How Minneapolis Climate Week Is Organized
Last updated October 2026
Thinking about hosting? Here's how the week works, and why it's worth an evening in February. Minneapolis Climate Week runs February 1–5, 2027, across the Twin Cities metro.
Ready to plan? The Organizer Hub has the dates, how to list, how to host well, and the ground rules.
Still figuring it out? Share an event idea. It takes about five minutes, and half-formed ideas are welcome.
Table of contents
Why host
People are hungry to know what's actually working on climate in the place they live. Not national headlines. Their city, their neighborhood, the people one building over. Minneapolis Climate Week is five days where the Twin Cities shows its work.
Last February, the first year, that looked like 25 events over eight days, hosted and co-presented by more than 20 organizations, in breweries, coffeeshops, a cinema, a studio, and out on the ice.
Here's what hosting can do for you:
- For nonprofits: new people and new supporters. MCW puts your work in front of people who are looking for a way in, on the same calendar funders and partners are reading that week.
- For companies and public agencies: a credible place to show progress. Share real numbers, including what's hard, with a room that wants to hear it. Local, specific progress is the story people are missing.
- For everyone: meet people you wouldn't otherwise. The week puts founders, union members, faith communities, students, city staff, and neighbors on one calendar.
And it's free. Free to list, free to host, and your event stays yours.
What the week is for
Climate change can feel heavy, and it is. And also, a lot of good work is happening across the Twin Cities metro that most people never get to see. The week exists to change that.
Our purpose: The purpose of Minneapolis Climate Week is to animate Minnesota as a hub for climate action by building connections, celebrating vibrant work, and accelerating solutions that cultivate a decarbonized, regenerative, and equitable future.
It's built for a wide circle:
- People doing climate work as their careers, including founders, innovators, scientists, advocacy organizations, and community organizers.
- Job seekers, Minnesota companies, the University of Minnesota, funders, and faith communities.
- Small businesses, unions, neighborhood associations, healthcare workers, teachers, and students.
Those people arrive for different reasons:
- People worried about climate change get hope grounded in evidence: real, local progress they can see and join.
- The climate-curious and career switchers get a front door: events to attend, organizations to know, and people to meet, without needing to know someone first.
- People already working in climate get the whole picture at once, and the colleagues they didn't know they had.
We measure the week against four goals:
- See the whole ecosystem at once. Hundreds of organizations work on climate here, and most don't know each other. We count how many organizations host and how many new collaborations come out of the week.
- Help people use programs that already exist. Rebates, enrollments, and grants are already funded and waiting. We count sign-ups and applications.
- Open the front door. We track how many attendees are new, and how many are still connected six months later.
- Celebrate the people doing the work. Nonprofits, public agencies, and community leaders get a real platform and are named.
We also want the week to feel human. Alongside talks and tours, we hope to see events that make room for environmental justice, for joy, for rest, and for grief. You don't need to hit all of this. Pick one thing and aim at it.
Who organizes MCW
Minneapolis Climate Week is coordinated by the Twin Cities Climate Collaborative (TC3) and Structure Climate, as part of the Climate Week Network, with a growing coalition of local hosts, volunteers, and partners. We're also forming a steering committee, with host representation, to help guide the week.
TC3 coordinates the calendar, the newsletter, and the week as a whole. It doesn't run the events. Each one belongs to the person or organization hosting it.
MCW returns in 2027 for its second year, after the first week in February 2026.
How it works
We hold the container. You hold the event.
| The organizing team handles | Hosts handle |
|---|---|
| One shared calendar and avoiding clashes | The idea, format, and speakers |
| Newsletters, the daily guide, and promotion | The venue, food, and logistics |
| Listing guidelines and the code of conduct | Their own outreach |
| Sponsorship of the week as a whole | Their own guest experience |
| Collecting results and sharing what happened | A short report afterward |
Three promises shape all of it:
- We curate, we don't compete. We make your work visible instead of running programs that duplicate it.
- It's a big tent. The week welcomes many climate stories at once: business as a source of good, right relationship with tribal nations, centering environmental justice, and all-of-the-above solutions. MCW isn't an advocacy organization, and it doesn't campaign for any one position.
- Funded by the community, never owned by it. Sponsors help pay for the week. Funding never buys a spot on the calendar or a say over the program.
To list an event, it needs to be in the Twin Cities metro or online, between February 1 and 5, 2027, on our Luma calendar, and in line with the code of conduct. That's it. The full steps, plus a hosting guide, are in the Organizer Hub.
What we're committing to
We want MCW to be a week where people who don't usually see themselves in climate spaces show up, and stay. Good intentions aren't enough, so here's what we're doing:
- A code of conduct with named people you can reach during the week. We're recruiting more responders from outside TC3, too.
- An honoraria policy for community organizers, Indigenous partners, artists, and others giving their own time.
- Free or pay-what-you-can by default, with transit, mobility, childcare, and virtual options listed honestly on every event.
- Tracking one hard number: how many attendees and volunteers are new to this community.
- Going looking for new hosts, including faith communities, unions, libraries, neighborhood associations, immigrant-led organizations, Native-led organizations, trade groups, farmers, and artists, before the calendar fills, not after.
- Asking for help. We're actively seeking partnership and guidance from people working in environmental justice, and asking what would make the week worth their time rather than assuming.
The details for each are in the Organizer Hub. This is a starting point, not a finished answer. If you have ideas, tell us.
Questions
Email hello@mplsclimateweek.org. We're a small, mostly volunteer team, so give us a couple of days.
Thank you for considering hosting. This week is built by the people who show up, and we'd love for that to include you.