"I am so excited about Climate for Change. Katerina and her team have a well-thought out plan to engage mainstream Australians on climate change and get them active. It uses a proven model, proven behaviour change techniques and the latest social research on how to engage people. Please join me in donating to help get it off the ground" - Anna Rose, co-founder Australian Youth Climate Coalition, author of Madlands: A Journey to Change the Mind of a Climate Sceptic and manager of Earth Hour at WWF Australia.

"[Climate for Change] is the most important action on climate around" - Janet Rice, Australian Greens senator elect for Victoria.

So What Is it?...
We’re taking the Tupperware party model (of small gatherings in peoples’ homes, each of which generates further gatherings) and adapting it to build a groundswell of ordinary people demanding stronger action on climate change.

Why?
Social research tells us that 80% of Australians believe climate change is happening and that something should be done about it, but most of those Australians are confused. They’d like to know more, but they don’t know who to trust and they have other priorities, such as health, education and paying the bills.

Social research also tells us that people trust information from their friends and that it is through empowering conversations with those trusted friends that an issue is turned from an abstract concern into something people will act upon.

The Tupperware party model reaches people through someone they trust. It then creates the time and space to have the empowering conversations that turn talk into action.

How Does It Work?
A host invites some friends to a gathering at his or her home. It’s a chance to catch up, enjoy some good food and drink, but also a fundraiser and a chance to sift through the conflicting information on climate change in the media. And, of course, it’s a chance to support something a friend cares about.

At the gathering, one of our highly trained facilitators guides guests through an empowering conversation about climate change, but more importantly, its solutions and what we each can do about it in our busy lives. The gathering finishes with three simple asks:

1) Stand Up - by signing up to demand effective action from our politicians and other leaders;
2) Reach Out - by hosting your own gathering at your house;
3) Support Us - by donating what you would have spent on a night out to help us cover our running costs.

Once the gathering is over, Climate for Change will provide you with support to stand up and reach out in other manageable ways – from letter writing sessions with friends to hosting a movie night.

Our goal is to get the 36% of Australians who say that climate change is very important to them, to stand up and demand action on climate change from those who can deliver it, whilst each convincing just one friend of the need to act. Then we’d have the groundswell we need for real action to stop climate change.

To find out more about climate for change, visit http://www.climateforchange.org.au

If you have specific questions about our model or our crowd funding campaign, check out our FAQ page: http://www.climateforchange.org.au or email us: hello@climateforchange.org.au

Keep updated by liking us on facebook or joining our mailing list: http://www.climateforchange.org.au/contact/

We know this model works. It has been proven time and time again by companies such as Tupperware, Enjo and hundreds more around the world.

We know from organising campaigns from Barack Obama’s presidential campaign to Cath McGowan’s campaign in Indi, that meaningful conversations work – and people want to have them.

We know once this model gets going it has the potential to grow very quickly and that once it takes off, this model can be self-funding.

And we know that with over 40 years of collective experience in the corporate, government, NGO and community sectors, we have the skills and contacts to make it happen.

The biggest risk is that we will reach lots of people, get them excited and ready to act, then not have the tools to support them. That’s why, before we even start having our gatherings, we are raising the money to pay for really good organising software and a highly functional and engaging website which will enable us to provide vital, ongoing support for our participants.

So if you like what we are trying to do, please help make it a reality by donating what you can, then share this campaign with your friends, family, colleagues (and anyone else you think might be interested) via email, facebook and twitter!

Our biggest risk is not having the tools and resources to support the people we engage after the gatherings, which is why we are taking time to lay good foundations before we leap into the gatherings and why we are doing this crowd funding campaign.

Another risk is recruiting enough talented facilitators. Again, we plan to take the time to develop top-notch training, which will be free to facilitators in return for committing to a certain number of gatherings. Our model also allows us to offer the best of our facilitators the opportunity to move into a paid position at the end of their stint, managing the facilitators in their area.

If you're interested in becoming a facilitator, we'd love to hear from you! Contact us at: http://www.climateforchange.org.au/contact/.