At the upcoming April 2026 meeting of Environmental Justice Evanston I am due to propose a curriculum for leadership development. The desired outcome is to increase the number of people who can lead environmental equity efforts in Evanston.
This need comes together for a couple of reasons. The Evanston environmental justice movement has matured in a positive way. You can see a potential future that builds on new policies, practices and organizations that are now in place. It is also a moment in which veteran elder leaders are transitioning to different roles; less doing everything, more focusing their time and energy on high-impact activities.
This is early work-in-progress thinking about how I will explore this opportunity to recommend design options. Three research questions are guiding my effort:
- What do leaders actually do to impact the vision of environmental equity – leaders who live within impacted neighborhoods, and leaders who do not live in those communities but are allies?
- What approaches to curriculum (learning experiences) already exist which might inspire ideas to consider?
- How might we invite well-resourced partners to help in the effort as truly collaborative co-creators?
Fighting the thinking-you-are-right trap
One overarching mindset envelops this effort. It comes from my long experience designing solution proposals and teaching folks how to do it. In a podcast episode with some Northwestern University learning and organizational change friends, I sounded off on the pattern that we see when developing solution proposals:
- A problem is posed.
- Research is conducted.
- A solution and detailed plan in rigorously constructed.
- The plan is presented with authority and confidence.
“The problem,” I said. “Is that the solution and plan will be wrong.”
We really cannot forecast with certainty how the humans who actually experience our solution are different from the ones we had in mind when designing the solution. The environment changes. People change with the environment. Add a layer of random weirdness and you get the challenge.
Saying or presenting a solution with confidence doesn’t make it a successful solution. Results do. We all need a bit of humility. Me included. Assume you will be wrong and prepare to adapt.
So how might I move forward with this opportunity? Here is how I am approaching the challenge.
What do Evanston environmental equity leaders do?
First, I am viewing the environmental justice context in 2026 Evanston as a moment in time: The current resources, problems, people and places. The overall vision of what we mean by environmental equity is more static. But the conditions will change over time.
The overarching vision is best defined in Evanston’s 2020 Environmental Justice Resolution.
When every community member experiences the same degree of access to environmental assets, protection from environmental hazards and health risks, and an opportunity to play an effective role in making decisions that affect the quality of life in Evanston.
Implied in this definition is that specific neighborhoods do not experience the same access, protection and opportunities as other neighborhoods. Two research efforts by the city – the Environmental Equity Investigation and the EPLAN – provide data and analyses to make this explicit. Neighborhoods on the west side of the city and the southwest experience disparities across physical environment conditions which impact their quality of life.
So the vision incorporates two key elements:
- Equity in access to assets, protection from hazards, and opportunities to make decisions.
- Focus on impacting clearly defined areas – “Green Zones” is the label used in the Environmental Equity Investigation.
My experience with the environmental justice community during the past year points to thinking about two types of leaders who are necessary to work toward this vision:
- Leaders who actually live in the Green Zones.
- Leaders who live outside of the Green Zones.
That may seem like a blinding glimpse of the obvious. But it is an important consideration when holding to a principle of designing with, not for. An easy trap is to design a leadership curriculum which enables folks to think they can do something for a community by doing something to it without co-creating with that community.
As well, leading when you live in the community looks different. You see neighbors more often, know them through multiple experiences (schools, block clubs, gardening, churches, etc.). And importantly, you experience the exact same environmental conditions. It’s the “if you know, you know” look that neighbors can share about those conditions.
Which leads me to my first research question.
Q1: What do leaders do – those who live within the community, and those who do not – to impact the vision of environmental equity?
Understanding this more clearly will sharpen the focus on the topics and experiences that will be central to the curriculum.
What have other folks done to solve similar challenges?
This is a brainstorming practice. It’s especially useful when you start to look at analogous challenges – not exactly the same, but similar in some respects – to help open up thinking about potential solution designs.
My first collection of approaches and examples are outlined below.
Coaching and technical assistance
This approach has appeal because there exists a similar program within Climate Action Evanston (of which Environmental Justice Evanston is a part). It also offers a lot of flexibility in how you might design and implement it – important in a start-up effort.
A coaching model includes two elements:
- Educating and creating a cohort of coaches.
- Matching coaches with different community needs.
Technical assistance might look a lot like coaching. Folks with specific expertise are matched to groups who have specific need to apply that expertise (kind of a “coach on demand”).
A key question for using this model in Evanston: What might coaches do (beyond technical assistance) to develop leadership capacity on environment equity in Evanston?
Examples:
DeepSouth Center for Environmental Justice “Communiversity” combines education (cohort model) with technical assistance. https://dscej.org/communiversity/
Open training events and experiences
These are scheduled events (or events done at the request of a group) which are designed to help groups get started on an environmental equity effort in their organization or location. The events might also focus on specific topics rather than group start-up (e.g., energy efficiency, solar, housing, health equity) or be organized as experiential event. People for Community Recovery in Chicago does “Toxic Tours.” Open Communities (open/fair housing not-for-profit) does a “Walk the Redline” in Evanston.
Examples:
People for Community Recovery (Chicago): https://www.peopleforcommunityrecovery.org/our-work/education-and-trainings
NW Environmental Justice Center: https://nwejc.org/events-trainings
Self-paced programs
Self-paced programs are online and available on-demand. They may be supported by an online community (private to participants)
Cohort programs
Cohort programs are most often experiential: Participants learn by doing, following a process or model. Coaches may play a role in cohort programs.
Cohorts may be:
- Intact community members who work to improve their community.
- Cross-disciplinary groups working together to address a common outcome.
- Folks from across neighborhoods but who all share the same interest in EJ.
Examples:
Evanston Community Foundation’s Leadership Evanston program: https://evanstonforever.org/leadership-evanston
WEACT: https://weact.org/get-involved/ehjlt/
Chicago Teachers Union Foundation: (school based cohorts): https://www.ctuf.org/ej-freedom-school/
Illinois EPA Environmental Pathways project (school based cohorts): https://pathways.mste.illinois.edu/curriculum/environmental-justice
Chicagoans United for Equity: https://www.chicagounitedforequity.org/2026-fellowship
Place-based programs
Place-based programs leverage some of the same components as cohort programs but focus on a very specific space: Blocks or some other defined physical area. The key difference is looking at outcomes for that specifically defined space. Groups, cohorts, and individuals may come and go but the long-term focus on the physical space remains.
Examples:
Blacks in Green sustainable mile: https://www.blacksingreen.org/our-approach and https://www.blacksingreen.org/resources/sustainable-square-mile-block-clubs
WEACT: https://weact.org/programs/east-125th-street-community-visioning-action-plan/
East Oakland 40×40: https://www.40x40oakland.org/about
All of this leads up to my second research question.
Q2: What approaches exist which might inspire ideas to consider?
What potential partnership opportunities exist?
This curriculum effort begins with a deep set of relationships and local partnerships already established.
Environmental Justice Evanston is a program within Climate Action Evanston, which includes other programs and expertise in several areas that impact climate resilience and environmental equity. Both organizations are also part of the Evanston Environmental Justice Coalition, an even larger umbrella group that brings together folks with both environmental and social justice interests and expertise. The connections and relationships in these groups literally lead to every imaginable organization in Evanston.
Two additional potential partner organizations loom large: Northwestern University and the Evanston Community Foundation. Northwestern offers potential resources across a broad range of areas. The Evanston Community Foundation has well-established community leadership development programs in place; these are models to learn from, but may also provide partnership opportunities.
In all cases, the key is to first develop a clear description of the specific leadership development opportunities which appear productive in meeting environmental equity goals. A partnership trap that folks fall into is to simply go to potential partners and ask “we’re working on developing environmental equity leaders – let’s talk about how we can partner.” The risk is that the partnership then becomes driven by the partner’s agenda and approach. It’s similar to the dynamic of a team meeting where a leader makes a suggestion and everyone falls in line behind it.
No one is more expert in the experience of doing environmental equity work in Evanston than the folks who have actually being doing it for the past 15 years. That’s our starting point.
How might we build off of what they’ve learned, and how they’ve adapted? For recruiting partnerships, this leads to the third research question:
Q3: How might we invite well-resourced partners to help in the effort as truly collaborative co-creators?
Note: You will see that I use both “environmental equity” and “environmental justice” in this post. It could be either. The choice is a nod to two principal leaders of the Evanston environmental justice movement who intentionally used “equity” in leading the effort with the city to commit to a major foundational project: The Environmental Equity Investigation. “Equity” captures the need to resolve disparities across neighborhoods due to both historical injustices and on-going practices.
The photographs which accompany these posts are taken by me, and show different settings and views of Evanston (where I live). It is a visual reminder that this is the most important setting for belonging and contributing to community: our neighborhoods, our cities.
Jeff Merrell 