Grassroots Climate Stories in Action

Putting Community Experience at the Heart of Climate Solutions

Elevating Community Experience to Power Climate Action

Michigan’s grassroots communities continue to inspire us, showing the power of everyday people to drive real climate solutions. At the Michigan Climate Action Network, we’re committed to elevating grassroots voices and the stories shaping climate action across the state.

Through our Community Voices Project, we’ve traveled Michigan to ask essential questions: What should our utilities be doing? How has the Inflation Reduction Act changed clean energy? And how have funding cuts affected local communities?

These conversations reveal the core challenges in our energy system. From our Power to the People Tour—calling for a Utility Customer Bill of Rights—to our Energy Transition Stories, explore the powerful narratives moving Michigan forward.

Networking event with diverse community members, some engaging with phones, others chatting, in a lively indoor setting.

Power to the People Tour

The Power to the People Tour is bringing communities together across Michigan to demand affordable, reliable, and renewable energy. Hosted by MiCAN and our partners, these neighborhood events rally support for a Ratepayer Bill of Rights that would protect households from shutoffs, ensure performance-based accountability, and expand access to community and rooftop solar. Each block party event is a place we can build, block by block, the power we need for change.

Energy Transition Stories

We’re curating the real experiences of Michiganders who’ve embraced the energy transition with climate-ready investments to improve their homes and communities. Whether you’re upgrading to energy-efficient appliances, investing in solar power, driving an electric vehicle, or taking other steps toward a more sustainable future, we are documenting and uplifting the experiences of real people making the energy transition, or facing challenges in the face of renewed attacks on climate policies.

Electric vehicle charging station for eco-friendly transportation, with a red electric car plugged i.

A diverse group of women engaging in a conversation around a table during a networking event at a MiCAN event.

2024 Community Voices Series

The Michigan Climate Action Network is guided by a grassroots Steering Committee, led by our member organizations. This committee ensures our mission stays grounded in the lived realities of communities across Michigan. These member groups are frontline organizations—leading the fight against climate change and shaping the grassroots solutions needed to truly center justice and equity in all that we do.

In 2023 and 2024, we drew on the deep knowledge and expertise of these organizations by hosting a series of member-led workshops. These sessions helped identify challenges, surface resource opportunities, and build shared understanding across the network.

Through this series, people from across the state gained a clearer view of the work happening in Michigan’s climate movement—and how we can collaborate more powerfully moving forward.