Featured chapter: CCL San Mateo County

When CCL set a goal of raising $1.25 million for our year-end fundraiser last month, the San Mateo County Chapter was eager to step up and help. Through PledgeIt, the chapter aimed to raise $10,000 in support of Citizens’ Climate’s national efforts.

“Once we pledged to raise a certain amount of money, we felt responsible for getting that money,” says group leader Elaine Salinger. So they got to work! “We wrote our homepage, chose our picture, and updated it based on what seemed to work or not work” when talking to potential donors, such as sending personal messages, sharing the donation link in meetings, and so on.

Seeing donations roll in kept the chapter motivated to keep working toward their goal in creative ways. “We made videos and posted them on Instagram. Anyone who liked our posts was sent an Instagram message with the PledgeIt link,” Elaine explains. Creating the videos put an extra dose of “fun” in their fundraising and brought the chapter even closer together. (And the fun continues with some chapter members now attending Country Line Dance classes together, pictured above.)

In the end, through the PledgeIt donations and direct contributions through other channels, the chapter surpassed their fundraising goal! That success puts wind in their sails as the chapter gets started with new projects for 2025, such as “writing LTEs with friends in red districts to help them get published in order to elevate the message about local economic benefits of the IRA,” Elaine says. Way to go, CCL San Mateo County!