CSG welcomes interested individuals to become a part of our volunteer corps, a group of regular smart growth supporters who occasionally help us staff educational and other events, attend community meetings, and work at the grassroots level doing community outreach. Unfortunately, as you know, the era of COVID has eliminated our in-person events, where volunteers were always extremely helpful. But we have identified several opportunities where we could use some help!
Smart Growth Photo Team
We always need high quality photos depicting great smart growth policies in action (affordable housing, missing middle housing, transit-oriented development, walkable communities etc) as well as the not so great (massive parking lots, terrible sprawl, blocked bike lanes) to use in our email communications, presentations, and on social media. At a moment of great urgency – to create more sustainable and equitable communities and fight climate change, photos are a powerful educational tool.
You don’t have to be an award-winning photographer, we just need a group of dedicated smart growth supporters to (safely!) get out in their neighborhoods and capture the real life examples of sustainable communities and the places in need of transformation. Check out our CSG Photo Team Guide for some tips and a better idea of what we’re looking for. You can also check out our parent organization PEC’s great photography tips here. Then, submit your photos to our Google Drive and be sure to include your name and the location in the file name! Alternatively, you can also email them to ayesha@smartergrowth.net.
Meeting Support
We have a very small staff and we do our best to keep track of land use, transportation, and housing policies across the region, but sometimes we’re stretched extremely thin! Often there are weeks where there are several relevant meetings in one regional area, and our staff simply cannot attend them all. This is where you come in.
We will identify meetings that volunteers can attend in lieu of a staff member. All you have to do is pay attention, take notes, and email them to CSG. If you’re interested, fill out this form to help us better match you with meeting opportunities. Once matched, you can use this form to help guide you in your note taking. We will highlight in advance any key issues in the meeting you should pay special attention to. For those unfamiliar with local and regional government processes, this is a great opportunity to learn, and we’ll provide briefings to bring you up to speed.