Why Campaigns?
At Daily Acts we take a heart-centered approach to fulfill our mission of catalyzing transformative action that creates more connected, equitable and climate resilient communities. We believe that our collective actions have the power to create positive impacts for our communities and planet.
Through collaborative partnerships with nonprofits, municipalities, businesses, schools, community organizations and individuals, we can create more resilient local food systems, economies, and communities. We can address the pivotal issues facing our planet, from flood and fire to drought and pandemic. Together we can ‘be the change’ we wish to see in the world.
This is why we are big fans of action campaigns, and why we have run one every year since 2010! While the name has changed over the years, the intention has stayed the same – to educate, connect and mobilize our community; to get folks to register and take practical actions that help address the effects of climate change. We ALL benefit from collective action.
In addition to the cumulative impact of all the actions, participants become part of a movement. Participants become empowered community members capable of spreading their newly acquired skills and knowledge, rippling the impacts out and onward!
Read on for more history and impacts of our annual action campaigns over the past 10 years.
350 Garden Challenge (2010)
In 2010, after seeing the success of similar efforts by Santa Monica’s 100 Garden Challenge, 350.org and Portland’s Village Building Convergence, Daily Acts was inspired to launch our first community action campaign: the ‘350 Garden Challenge’!
The goal for our first-year was to create 350 gardens in a single weekend. We were blown away by how our community stepped up to the Challenge. This targeted weekend of action was an overwhelming success, engaging hundreds of individuals and over 40 partner organizations in the planting, expansion or revival of 628 gardens!
350 Home and Garden Challenge (2011 – 2013)
In 2011, building on our initial success, Daily Acts decided to expand the Challenge to include home actions as well. The 350 Home and Garden Challenge registered a whopping 1,044 home and garden actions and was replicated locally by the Marin Garden Challenge, the Victory Garden Foundation and nationally through Transition U.S.
In 2012 and 2013, the number of actions continued to grow exponentially (2,300 and 3,558 actions respectively) and other groups such as Sustainable Contra Costa successfully replicated the Challenge in their communities.
Grow Food | Save Water | Conserve Energy | Build Community
Community Resilience Challenge (2014 – 2018)
In 2014, 7,058 actions were registered and the name was changed to the ‘Community Resilience Challenge’ to more accurately reflect the spirit of the event. 2015 and 2016 resulted in 16,201 more actions for a grand total of 30,787 actions over seven years. Now that is a reason to celebrate!
The Community Resilience Challenge (the Challenge) was our annual springtime community mobilization campaign that inspired thousands of individuals, leaders and groups to take action to save water, grow food, conserve energy, reduce waste and build community.
We provided a simple registration form with 25 suggested actions – everything from installing a greywater system to planting a fruit tree to making a zero-waste pledge. Participants could also register their own actions by selecting the ‘other’ action field when registering. The offered actions presented options for people of all levels of experience with sustainability and resilience concepts, and participants could register any action they had not taken in previous years’ campaigns.
Take a look at the projects we completed as a result of the Community Resilience Challenge:
Sonoma Climate Challenge (2019)
For the 10th anniversary of the Challenge, Daily Acts partnered with the Regional Climate Protection Authority(RCPA) to launch the Sonoma Climate Challenge. The Sonoma Climate Challenge was about rising up in this historic moment and coming together to take action towards the shared goal of richer, more resilient and sustainable lives and communities; it was about building a movement much larger than ourselves to create a safer and healthier future for all.
Households who signed up for the challenge were able to select from 73 different across across six categories of Water, Energy Efficiency, Home Energy, Transportation, Food & Waste, and Community Building. These could be filtered by level of difficulty, level of impact, renter-friendly and youth-friendly actions. Check out the numbers from the challenge below:
We have the power to make a big impact!
A total of 485 households participated, and collectively saved:
0
tons of C02 emissions
0
kWh of electricity
0
gallons of gasoline
0
gallons of water
$0
from bills
