Get Started Making Change Now!

Welcome to the Student PIRGs! We believe students have the power to shape the future. Our mission is to train students to be effective activists and help them make real change right now on a range of issues facing our generation.

Are you ready to make a difference? Get started making change now!

National Priority Campaigns:

State and Local Campaigns:

2. Request Your “Campaign in a Box”!

Once you’ve picked your campaign and the priority campaign action, it’s time to submit your event plan and request a “campaign in a box” – a package of materials like flyers and stickers, that you can use for your event.

3. Recruit Your Friends

Recruitment is the basic building block of any grassroots campaign, since you rely on people for power. The more people you have, the more you can accomplish and the more active your community will be. 

However, people don’t just materialize. You need to recruit! You can start by recruiting your friends, but you can also recruit your peers by making announcements in your classes, holding recruitment tables on campus, and asking your professors to spread the word to other students. For more tips and resources on recruitment, check out our Activist Toolkit.

4. Hold Your Campaign Action

Once you’ve picked your campaign issue and recruited some folks to join, it’s time to hold your first campaign action! These actions can take a number of forms, but the simplist actions can be something like a table where you ask other students to sign a petition.

Here are some key steps for holding your action:

• Nail the logistics: Make sure you reseve the space and prepare materials ahead of time, such as posters, flyers, and petitions.  
• Promote the Event: Get the word out about your event – you can include any number of visibility tactics such as postering, emailing, and using social media. Check our our Activist Toolkit for more on visibility.
• Train Your Volunteers: Make sure all of the volunteers that you recruited are set up for success by following the principle of “simple, sample, practice”, meaning – keep it simple, give a sample of the campaign action, and give them time to practice.
• Track As You Go: Keep a tally of who showed up to volunteer and how many campaign actions they generated while volunteering!

5. Let Us Know How it Went!

After your event, fill out our tracking form to let us know how it went! Make sure to keep track of how many volunteers showed up and how many students took action at your event, and report your numbers and highlights. Top events will be eligible for additional Student PIRGs funding – that means more materials and staff time for your future events. Remember: if you don’t track it, it didn’t happen!

Have questions or want to sign up for additional trainings? Email organizing director Manny Rin: [email protected]

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