KLA Perspectives

Do you have lofty community outreach and engagement goals for your sustainability, climate action or similar initiatives in 2019? Lay the groundwork for your success by first strengthening your overall communications skills. A good place to start is with the written word, which these days means websites, blog posts, emails and social media. We at Kim Lundgren Associates, Inc. (KLA) believe in the power of good writing and have experience honing the craft -- and we want to share our insights with you, starting with writing tips for websites.  

This is the first part of our KLA Communications Boot Camp -- a series of blog posts, podcasts, guidebooks and trainings we will offer throughout the year focused on enhancing communications and community outreach skills. Part 2 -- Write Winning Blog Posts -- is also available now.  

One of the most rewarding aspects of our work at KLA is seeing our clients recognized for their incredible achievements. Every day we are proud to help them make a difference because they have embraced the mantle of leadership on sustainability, climate action, and equity. 

Fortunately, we’re not the only ones who have taken notice. 

As we wrap up 2018, we want to share with you just some of the accolades -- in the form of awards and grants -- that our rockstar client communities received this year.

As 2018 draws to a close, we’re taking a trip down memory lane to highlight KLA’s most popular blog posts and SAS Talk with Kim podcasts of the year.

Pro tip: These make for great listening and reading material for your holiday travel and -- if you’re lucky enough to score some -- down time.

Before we know it, the holidays will be upon us. While this time is often filled with delicious meals, community, and a time to reflect, it can also be a challenging space of reckoning with family and friends who harbor varying social and political beliefs. From gun control to the midterm election results, there will be no shortage of hot topics as you gather with loved ones.

That means the topic of climate -- not just potatoes and pie -- could be on the table. As one news article said, “when it comes to global warming, America’s political climate may have changed more than the Earth’s over the past three decades.” That’s quite a lot of change.

We’re about to enter the holiday season which is marked in large part by the act of giving (and receiving) gifts. The holidays exacerbate an issue that we grapple with every season and every day: waste. 

Which makes it the right time to look at our consumption habits, the growing interest in "circular economy" principles, efforts to curb single-use plastics from your straw to the supply chain, and steps we -- in our homes, at work and school, and within local government -- can take. 

Cities are fighting back against preemption to chart their own course on issues from labor standards to civil rights to environmental protection.

In August I attended the Mayors Innovation Project summer meeting in Grand Rapids where one of the most common themes in presentations and casual conversations was "preemption." So we reached out to Kim Haddow with the Local Solutions Support Center to find out more about preemption, why it has so many communities worried, and what they are doing about it.

Here is our Q&A on preemption:

At KLA our clients want thriving, inclusive, healthy communities. Sometimes they come to us before they kick off of a major planning process, and we partner with them throughout that journey. Other times it starts with a GHG inventory or implementing a specific grant-based project with community engagement. Still others come to us for our Community Dashboard and wind up integrating our communications support.

Regardless of the starting point, KLA has been proud to work with communities from Encinitas, CA, to Cambridge, MA, and Indianapolis, IN, West Palm Beach, FL and San Antonio, TX. Here are 6 ways we help them achieve their climate and sustainability goals.

Summer is winding down, and National Preparedness Month is upon us.  It’s been a summer filled with headlines of devastating wildfires in California, heat waves around the globe and extreme rainfall and flooding events from the US to Japan. It’s clear that communities big and small should be thinking about the impacts they might face now and in the future with climate change.   

Among strategies to prepare for natural disasters, “resilience hubs” are gaining momentum as well as a reputation for fostering equity, neighborhood development and local community power.

In my latest podcast episode of SAS Talk with Kim, I spoke with Kristin Baja, Climate Resilience Officer at USDN and formerly with the City of Baltimore, about the concept, value and logistics of resilience hubs and more of USDN’s work on climate resilience.  

Earlier we wrote about KLA’s work with the City of Indianapolis to think outside the box for public engagement in developing their Sustainability and Resilience Plan. Part of the Thrive Indianapolis approach is a focus on several populations that are not typically engaged in a community planning process, including youth. 

Young people -- which we defined loosely as elementary through high school ages -- will, after all, be the ones living with the impacts of today’s decisions longer than the rest of us.

So Indianapolis pulled together the first Thrive Community Day in mid-August as an end-of-summer celebratory and educational event specifically designed to engage a younger audience. It was a hit. 

Many sustainability planning processes (and indeed planning processes in general) tout community engagement as the cornerstone of plan development. But we often see the same actors engaged time after time. These are often representatives and members of environmental nonprofits and super civic-minded citizens. While their opinions are important, ultimately the needs and perspectives of huge swaths of the community are not reflected in the final plans because they weren’t given the right opportunity to voice them.

That was not the approach Indianapolis wanted to take when they embarked on their Sustainability and Resilience planning process and brought the KLA Team in to manage it. The plan -- called Thrive Indianapolis -- brings together City agencies, community partners, and residents to chart a course for an Indianapolis that is equitable, healthier, and prepared for the challenges of the 21st century. It encompasses 8 “plan elements”:

• Built Environment
• Economy
• Energy
• Food & Urban Agriculture
• Natural Resources
• Public Health & Safety
• Transportation & Land Use
• Waste & Recycling

So it touches on everything -- and everyone -- from infrastructure to parks to jobs to food access to transportation options to safe streets to air and water quality. We’re still only halfway through the process, but so far the approach we’ve taken with the City and our partners to really shake up the standard community engagement game is showing results.