Lead with Listening: A Guidebook for Community Conversations on Climate Migration
Download the Guidebook
Fill out the quick form below and click the button to access the Guidebook! Once you click the button, you will be automatically re-directed to the PDF. The PDF contains the Guidebook in both English and Spanish.
We are collecting this info to help shape future programming around the Guidebook, including pilot efforts. Please email climigration@cbi.org with any questions.
Project Overview
Communities on the frontlines of climate change are grappling with massive disruptions to their lives and livelihoods. We need more action around climate migration, and one way of getting there is to open up dialogue about it. Community organizations and local governments are beginning to broach the topic of moving out of harm’s way – yet having these conversations, no matter what words or approaches are used, is difficult. Differences in culture, financial circumstances, and geographic location influence how we think and talk about climate risk and migration.
These conversations need to be facilitated in a way that doesn't shut people down or off from climate migration's impact on their lives. To help address this challenge, the Network, led by our Narrative Building & Communications Workgroup, partnered with a creative BIPOC-led team of communications professionals, helmed by Scott Shigeoka and Mychal Estrada, to generate a guidebook for community leaders and practitioners to help support community conversations about long-term solutions to manage climate risk.
Lead With Listening: A Guidebook For Community Conversations on Climate Migration is based on interviews with 40+ people with direct experience with climate risk and displacement. Network members and the research team worked together to create this guidebook based on their insights. We hope the insights they shared will help others who will eventually face this reality too. Every conversation was built on trust and consent with clear conditions and agreements to minimize retraumatization or psychological harm as people retold or re-lived their personal stories. Each participant was financially compensated and valued for their time and wisdom.
The guidebook offers insights on how to begin conversations about relocation - questions to ask yourself before you approach a community, phrases to use other than "managed retreat,” and actions and activities you can take to open up a conversation with curiosity and care.
The guidebook isn’t exhaustive - it’s just the beginning. We plan to pilot test the ideas and suggestions shared here in communities and practitioner networks in the coming months. Every place and person is different, which means there’s no ‘one size fits all’ approach to talking about climate migration. There might be some insights or activities that resonate with you, and others that do not. That’s okay! Take in what is helpful and serves you and your community best, and please let us know what you learn in the process. We’ll share feedback we received on the insights and activities in the coming months including additional resources to provide guidance on more challenging topics.
Project Team & Acknowledgments
Work on such a complex and important issue would not be possible without the contributions of numerous supporters. The Climigration Network would like to thank the following for their help in developing this guidebook:
The Climigration Network Narrative Building & Communications Workgroup, which provided insightful feedback and helped refine this Guidebook, including members Hannah Teicher, Edward Thomas, Debra Butler, Libby Zemaitis, and Kelly Leilani Main.
The 40 Co-Creators - representing different political backgrounds, lived experience, and professional perspectives - who shared their stories, pain and wisdom with us. Your collaboration was essential to this creative process.
The Research and Design Team that undertook this opportunity and created what we hope to be a valuable tool for the field. Thank you. In particular, we would like to thank Erika Diaz Gómez and Lina María Osorio, who co-designed this Guidebook.
The Research and Design Team was led by practitioners and community leaders working in diverse contexts across the country. The team was comprised of seven individuals, with experience as organizers, cultural designers, storytellers, artists, policymakers, and more, who come from diverse backgrounds and share a personal connection to the climate crisis. Team members, as well as co-creators, come from communities often hit first and worst by the impacts of the climate crisis: Black, Indigenous, Chicano, other POC, LGBTQI+, immigrant, rural, farmers, and activists. Research and Design Team members included:
Scott Keoni Shigeoka, a designer, researcher and storyteller who has led research-driven creative projects for IDEO, U.C. Berkeley, the Hewlett Foundation, AARP, Sutter Health and the Rockefeller Foundation.
Mychal Estrada, a community builder and experience designer who has supported imaginative leaders in accelerating their engagement & values aligned impact, including the Rules Foundation, the Dream Corps, the National Network of Abortion Funds, and 350.org.
Brittany Judson, an independent consultant and Just Growth Consultant with the Partnership for Southern Equity, a nonprofit in Atlanta, who works around equitable development and city planning. She’s based in Atlanta, but is originally from Tampa, Florida and comes from a Filipinx-Caymanian family.
Jade Begay, Creative Director of NDN Collective, who is Diné and Tesuque Pueblo of New Mexico. Begay leads NDN Collective’s multimedia content development through strategic narrative development and creative content design. Begay has extensive experience as a multimedia producer, filmmaker and communications professional working in non-profit and Indigenous organizations.
Kalisi Mausio is an Indigenous Polynesian farmer in Hawaii dedicated to perpetuating regenerative agroforestry for its role in helping their islands adapt to a changing climate. They also manage a network of farms under Hawaii Farm Trails, a company they co-founded to help promote alternatives to the conventional tourism model.
Anna Jane Joyner is a climate communications expert based on the Gulf Coast of Alabama. She is the co-host of the No Place Like Home podcast and the director of the Good Energy Project.
Erika Díaz Gómez is a Colombian visual designer and strategist. As a practitioner of Human Centered Design, Erika has worked in a broad range of media, from information visualization in Folha de Sao Paulo, Brazil to visual storytelling at Hyper Island in Stockholm, Sweden and visual brand strategy at IDEO in San Francisco.
Lead with Listening was made possible through the generous support of the Doris Duke Foundation.
Contact Us
If you are interested in learning more about the Guidebook or would like to collaborate on a project or event, please contact climigration@cbi.org.
Banner graphics credit: Erika Diaz Gómez and Lina María Osorio, in “Lead with Listening”