Dates: November 28 & December 5, 1-2:30 PM ET
Cost: $50 (Zoom Meeting, camera and audio enabled)
*All registrants will be provided with a link to the recording and presentation slides following the session. The recording will be available for 60 days.
Montana Burgess of Mountaintop Strategies will help ENGO's design campaigns and implement designs to run effective and strategic campaigns through this interactive 2-part training series.
This workshop is for ENGO staff or core volunteers trying to figure out how to develop a new campaign, revamp an existing campaign, or anyone wanting to brush up on the foundations of strategic campaigns. In this challenging time it can be hard to know where to start or how to focus to make progress and build momentum. If you are unsure what specific problem you are trying to be part of solving and how to do it this series can help.
Coming out of this training series participants will learn best practices, get tools and structure to further develop and implement their campaigns, and connect with peers to build stronger relationships across the environmental movement.
Session 1 - November 28 1-2:30pm ET
In this session we’ll review the components of campaign design including: gathering intel, theory of change, evaluating power and paths to victory, working with others, and selecting tactics. You’ll get worksheet tools to take home and complete for the second session. This session will be a mix of presentation and activities.
Session 2 - December 5 1-2:30pm ET
The second session will focus on discussing and workshopping the homework you did coming out of Session 1. We’ll dig into challenges you’ve encountered and share peer learnings. This session will be participation heavy.
Our Presenter
Montana Burgess (she/they) is based in southeastern BC on Sinixt land. Montana is a queer settler and parent. She has 18+ years of experience in the climate, energy, and environmental non-profit sector in BC, Canada, and internationally, as well as volunteer organizing on emerging social issues. She ran Neighbours United for a decade leading successful organizing and deep canvassing efforts to win campaigns, and now runs Mountaintop Strategies to help ENGOs do the same.
Montana received a 2022 Emerging Leader Award, and under her leadership, Neighbours United received a Top Project Award from Canada’s Clean50, and the Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Awards Winner from Charity Village. In 2025, Montana received the British Columbia Medal of Good Citizenship for her efforts in bridging communities and politics to build a sustainable, more inclusive BC.
Sponsored by
Session 1: Settler Colonialism 101
Introduce ENGO representatives to the fact that colonization is a structure and not an event. Identifies key ways that colonialism moves through individuals and organizations.
Session 2: Positionality
ENGO representatives learn how to articulate their social location within a settler colonial state, and in relation to potential Indigenous partners.
Session 3: Inherent Indigenous Governance 101
Introduce the fact that Indigenous nations have their own sources of political authority that they can (and do) draw on when addressing environmental issues. Examples provided.
Session 4: Building Better Relations
ENGO representatives will road test ways they can implement previous workshop key points to re-imagine partnerships with Indigenous nations.
Cost: $100 (or register 4 staff from the same organization for one stream and get the 5th registration free)
All registrants will be provided with a link to access the recordings and presentation slides for 60 days following each session.
Session 1: Diagnosing Settler Colonialism in the Enviro Sector
Participants will be asked to share ways in which they have diagnosed and traced power in social justice movements and/or in the ENGO sector. This workshop will make space for discomfort as part of promoting decolonization.
Session 2: Inherent Indigenous Governance
A mix of advanced and introductory theory, this workshop delves into legal and political pluralism, naming the fact that Indigenous nations have their own sources of political authority that they can (and do) draw on when addressing environmental issues.
Session 3: The Nonprofit Industrial Complex
ENGO participants are introduced to theories and examples describing the Nonprofit Industrial Complex and the “Shadow State.” Purpose is to show how settler colonialism structures civil society.
Session 4: Decolonizing ENGO-First Nation Partnerships
This workshop delves deep into how ENGOs can partner with Indigenous nations beyond the Nonprofit Industrial Complex while promoting deference to inherent Indigenous political leaders.
Cost: $100 (or register 4 staff from the same organization for one stream and get the 5th registration free)
All registrants will be provided with a link to access the recordings and presentation slides for 60 days following each session.
The Indigenous only space will be collaborative in nature but critical in approach. This track is a space for Indigenous folks within the ENGO sector to come together to discuss their experiences and work, with an eye to taking a position on what the sector might need to do in order to promote decolonization. Participants will use the first session to define our goals for the remaining three meetings. Therefore, session topics named here are proposals only.
Session 1: Naming the Cannibal: Settler Colonialism in the ENGO Sector
Session 2: Proposed topic: Reflections on working in the ENGO Sector
Session 3: Proposed topic: Centering Indigenous Thought in the ENGO Sector
Session 4: Proposed topic: Visioning a Decolonial Environmental Sector
Cost: Free
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