. And it was something that woke up the nation to the crisis at hand around white supremacy. And so, you know, I don't think we're at that stage quite yet with the climate movement, but I think for people to truly understand, you know, the reason why we do civil disobedience or the reason why we take this type of action is so people, so that we can

bring the kind of private suffering that is happening all across the country into public relief and force that into the national dialogue and debate. You know, Marsini, it's interesting because you understand the urgency of climate action, and many, many people do, but there are many people who, for some reason, I'm sure you've encountered them, who just don't. It might be somebody who's afraid of losing their job or that they work in an industry that depends on fossil fuels or whatever it might be. Do you even try to engage those people, or do you focus on just energizing people who already believe in the science? I would say for the most part, we focus on those who understand the reality of the climate

crisis, who are terrified about it and want to do something about it but haven't yet found the community or the movement to participate in. And I do find that fear holds those people back as well. Young people actually of both political parties are terrified about the climate crisis. And we know that young people support moving to a renewable energy economy. you know, in super majorities, the problem is a lot of those individuals are sort of standing on the sidelines. And most of the reason why they are standing on the sidelines is because they literally have not been asked to join. What we found was for a very long time, the climate movement was kind of doing a lot of preaching to the choir, a lot of naval gazing, if they even had grassroots organizing efforts at all.

A lot of them did not. They were either on the hill lobbying efforts or policy ventures. And actually, it's relatively new that we have mass organizations that are targeting everyday people who have not participated in movements before to join in. And I find the most effective ways to bring individuals into the movement is one literally to ask them and see what they say. I think a lot of people do not ask the question, will you join a movement? but two, helping people identify, like, what's your skin in the game? What's your stake in this fight? Who do you love?

What do you love that stands to booze in the midst of the climate crisis? For me, like, I'm the child of two immigrants, and the story of the way the climate crisis is unfolding in India affects me super deeply. It is the reason, I think, why I so clearly pursued the path of climate action. And so I think if you can identify that fire that is already burning with you and bring it out, that is the spark that gets you involved. I'm getting a couple of questions here. So I won't get to all of them. And thank you for asking them, folks. This is James Chang from Facebook.

James asks, how do you go about fundraising? Because it costs money to do these campaigns and to get the word out. And I know that you're probably almost entirely volunteer run. So how do you actually raise the money to amplify your voice? So we really rely on both grassroots donations as well as foundations. And so we run a really robust grassroots program and particularly ask people to become monthly donors. So that is like the most sustainable way. And grassroots donations are also amazing because they allow us to not necessarily have to be beholden to foundations or wealthy individuals, but allow us to be beholden to like the everyday people that we're trying to organize. Are you willing to take money from corporations or from big funders in order to, you know, in order to be able to play hardball? Yeah.

I mean, I think we're discerning about which funders we actually take money from. We do take money from foundations. I think the key here is that you can do quite a lot with not that much money. I mean, if you think about the first year in 2018, when we did that place, when the Green New Deal became a national conversation, what we saw those thousands and thousands of young people come out of the work for the first time. We were working on a minuscule budget, like minuscule. We had a very, very small team. I think we can't underestimate underdogs in this situation, especially underdogs who are terrified for our future and are willing to do whatever we

need to do to ensure that the future doesn't unfold in the way that we are, you know, the future that we are barreling towards. There's a real question of at what point does that not become enough? Do you need more resources? But I think we have a lot of money at our disposal, not just as sunrise, but as the entire left or the environmental movement, the question is, is that being wielded effectively or is it not? Do you imagine, like there was a, you know, a moment in the, you know, in the last decade, where like the Tea Party and the Freedom Caucus, you know, they really actually put a lot of pressure on conservatives. Moderate Republicans of the 80s and 90s aren't really around in the Congress anymore because these grassroots organizations were very effective. The Tea Party and others that really challenged candidates in primary races and so on is your goal eventually to make this movement so powerful that you can actually do a version of that, that you can go into.

congressional districts and endorse a candidate and support a candidate that may turn, you know, a more moderate or conservative Democrat and, you know, bring in a more progressive Democrat as the nominee. Exactly. I think what the Republicans did was they shifted the entire center of gravity around the conversation towards a more conservative worldview. And a lot of people, you know, they're like, why don't you just compromise with Republicans? Why don't you find some kind of middle ground. But the truth is they have pulled the entire conversation so far to the right that on climate change, I mean, the middle ground is probably worse than we are today. And so we need a new center of gravity. And what young people are doing is holding the Democratic

Party, but also the country as a whole to a standard of we have got to be in line with what science and justice demands. You know, we're not about one political party. We're not. We're not even about one political champion or anything like that. We are about the ultimate mission at hand. And if we stay true to that and we build a movement that is powerful enough, perhaps we can shift the entire conversation towards that end. That's an excerpt from a conversation with Varshini Prakash, co-founder and executive director of Sunrise Movement. To see our full interview, you can go to Facebook.com slash how I built this. And if you want to see all of our past live interviews, you can find them there or at YouTube.com slash NPR. If you want to find out more about the How I Built

This Resilience series or other virtual NPR events, you can go to nprpresents.org. This episode was produced by Liz Metzger with help from Jacey Howard, Will Mitchell, Bruce Grant, Matt Adams, El Manion, Gianna Capadona, John Isabella, Julia Carney, Neva Grant, and Jeff Rogers. Our intern is Farah Safari. Thanks for listening. Stay safe and I'll see you back here in a few days. and you've been listening to how I built this Resilience Edition from NPR.