Diversity and Inclusion Initiatives

Climate change affects everyone, and Citizens’ Climate Lobby endeavors to engage people from all backgrounds and sectors of our society in advocating for climate solutions.

Diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) are natural outgrowths of our values of relationships, integrity, personal power, and being nonpartisan. Diversity helps us develop the best solutions to climate change and broadens the base of support needed for passing legislation.

Our core value about diversity states:

“We empower everyone in exercising their personal and political power regardless of race, ethnicity, nationality, gender, gender identity, sexual orientation, age, religion, ability, socioeconomic factors or political affiliation. We continue to bring awareness of important issues to all our volunteers and foster a sense of belonging to our organization.”

Read about all of our core values >

Enacting these values is an ongoing process. We have been internally reviewing our processes for several years to ensure that we are living our values and that we are committed to continuous improvement. We are presently working in the following areas:

Education and training:

We are working to build our cultural competency and ability to create an inclusive culture, where people of diverse backgrounds are respected, valued, and integrated into our work at all levels. This includes regular and ongoing training for staff. For supporters and volunteer leadership, we will integrate diversity, equity, and inclusion concepts and values into our conferences, national calls, online material, and general training, as well as provide more focused and in-depth diversity and inclusion training for those who are interested.

Diversifying our organization:

We are working to increase the diversity of our organization at all levels, including our supporter base, volunteer leaders, staff, and governing boards.

You can find out about job openings in the footer of our website. Additionally, we are supporting our volunteers as they work on diversity and inclusion in their local chapters.

Partnerships and alliances:

We are also working on building diverse support for climate solutions by building strong relationships with other organizations, both nationally and locally.

In the Fall of 2025, our Vice President of People & Culture will lead a member-staff team focused on evaluating our diversity goals and training staff (individual and group-based) every quarter.

Our Demographics

Our organization has been tracking our demographics since 2013. The first two charts below reflect how the demographics of our volunteers evolved based on age and race each calendar year.

	2023	2022	2021	2020	2019	2018	2017	2016	2015	2014	2013
Under 26	13%	16%	17%	18%	17%	14%	14%	14%	10%	7%	5%
26-40	32%	31%	28%	25%	23%	20%	19%	18%	15%	14%	12%
41-65	27%	27%	29%	31%	34%	37%	39%	40%	44%	48%	51%
Over 65	27%	26%	26%	26%	26%	28%	27%	28%	31%	31%	31%

	2023	2022	2021	2020	2019	2018	2017	2016	2015	2014	2013
White	83%	84%	84%	85%	85%	87%	88%	88%	91%	94%	94%
People of Color	17%	16%	16%	15%	15%	13%	12%	12%	9%	6%	6%

Community	Percentage*
LGBTQIA+	8.9%
Has a disability	8.5%
Preferred Language
English	99.2%
Spanish	0.4%
Other	0.4%

* As of 1/10/24. These percentages are based on 1,634 volunteer survey responses starting in March 2023.

	Black, Indigenous and People of Color (BIPOC)	Under 40
CCL Governing Board	17%	33%
Staff	14%	43%
Supporters	16%	47%
Volunteer Leadership (chapter leaders, state coordinators, and liaisons to members of Congress)	10%	18%

We want CCL to be a welcoming and inclusive environment for anyone concerned about climate change and invite anyone who wants to join us in advocating for fair, effective, and sustainable climate change solutions.

We recognize that climate change has and will disproportionately affect those who have fewer resources and less political influence. We work toward climate solutions that are effective, while not doing harm to those who are most vulnerable or under-resourced. Climate change will also disrupt our economy, so we advocate for solutions that support our economic prosperity, health, and the well-being of all communities – especially Indigenous peoples, Black, Latinx, and other communities of color that are most impacted by climate change.

As an organization, we have made a clear and strong commitment to advocating for policies that will significantly reduce emissions and therefore the risks from climate change, while protecting people from undue economic burden from the policy.

Citizens’ Climate diversity and inclusion programs

Some of our current initiatives include:

Volunteer support, outreach and leadership development

One way we support our volunteers is through Action Teams organized around shared interests and affinities. Some of these teams support our D&I efforts by providing community spaces, engagement with peers, and cultivation of leadership. D&I-related teams include Asian Pacific, Climate and Culture, Climate Reality Leadership Corps, Conservative Outreach, Environmental Justice, Faith Community, Higher Education, Latinos, Listening to Indigenous Voices, LGBTQA+Allies, Peace Corps, People of the Global Majority, Persons with Disabilities, and Youth, as well as many teams organized around diverse affiliations. See our CCL Community website for a list of all of our action teams and follow @cclinclusion on BlueSky and Instagram to learn more.

Our Spanish-Language outreach includes a website (climavivible.org), materials translated into Spanish, outreach to Spanish-language media, and Spanish accounts on BlueSky and Instagram.

On a regional level, we work with Community Ambassadors to help our regions and chapters conduct educational programs, training, and BIPOC outreach and support.

Youth Outreach and Higher Education Engagement

Our higher education program focuses on students, educators, and non-student allies. We invite students to join our Higher Education Team. There, they can connect with like-minded peers and learn about national initiatives taking place across the country. Additionally, we offer internships with CCL staff and volunteer leaders. We conduct regular outreach to educators, educational institutions, and other organizations working with youth on climate for our national conferences, regional conferences, Earth Week, and more. For more about our higher education efforts, see citizensclimatehighered.org.

Our Youth Action Team supports volunteers of high school age and younger and encourages them to be active, engaged, and empowered in building political will for climate solutions. Youth involvement in our local chapters and at our regional and national conferences and lobby days is growing each year. For more information about our youth programs, see youth.citizensclimatelobby.org.

Reaching across the aisle

In line with CCL’s commitment to bipartisanship and nonpartisanship, CCL works to unite people from across the political spectrum in building support for climate legislation. Because conservatives and other right of center volunteers are a minority within our organization, we provide extra programming to ensure that people who are right of center also find a home in CCL. For more information about our conservative work see Conservatives on Climate Change and connect with @cclconservative on Twitter.

Additional inclusion projects

In 2021, CCL began hosting a series of workshops centering education around diversity, equity, and inclusion. The workshops are now held during the Diversity and Inclusion Action Team’s monthly meetings. Topics for 2025 include disability inclusion, language justice, ecotourism, environmental justice, and more. To see past workshops, visit cclusa.org/inclusionlibrary.

In 2022, CCL launched the Inclusion Conference. The virtual event was created and hosted by BIPOC volunteers to center topics of interest to historically excluded communities that are often on the frontline of climate change. The free event is open to all members of the CCL community and the public. The 4th Inclusion Conference is scheduled for Sept. 26 and 27. More information will be available at cclusa.org/inclusion.

The Inclusion Department also offers an annual fellowship for students or adults interested in expanding work in this area across CCL chapters and nationally. The program begins each January and ends in early December. Applications for the next fellowship class will be available in late September. Write to to learn more.

Please follow the work of the inclusion team and the affinity teams at @cclinclusion on BlueSky and Instagram.

Climate change affects everyone, and Citizens’ Climate Lobby endeavors to engage people from all backgrounds and sectors of our society in advocating for climate solutions.

Our core value about diversity states: “We empower everyone in exercising their personal and political power regardless of race, ethnicity, nationality, gender, gender identity, sexual orientation, age, religion, ability, socioeconomic factors or political affiliation. We seek out, support, and elevate people whose voices may not have been fully heard.” Read all our core values.

Education and training: We are working to build our cultural competency and ability to create an inclusive culture, where people of diverse backgrounds are respected, valued, and integrated into our work at all levels. This includes regular and ongoing training for staff. For supporters and volunteer leadership, we will integrate diversity, equity, and inclusion concepts and values into our conferences, national calls, online material, and general training, as well as provide more focused and in-depth diversity and inclusion training for those who are interested.

Diversifying our organization: We are working to increase the diversity of our organization at all levels, including our supporter base, volunteer leaders, regional coordinators, staff and governing boards. Additionally, we are supporting our volunteers as they work on diversity and inclusion in their local chapters.

Partnerships and alliances: We are also working on building diverse support for climate solutions by building strong relationships with other organizations, both nationally and locally.

Citizens’ Climate Moving Forward

Citizens’ Climate understands and values the concept of environmental justice and its definition of equity. We recognize that the policy we advocate for, by itself, will not fulfill the goal of environmental justice. We believe that a diversity of approaches is valuable in the climate movement, and we encourage our supporters to work with and support environmental justice and other groups in addressing equity.

For many, equity also includes meaningful involvement in the process of developing and refining both policy and strategy. We are working to increase our diversity and inclusivity in part so that all voices can be part of that process moving forward.

Citizens’ Climate programs

Some of our current initiatives include:

Volunteer support, outreach, and leadership development
One way we support our volunteers is through Action Teams organized around shared interest and affinities. Some of these teams support our DEI efforts by providing community spaces, engagement with peers, and cultivation of leadership. DEI-related teams include Latinos, Climate and Culture, LGBTQA+Allies, People of the Global Majority, Asian Pacific, Youth, Higher Education, Conservative Caucus, and Environmental Justice, as well as many teams organized around religious affiliation. See our CCL Community website for a list of all of our action teams. Our Spanish-Language outreach includes a website (climavivible.org), translated materials to Spanish and outreach to Spanish-language media. On a regional level, we work with Community Representatives to help our regions and chapters conduct educational programs, training, and BIPOC outreach and support.

Youth Outreach and Higher Education Engagement
Historically, the average age of CCL supporters was quite high, but through active outreach efforts, we are now moving much closer to our country’s age demographics.

Our higher education program focuses on students, educators, and non-student allies. Students can join the Higher Education Team and connect with other volunteers who are advocating for climate action around the country. Students can also participate in internships with CCL staff and volunteer leaders. We conduct regular outreach to educators, educational institutions, and other organizations working with youth on climate for our national conferences, regional conferences, Earth Week, and more. For more about our higher education efforts, see citizensclimatehighered.org.

Reaching across the aisle
In line with CCL’s commitment to bipartisanship and nonpartisanship, CCL works to unite people from across the political spectrum in building support for climate legislation. Because conservatives and other right-of-center volunteers are a minority within our organization, we provide some extra programming to ensure that people who are right-of-center also find a home in CCL.

The work continues
After commissioning two diversity studies, we created a Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Strategic Plan and hired a Diversity Outreach Manager to help us implement the plan. We will continue to work with the diversity committee to set and achieve our goals and objectives.

Diversity, equity and inclusion