Volunteer Opportunity for GreenFaith Leadership Institute

The Opportunity

The GreenFaith Leadership Institute is a five-month, faith-rooted organizing and leadership experience for people of faith and spirit who feel called to put their values into action for climate justice and the common good.

Grounded in our personal stories, faith traditions, and spiritual values, participants will deepen their sense of calling, build relationships with others across traditions, and develop the organizing skills to transform our shared moral authority into collective power for change.

Together we are building a community of practice to nurture and support leaders into the future.

Program dates: January 10 – June 15, 2027

Location: Remote, United States

Time commitment: Approximately 5 hours per week

Compensation: 5 months of training and coaching

Applications: Rolling; early decision deadline October 30, 2026

Training times: Sundays, once a month at 12:30pm PT / 3:30pm ET until 3:30pm PT / 6:30pm ET

Who Should Apply?

You do not need to be a professional organizer or clergy member. We are looking for people of faith and spirit who feel called to act for climate justice and the common good—and who want to learn how to bring others together around that calling.

You might be a lay leader, congregant, spiritual practitioner, community leader, student, educator, climate advocate, or simply someone whose faith or spiritual values compel you to act. What matters most is a willingness to root your leadership in your values, build relationships, and invite others into collective action.

Strong candidates will:

• Be grounded in a faith, spiritual tradition, or set of deeply held values that calls them toward justice, care for our common home, and the common good.
• Have some experience taking leadership or responsibility in a congregation, faith community, community organization, workplace, school, movement, or other setting.
• Have relationships in their community that can become a foundation for faith-rooted organizing.
• Be motivated to build relationships, invite people into action, and develop other leaders.
• Be curious about how faith, spirituality, and moral leadership can help build collective power for change.
• Be willing to take initiative, experiment, receive feedback, and learn through experience.
• Be dependable and able to make and keep commitments to their team and fellow participants.
• Be open to building meaningful relationships across differences of faith, race, generation, geography, and experience.
• Be willing to participate in public-facing advocacy, campaigns, and collective action rooted in their values.
• Be able to commit approximately five hours per week during the Institute and continue developing their team through the end of 2027.

We particularly encourage people who already have relationships with congregations, faith and spiritual leaders, climate organizations, community groups, or other networks and are ready to bring people together around a shared moral vision.

And you do not have to begin alone. If you already know a few people in your congregation, faith community, or network who share your calling and want to organize together, we encourage you to apply as a small group.

What You Will Learn

Through monthly trainings, practice, support, coaching, and reflection, participants will develop practical skills in:

• Building relationships through one-to-one conversations
• Recruiting and developing new leaders
• Building and sustaining volunteer teams
• Distributed leadership and sharing responsibility
• Understanding power and developing campaign strategy
• Identifying decision-makers and choosing effective tactics
• Building multi-faith and community partnerships
• Facilitating meetings and organizing events
• Working with elected officials and other decision-makers
• Storytelling, communications, and media
• Connecting faith, moral values, and spiritual grounding to collective action

After the Institute, participants are expected to continue developing their team and GreenFaith Circle through the end of 2027 and connect their local work to the broader faith and climate justice movement.

What Support Will You Receive?

You will not be expected to figure this out alone.

GreenFaith will provide:

• Regular organizing and leadership training
• Coaching and mentoring
• A national cohort for peer learning and support
• Practical organizing tools and resources
• Connections to GreenFaith leaders, campaigns, and the broader faith-climate network

The goal is not for GreenFaith to tell you what to do at every step. It is to help you develop the skills, relationships, and judgment to organize effectively in your own community.

What Success Looks Like

By June 15, successful participants will have:

• Strengthened their organizing and leadership skills
• Built a core team of approximately 8–10 volunteer leaders
• Established or strengthened a GreenFaith Circle or local organizing team
• Developed relationships with community and faith partners
• Taken meaningful collective action with their team
• Gained experience developing others into leaders
• Connected their local work to the broader faith and climate justice movement
• Developed a clearer sense of what sustains them as organizers and what they are called to organize next

The Institute is a beginning, not an endpoint. Participants will be joining a community of practice that encourages and supports them as they continue to develop leadership and participate in local, regional and GreenFaith supported campaigns.

The Essential Question

You do not need to already know how to organize.

Are you ready to learn by doing, build relationships, develop leadership and take meaningful collective action in your community?