350 Wenatchee Climate Conversations NCW

Hi all –

Whew, that was a robust coalition call that we had yesterday morning! There’s so much happening in this coalition, I’m dizzy! For those who couldn’t make the call (and for those that could and just want to rewatch the highlights) here’s the skinny…

Sack Lee Raymond! 👋👋 👋

King of the Climate Deniers, Lee Raymond, has been demoted at JPMorgan Chase ― it was announced Friday that he will no longer serve as the Lead Independent Director of Chase’s Board. As the New York Times reported this is a big win for us ― and in particular, our coalition partner, Majority Action, who devised and led this campaign. But, hold up, we’re not done yet.!

Now, it’s time to get Lee Raymond booted from the Board entirely. There’s two ways your organization can help with that:

1. Use this toolkit to send emails & social media posts to generate calls to the big 3 asset managers – BlackRock, Vanguard and State Street – which collectively own nearly 20% of Chase’s stock. If they vote the right way, that’s huge.

2. Use this toolkit to contact your State Treasurer and ask them to vote the right way. State Treasurers manage a ton of $$$. That means they have shares in Chase. They need to use them to vote off Raymond. Use the toolkit to contact them to tell them that!

And then, once you’ve done that read this great piece in the New Yorker by our friend, Bill McKibben, about why this is such a big deal. Chase and BlackRock Annual General Meetings 💥💰💥

AGMs are right around the corner! Several STMP coalition partners are working on a tar sands letter, signed by Indigenous women impacted by the extraction and expansion of tar sands, that will be delivered to many of our financial sector targets ― insurance companies, banks, asset managers. It should be ready by the Chase AGM on May 19…

On the Chase team, we’re working on a distributed call to action that will give people a chance to stand in solidarity with the signers of the letter and take action from their own homes during the Chase AGM.

The BlackRock team has organized its entire own People’s AGM. You can sign up for the BlackRock People’s AGM here ― and there is a Facebook event you can share here!

Stop the Money Pipeline webinar series 💻🖱💻

We’re organizing a Stop the Money Pipeline webinar series! We really want to webinar series to meet the needs of our coalition partners ― that’s you! So, we will be sharing a survey with you early next week to gain your insights into what webinars would be most useful to you and your organizing.

Yesterday’s webinar on STMP: Climate Finance 101 had 700+ RSVP’s! Wowza – that’s a lotta people who wanna learn about climate finance campaigns!

Youth Pledge to Never Bank at Chase 🙌🚸🙌
In partnership with the Future Coalition, Divest-Ed, Earth Guardians and the PowerShift Network, Stop the Money Pipeline has launched the Youth Pledge to Never Bank at Chase – and other fossil funders.

Can you help spread the Youth Pledge around? There is a share package here!

Know youth groups in your area who would be interested in working on this? Let us know! More coming on this soon.
Earth Day Live 🌍💻🌍

EDL was a resounding success ― nearly 5 million views, 33,000 new people joining the Stop the Money Pipeline list, thousands taking action on social media, making phone calls, and leaving STMP reviews of Chase on review sites all across the internet.

But we know that we can do this even better next time. To help us do that, we’re asking you to fill out a short debrief survey. Feedback is how we learn.

Stop the Money Pipeline Arts and Music Organizing! 🖌🎼🎨

Thank you to David Solnit, 350.org’s Arts Organizer who we partnered with to support all the amazing arts and music organizing around Earth Day. David created this short report about what he and his team accomplished. Feel free to check it out, it’s full of great resources ― Stop the Money Pipeline songs, videos, banners, shareable social media graphics and more ― that y’all should keep using again and again!

STMP Workgroup & Campaign Updates! 💥🙌💥

Comms Team: Put together this kickass report on their work – check it out! 425 media articles mentioned Stop the Money Pipeline in the last 3 months.

Partnerships Team: The STMP coalition is now 112 organizations strong. The Partnerships Team also approved the distribution of nearly $50,000 in small grants to frontline and Black, Indigenous and People of Color-led organizations.

Policy Team: Created STMP demands of Members of Congress. They also organized a virtual briefing for Members of Congress and their staff ― over 120 people attended! Wow! Also organized a great Political Town Hall as part of Earth Day Live, which included Rep. Porter, Rep. Tlaib and Senator Marky and Senator Merkley.

Mobilization Team: Did an AMAZING job with Earth Day Live. They are now leading on the webinar series ― stay tuned for more!

Digital Team: Also did great work with EDL. 33,000 new list signs, supporting the webinar series, sending out all those great emails and social media action alters that y’all are seeing! Our social media pages could still use some more love. Can you invite people to like our Facebook page?

Pension Fund Divestment Organizing: A new coalition of groups in the US & Canada are working on pension fund divestment has come together! Climate Safe Pensions is up-and-running! They have already sent nearly 100,000 letters to State Treasurers and pension fund managers across the country ― you can send one here!

College Campus Organizing: Divest-Ed is continuing its amazing work. Meet their twelve new fellows, amazing young divestment organizers from across the country, here! You can also check out this highly informative and inspiring video they produced for Earth Day Live

Insurance Organizing: ICYMI, Sulakshana from RAN and Tamara from 350.org had this great piece published in Rolling Stone. Over 100,000 people have signed this petition to Liberty Mutual. And on May 18th there is going to be an international online rally calling on Marsh, one of the world’s largest insurance companies to stop insuring the Adani coal mine.

Wow, whew, I think that’s it. If I missed something you wish I’d included, let me know. And, if you made it all the way through this email, well done! There’s a lot going on in this coalition. But, then again, there has to be a lot going on in this coalition… As we’re working hard, we can be damn sure that fossil fuel executives are working just as hard to exploit the moment for maximum profit: fighting tooth-and-nail for an unjust corporate bailout, demanding the right to stop paying workers with black lung disease, planning to fly thousands of out-of-state workers in to build the Line 3 and Coastal GasLink pipelines despite the fact that we’re in the middle of a global pandemic. That’s what we’re up against. Love & respect for the work that all of you warriors for justice are doing
– Alec
Stop the Money Pipeline

PS:  I’m curious to know if this kind of round-up of all the work that’s going on is useful to folks. If it is useful to you, can you send me an email off thread and let me know? I’m trying to asses if it is worth doing a roundup like this every couple of weeks.