Patagonia Is Launching A New Digital Platform For Environmental Activism

By Jeff Beer

Over its 40-year history, Patagonia has donated about $90 million to grassroots environmental organizations. In December the company aimed to galvanize people into taking political action against the rolling back of national monuments by declaring “The President Stole Your Land.”

 

On February 7, the company is launching Patagonia Action Works, a new digital platform that aims that aims to bring those two things together by connecting people and environmental nonprofits, helping them get involved through events, petitions, and volunteering.

For years, the company has hosted its Tools Conference, a biennial gathering for a handful of those organizations to share best practices, as well as offer insights into modern marketing tools and techniques to best help their respective causes. It even published a book about it.  The company hopes this new platform will broaden the impact of that experience from every two years with a select group of organizations, to every single day with as many people as possible.

“If we could connect our community, friends, and customers directly with local groups working on issues they are passionate about, suddenly these organizations would have the capacity to achieve even more,” says Lisa Pike Sheehy, vice president of environmental activism at Patagonia, in a statement. “Everybody has a role to play in this movement.”

Through Action Works, people can find environmental organizations they might be interested in by issue and location. If you’re a kayaker in Cincinnati, you can find a nonprofit protecting one of your local watersheds. 

Meanwhile, the brand’s grantee organizations will be able to seamlessly communicate with each other, receive donations, post event calendars and invites, as well as find volunteers for specific tasks. Say a river restoration group needs a new logo, it’ll be able to find a graphic designer who supports its cause to help work on it. It also takes social and digital tools common in marketing and e-commerce, and gives them to organizations typically lacking the time, money or manpower to do it themselves, tapping into Patagonia’s social media community reach to create geo-targeted announcements and event invites.  

Patagonia is taking the Action Works launch on a national tour over the next few months to cities like Santa Monica, CA, Burlington, VT, Portland, OR, New York City, Chicago, D.C., and more.

 

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