Help XR Boston Mobilize for Earth Day 2025! Let's raise $15k by 12/31.
2025 is shaping up to be a make-or-break year for the climate. To meet the moment, we’re working to transform XR Boston into a powerful, mass movement capable of mobilizing the 3.5% of the population necessary to achieve systemic change. We need your support to make this vision a reality.
Our goal: raise $15,000 by the end of 2024 to hire two Movement Growth Interns and sustain our vital operations. These funds will allow us to grow our capacity for building a mass movement in the face of an accelerating climate crisis.
Why Now? Because the stakes have never been higher. And, direct action works.
In September, our rebels staged three days of bold lockdowns at the Massachusetts State House, chaining themselves with sleeping dragons for over 18 hours to demand a comprehensive climate bill banning new fossil fuel infrastructure. Remarkably, despite the legislative session ending in July, the legislature passed a climate bill following our actions. While it doesn’t yet include a ban on new fossil fuel infrastructure, our efforts enabled moderate groups to get their climate bill passed, demonstrating the importance of a radical flank. Images of our protest appeared widely in the media, including the Boston Globe’s front page.
But the fight is far from over. Hanscom Airfield’s private jet expansion, new fossil fuel projects, and systemic government inaction threaten to lock us into decades of emissions we cannot afford. The stakes could not be higher.
The fight against private jet expansion at Hanscom Airfield continues. On April 20th, XR Boston rebels shut down the airfield for over four hours, protesting 17 new hangars that would increase private jet services by 300%. This March, those rebels will stand trial, turning the courtroom into a platform to expose the injustice of expanding luxury emissions in a climate emergency.
We’ve also escalated pressure on Climate Chief Melissa Hoffer. Most recently, we disrupted her keynote at Harvard’s Power Shift conference, demanding she oppose the Hanscom expansion. When she refused, we held our ground, ultimately, she stormed off the stage. Hoffer’s continued focus on adaptation rather than prevention underscores the need for bold action to hold leaders accountable and prioritize systemic change. Through these actions, XR Boston remains steadfast in the fight to confront the climate crisis.
To win, we need to expand our organizing power and deepen our impact. Your contributions will directly fund:
1. Two Movement Growth Interns: These paid organizers will work alongside two supervisors to form a collaborative team dedicated to growing XR Boston’s capacity for direct action. Together, they’ll:
Optimize outreach to recruit and mobilize new members.
Strengthen inreach to engage and retain existing rebels.
Build connections with external climate groups to amplify our collective power.
Expand XR Boston’s flagship campaigns, such as No New Fossil Fuel Infrastructure (NNFFI), with greater reach and effectiveness.
2. Operational Costs: Sustaining our chapter requires funding for meeting spaces, storage, and staff organziers. These resources enable us to coordinate actions, host strategy sessions, and build toward mass mobilization. Expenses include:
Each monthly general meeting costs ~$250 to run
Every year we spend ~$7,000 on our artmaker’s space and the chapter’s storage unit
Two part-time organizing staff: ~$3,000 per organizer each month
This December and January, we’re holding chapter-wide strategy sessions to reflect on our journey and chart a path forward. The December 8 session will focus on workshopping a bold proposal for building toward mass mobilization, targeting the 3.5% participation level needed to create systemic change. This includes planning a massive Earth Day 2025 mobilization.
In mid-January, we’ll reconvene to finalize our proposal and create an actionable implementation plan. These strategy sessions are rooted in five years of lessons learned and will define how we grow from a small chapter to a true mass movement. We’re focused on improving internal systems to keep members engaged, overcoming despair through collective action, and forging stronger connections within Massachusetts’ climate movement.
With the Trump administration set to take office in January, we expect an onslaught of rollbacks to environmental protections and an emboldened fossil fuel industry. These policy changes will exacerbate the climate crisis and reinforce the structural violence that makes bold action necessary. Meanwhile, governments worldwide—including our own—continue to criminalize nonviolent protest.
XR Boston is prepared to rise to these challenges, but we need your support. Together, we can resist the expansion of new fossil fuel infrastructure, disrupt business as usual, and build a mass movement to demand a livable future.
XR Boston's fiscal sponsor is the Climate Direct Action Education Fund (CDA EF), EIN 99-3947166. CDA EF is an educational and charitable nonprofit corporation, currently tax-exempt pending under section 501(c)(3) of the Internal Revenue Code.