Northeast Ohio Area Coordinating Agency (NOACA)

Joel Ratner Community Partnerships (JRCP) spearheaded an outreach effort for Northeast Ohio Area Coordinating Agency, (NOACA,) as it sought out feedback from community leaders about its Climate Action Planning.  NOACA is dedicated to ensuring that travel in a five-county Ohio region is safe, cost-effective and environmentally sound.  The organization’s Climate Action Plan is focused on reducing gas emissions and mitigating the local impact of climate change.

For NOACA’s Climate Action Plan, JRCP put together 30 community outreach sessions and engaged with almost 700 participants reflecting the vast diversity of the region.  

These sessions allowed Climate Action Plan managers to hear from a spectrum of the community that ranged from the most progressive climate activists to the most adamant climate change deniers.

In this effort, JRCP team member, Peter Lawson Jones, conducted sessions across Cuyahoga, Lorain, Medina, Lake and Geauga Counties.  The organization also sought inputs via questionnaires that 571 respondents answered.  

This project serves as a great example of an outreach effort designed to listen to the breadth of community voices that are often left behind.