How Young Nordic Climate Organizations Mobilize, Recruit, and Retain New Activists

The climate crisis is raging, and young people are on the front lines. From the first school strike in 2018 to the present day, young people have been demanding climate action. They are part of communities where they strengthen their voices and their ability to collaborate across national borders. To enable more young people to join these communities and demand climate action, we need to strengthen the movements’ organizational and mobilization efforts. Although questions such as “how do we engage more people” or “how do we get those who walk through the door to stay” are absolutely central, they must compete with extremely pressing questions such as: “How do we stop the production of oil and gas?” The organizational aspect of climate communities is therefore often underprioritized.

With support from the Nordic Council of Ministers, We Do Democracy carried out a project from June 2025 through the spring of 2026 to strengthen the capacity of five Nordic climate organizations to mobilize, recruit, and retain members. This project has addressed precisely those organizational issues that are so often overlooked. Project partners include the Green Youth Movement (DK), Apprentices for Sustainability (DK), Extinction Rebellion Norway (Youth) (NO), Extinction Rebellion Finland (FI), and the Nordic Climate Justice Coalition.

In the first phase of the project, we examined how climate organizations can best recruit new activists, drawing on interviews, case studies, research, and best practices. We have shared this knowledge with participating organizations through workshops and a handbook, with the aim of exploring their current practices for mobilization and recruitment. The main focus of the project has also been on co-creating new processes, principles, and tools that strengthen mobilization, recruitment, and retention at the participating organizations.

For many, the tangible results can be found in grassroots organizations, where we hope they will translate into changes and improvements in recruitment and integration practices. But the lessons learned from the project can also be found in the handbook that resulted from it. The handbook is available here.

It contains descriptions of the challenges and the initiatives aimed at addressing them—initiatives that, in some cases, we have helped develop, but which all stem from a need within the organization. This has resulted in four recommendations for recruiting and integrating new employees, which are, of course, detailed in the handbook:

1. Recruitment is a leadership task.
2. Organize people rather than events.
3. Help newcomers become part of the group.
4. Be intentional when you mobilize.