Hey John, my name is Aru.

I’ve been organizing with Sunrise since it launched in 2017, and most recently I coordinated Sunrise’s “Frontloading process” – the process we’ve undertaken over the last 18 months to bring us to what we’re calling “Sunrise 2.0.”


In a minute, I want to break down my involvement with this process, where we’ve been, and where we go from here. It’s a little long (SORRY), but I think transparency is important. Before you read on, can you contribute $5 or any amount to Sunrise today to fuel this critically important work toward the next era of our movement? [[link removed]]

Contribute $5 [[link removed]]


First, let’s rewind to 2015 and 2016. A group of twelve young people came together in an intense period of reflection, learning, and debate to build a youth climate movement that would take on the fossil fuel industry and Democratic establishment, to do what was needed to address the climate crisis and create millions of good jobs in the process. The process was called frontloading, and the movement was called Sunrise.

Finding Sunrise for the first time felt a little like falling in love. I went to my first training in 2017 right after my freshman year of college. Sitting in this dingy basement in Philly, with the unique bright yellow Sunrise slides in front of me, an unknown source of power activated within me. I was ready to do anything and everything for the movement.

So I did. I started a hub in Minneapolis, where I was home for the summer, and then at my college. I said yes to every volunteer opportunity and every training. While in school full-time, I became the training director, where I got to meet and train hundreds of young people. In the whirlwind of it all, I dropped out of college to organize full-time. We were building something really powerful, John — and our impact was becoming clear as many of the candidates we pushed to get to Congress were now championing our dream for a Green New Deal.

But as time went on, I began to see some of the cracks in Sunrise’s DNA (our story, structure, strategy, and culture!) — some of the flaws that were holding us back from reaching our movement’s potential.

A lot of people in the movement were coming to the same conclusion – we needed to redesign our movement to meet the moment we are in. We called this “re-frontloading” because it was a process based on what Sunrise had done before it had originally launched.

A 13-person team of staff and volunteers was built across race and class – first through running an open selection process, and then an intensive selection and interview process, with the final team approved by Hub Council and the Directors team at the time.

Frontloading hasn’t been easy. We spent months unable to meet and build a strong team because of COVID. We felt the crushing weight of the movement being catapulted from the 2020 election to the Build Back Better fight. And we went through intense conflict around what it meant to build a movement across race and class.

In spite of the challenges, I’m still so incredibly proud of what we have done and how we got here.

We got input and feedback from thousands of folks in and outside of Sunrise. And I believe deeply in the DNA. We’re experimenting with some of the most difficult things that social movements have to face: building a movement across race, class, and geography; figuring out how to be nimble and member-directed; balancing the need for local and national action. And the ways we’re doing it are new, innovative, and brave.

In the midst of worsening political conditions and an ever-looming climate crisis, in three weeks, this frontloading phase of Sunrise comes to an end with a ratification vote, where all active movement members will have the opportunity to review the proposed Sunrise 2.0 Movement DNA and vote on whether to accept or reject it. My hope is that we ratify. THEN, we can begin to experiment with the new DNA and become a movement that hundreds of thousands of young people, too, someday fall in love with.


There will be many ways for you to help build this movement in the coming months. But one thing we need right now is the money and resources to finish the job. Will you contribute $5 or any amount so we can support our hubs and volunteer leaders through the next phase of Sunrise? [[link removed]]


In solidarity,

Aru, Sunrise

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