It’s the beginning of the end of the year. A perfect time for snow (or rain here), holiday movies, hats, scarves, shopping, and . . . yessss—the end of the year best of list! Because I don’t like to be left out (see blog about holiday gifts), I’ve compiled a best of list too. Here it is, a collection of what we’ve learned, taken from my interviews with people working on the K-C campaign at their school. We have advice from Riley, American University’s Environmental Coordinator, tips from Kyle, suggestions from Alison and Jonathan at Skidmore, and hints from Heather and David at the University of Chicago. I hope this “Holiday Compilation” (ok, I am really going too far) will inspire you to start your own K-C campaign (or any environmental campaign) in the new year.

Tip #1:
Pick strategic targets for your campaign.
Riley Neugebauer, American University’s (AU) Environmental Coordinator councils what worked really well in the AU campaign was finding a target who had purchasing power over the campus, but who wasn’t the president or a major senior level administrator. Riley points out that at AU “there was no way we could go straight to the President and have him sign this letter regarding K-C. Everything that you try to push through at that level of leadership takes months, years, to succeed.” So AU decided to target the Director in Facilities Management. At AU, this person manages the contracts with the Housekeeping services, so he has some amount of control over AU’s paper vendors and contracts. And viola, AU had the first K-C off Campus letter of the K-C campaign!

Tip #2:
Work with your administration.
Many interviewees mentioned how important working with their administration was for their campaign.
Kyle notes that on his campus, “Everything we do [in the K-C campaign] that involves the administration is through our campus Sustainability Planner. He’s the best resource we could ask for. Alison from Skidmore agrees. “Talking to the administrators has been the most effective [tactic] so far. They have been very supportive of our efforts and our conversations with them have lead to them doing more research by themselves and coming back to us for more discussion.” Riley concurs. She believes campus activists shouldn’t get into the mindset that “every administrator and every person in power [on their campuses] is evil.” Instead, students should “identify champions within the administration to help them, and act as a liaison between students and other administrators.” This can be the sustainability coordinator, but it can also be interested staff.

Tip #3:
Engage others (students, the general public) in unusual, imaginative ways to spread the word about the campaign and to keep up interest in the campaign.
Kyle began a Facebook group for the campaign at his school. This helps to spread the campaign by word-of-mouth (or click-of-the-mouse?). At the University of Chicago, Heather and David did street theater (their version of Dr. Seuss’s The Lorax—the bad guy is a tissue box). Additionally, Heather and David are planning creative ways to get their message across to a K-C board member who they haven’t been able to engage by phone. Last time we talked, they were looking into bike messengers to drop off a package of signed K-C petitions at her office as well as a singing telegram. As David aptly put it, “To deal with being ignored, we’ve got to make it impossible to be ignored.”

Tip #4:
Remember your power as students!
Straight from Riley: “Institutions are there for students. Rather than feel that your institution owes you the right to park wherever you want, or that it should use plenty of pesticides so the grass is green, you should feel it is your right to make it make changes which are better for our health, for our planet, and for the future economy in dealing with real issues like climate change, a lack of corporate social responsibility, poor forest management, and the loss of biodiversity.”