Hustling to Save the Boundary Waters
The Campaign to Save the Boundary Waters was founded by business owners and residents in the small town of Ely, MN in 2012 to permanently protect the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness from proposed sulfide-ore copper mining. Over the past five years, it has grown to be one of the largest grassroots public lands organizations in the country — over 130,000 people have taken action to protect the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness (BWCA).
“The BWCA is the most visited wilderness area in the country — part of our job is to protect it for future generations. We deeply believe that through doing this, we are on the right side of history” - Piper Donlin, Regional Organizer
With severe threats to public lands and a small team, Save the Boundary Waters needed additional ways to engage their active and committed base in their work. Last November, they started using Hustle and were able to mobilize thousands of Americans to call their representatives and vote against a toxic anti-public lands bill. Most recently, they have also turned out over 400 people to caucus across Minnesota in the span of 2 days with only three organizers.
In working with their team, I’ve really appreciated some things that they’ve illuminated:
- Empathy: The consideration of the tone and content of texts with their supporters was incredibly thoughtful. I witnessed a practice of empathy throughout the process, from targeting to script creation, which reflected a knowing of their supporters.
- Strategy: It’s incredibly challenging to plan when the nature of your work is to respond to attacks or injustice. Rather than being discouraged making a plan, they chose to approach strategy from a standpoint of who they want to reach, what kinds of actions do they want to engage them in, and who should be having those conversations. With that frame, they were able to set up regionally and use tags to target specific segments of their groups as needed for rapid response or planned Hustles.
- Follow-through: Organizers had full conversations with their supporters. In some cases, supporters wrote back after the caucus to share outcomes, and organizers continued to be responsive.
“We are a small team — contacting our entire list through phone banking is a difficult and time consuming feat. Hustle allows us to have real, relaxed conversations and spend time following up, while still reaching a huge number of supporters in a fraction of the time.”
- Piper Donlin, Regional Organizer
Several weeks ago, the Environmental Impact Statement being completed by the US Forest Service to access the impacts sulfide-ore copper mining would have on this pristine watershed was downgraded to an Environmental Assessment — a less comprehensive study. This initiated a public comment period. During this time they’re working hard to get tens of thousands of signatures on this petition to tell the Forest Service that Americans support a thorough and robust study. The comment period ends on Feb. 28th.
Learn more about Save the Boundary Waters and consider showing them some support during the 40th anniversary of the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness!
Special thanks to Piper Donlin for her significant contributions to this post.
