World’s largest youth-led climate advocacy organization appoints first full-time employee
Barcelona, March 16, 2024 - Climate Cardinals, the world’s largest youth-led climate advocacy organization, is thrilled to announce the appointment of its first full-time employee, Jennifer Evans. Evans joins as Chief Operating Officer, building the capacity of the international nonprofit whose mission is dedicated to making the climate movement more accessible to non-English speakers. This exciting development marks a significant milestone for the organization as it expands its vision from translating climate information to catalyzing grassroots climate education, and begins to institutionalize to ensure its sustainability within the climate movement.
Climate Cardinals, with 14,000 youth volunteers spanning over 80 countries, empowers a diverse coalition of people to tackle the climate crisis. To date, Climate Cardinals has translated over two million words of climate information in 105 languages. Last year, the organization piloted an AI translation tool in collaboration with Google Cloud, and is one of the only youth-led climate nonprofits employing innovative technologies to scale their impact. As Climate Cardinals continues to grow and professionalize, the nonprofit’s commitment to expanding its reach on a global scale led to the decision to onboard Evans.
Evans brings a wealth of experience and expertise to her new role as Chief Operating Officer. In 2022, she graduated from the inaugural class of Columbia University’s Climate School with a Master of Arts in Climate and Society after completing a Bachelor of Arts in Environmental Sociology from St. Lawrence University.
In the past, Evans worked with the Center for Climate Systems Research at Columbia University and NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies as a research assistant where her work focused on nature-based solutions and climate adaptation projects for at-risk communities across the globe. Most recently, Jennifer completed an ORISE fellowship with the USDA Northeast Climate Hub as Climate Equity Fellow. As a fellow, Jennifer led the construction of GradCAMP, a cohort of graduate students passionate about integrating climate justice and equity into their climate research. In addition, Jennifer created a Climate Equity Toolkit for the Climate Hub to better emphasize equity in their daily projects.
As Chief Operating Officer, Jennifer will play a pivotal role in scaling Climate Cardinals and its initiatives associated with climate education worldwide. Harnessing her past experiences in various sectors of climate work, and her expertise on the intersectional nature of climate change, she has already become a driving force in the organization’s continued success.
On Jennifer’s appointment, Climate Cardinals Founder and President Sophia Kianni said, “We received over 400 applicants for this position. Jennifer stood out from the beginning as someone who is deeply empathetic and passionate about climate justice and education.”
“We are excited for this next step in our organization,” Climate Cardinals Vice President Hikaru Wakeel Hayakawa added. “According to a study by the Youth Climate Justice Fund, only 0.76 percent of funding in climate philanthropy goes towards youth organizations. Youth organizations remain underfunded, and we risk losing many of the movements that have developed over the past several years. We are taking this next step because we intend to be a part of the conversation in the long-term.”
As Chief Operating Officer, Evans will manage the day-to-day operations of Climate Cardinals and will oversee the internal operations of a large portfolio of projects within the organization. Her full-time devotion to the organization heightens Climate Cardinals’ capacity to foster new partnerships. In this role, Evans will work closely with the Senior Leadership Team, the Executive Team of Volunteer Youth Directors, and the forth-coming Advisory Board to foster a supportive work environment focused on a collective passion for combating climate change.
As we commence the new year with this momentous announcement, it is indisputable that Jennifer Evans's addition to our leadership will propel Climate Cardinals to further their impact within the climate movement, forwarding multilingual climate education and disseminating this information in hundreds of languages across the world. With her expertise and guidance, we are poised to continue to expand our programming to a wider global audience, invigorate a larger volunteer base to become translators of the climate movement, and continue to grow our roster of full-time employees.
Interested in supporting Climate Cardinals? Donate now. Check out our website and our educational newsletter to become more involved and to stay up-to-date on forthcoming Climate Cardinals announcements.
For inquiries, please contact: executiveteam@climatecardinals.org.
