PSN staff are smiling while holding up orange and yellow signs that read, "Biden declare climate emergency"

About Power Shift Network

Our Mission

Power Shift Network mobilized the collective power of young people to mitigate climate change and create a just, clean energy future and resilient, thriving communities for all.

What was Power Shift Network?

We were an intergenerational network of organizations and campaigns that centered the diverse young people most impacted by the climate crisis. 

Young people today face a world in crisis: a broken political system, deepening inequality, entrenched and emboldened racism, and a catastrophically changing climate. But we were committed to action, mutual support, and solidarity. We built a strong, intersectional, bottom-up movement to take on the climate crisis, shift the power, and create systemic change.

Network members combatted climate and environmental injustice, stopped dirty energy projects, divested from fossil fuels, tried to fix democracy, and built the just, clean-energy powered future young people needed — all while working through an intersectional lens that allowed them to organize as their full selves. We understand that these issues are deeply interlinked, and we believed that we could better tackle them as a coordinated network.

Our Vision

Through the collective power of young people, the Power Shift Network worked for a safe climate and just future where communities are thriving and own their power—whether that power is electrical, economic, social, or political.

Our Network Model

A network is made up of interconnected nodes and horizontal relationships, each adding to the strength and resilience of the whole. Power Shift Network members didn’t just work through our staff and programs: they also connected with, collaborated with, and supported one another. 

We aimed to give our Members the autonomy to self-organize through providing strategic support including: training, coaching, networking, connections, and resources. As a flexible network, we were able to move quickly in a rapidly changing world. As a community, we were able to build long-term trust and alignment for joint action.

Our Guiding Principles

  • We believed in supporting, convening, and mobilizing young people to build and carry out innovative campaigns. In practice this looked like rebuilding Action Teams within our Network.
  • We believed that we must resist climate impacts, pollutants, and the fossil fuel industry AND seed and spread community-based solutions that foster social, economic, and environmental justice.
  • We believed that ownership and control of power matters, and that to achieve our vision we must work to distribute ownership of energy, wealth, and social and political power. In practice this looked like PSN’s Giving Circle, our wealth distribution hub, and our microgrant/regranting program.
  • We believed that those less directly harmed by extractive economies and climate change must stand in solidarity with those who are. We believed that collaboration and diversity makes us stronger, and is crucial to realizing our vision.
  • We believed that our shared vision of a more just, equitable, and sustainable world is possible and the journey to it reflected a long history of movements - many led by young people - creating bold shifts in power.
  • We believed in bottom-up governance based on trust, accountability, and transparency, and taking action as the essential expression of making decisions.
  • We believed in embracing experimentation and growing through failure; we learned through honest conversation and peer evaluation.

As a network, we also supported and endorse the Jemez Principles for Democratic Organizing.