To help you find your place in the Friends of the Earth Ecosystem, we have created four loose categories of volunteer opportunties. These are based on the characteristics of some of our favourite native animals. You may see some similarities between yourself or how you like to approach activism in the descriptions of each animal, but might also see yourself in more than one role, and that great too!
These ideas and roles are a guide, and can be applied to any of our grassroots campaign collectives.
Kangaroo:
“I like getting things done. There needs to be more action and less talk. I am often more task based in my group and enjoy doing things rather than planning. I want to just hop off and get going on action.”
Roles might include:
- Stalls
- Flyering
- Photographer
- Graphic design
- Live streaming events/actions
- Phone banking
- Banner Painting
- Just doing stuff!
Wombat:
“The devil is always in the detail and I love burrowing into information and data. Databases, reading fine detail in reports and finding out the real root causes are the first things I think about when approaching an issue.”
Roles might include:
- Data collector
- Researcher/editing
- Database work
- Archiving
- Graphic design
- Helping with a stocktake
- Planning a campaign budget
Dolphin:
“People are central to this movement and making sure we all get along is really important. My first thoughts are about how people might interact and get along when planning action. I am sensitive to the emotions and relationships playing out in the group and am always first to bring up saferspaces, grievance policies etc. Keeping the pod together and happy is paramount.”
Roles might include:
- Food Co-op & Cafe volunteer
- Stalls coordinator
- Meeting convenor
- Facilitation
- Phone banking and talking to supporters
- Organising regenerative community care activities
Eagle:
“I like to soar over things and look from a big world view. I love strategic planning. Thinking about how things fit into a worldview is most important. I can see strategy or where the group needs to go from here.”
Roles might include:
- Planning actions and events
- Media spokesperson
- Writing blog posts and media releases
- Strategic planning
- Writing a communications strategy
- Co-hosting our weekly Dirt Radio show on 3CR Community Radio
- Grant writing
