Why Climate Activists Stay or Leave: The Role of Hope, Belonging and Shared Purpose

The findings point to two recurring themes: believing the group can make a difference and feeling that there is a place for you within it.

Showing up for climate action can mean squeezing meetings between work shifts, spending weekends campaigning, and carrying worries that don't disappear when an event ends. People bring those worries into groups where they hope their effort will count and where others understand why they care. What happens inside those groups can shape whether someone keeps returning or decides to leave.

A study published in Frontiers in Psychology explores these experiences titled "Why do climate activists stay and why do they leave? Mixed-methods analyses of interview data point to collective efficacy and collective identity beliefs". Anna Castiglione and her colleagues interviewed young activists about the relationships, frustrations, and convictions behind their involvement. The findings point to two recurring themes: believing the group can make a difference and feeling that there is a place for you within it.

Leaving an organization did not always mean giving up on climate action or social change. Some former members carried their commitment into teaching, union organizing, mutual aid, or community projects that felt closer to people's everyday needs. Their accounts show why membership numbers alone can miss what happens to someone's activism after they stop attending meetings.

The people behind the findings

The researchers interviewed 35 unpaid volunteers from three California organizations: Sunrise Movement, 350.org, and a University of California climate advocacy group. Participants were aged 18 to 33, with an average age of 24, and most were women. Eighteen were still participating regularly, and 17 had been disengaged from their organization for at least three months.

The interviews took place between March and December 2022, lasted roughly an hour, and covered reasons for staying involved and obstacles to participation. Researchers examined recurring ideas in the interviews, grouped them into nine psychological factors for numerical comparisons, and explored four broader themes drawn from research and organizing experience. Those themes covered active hope, skills for changing society, electoral and community organizing, and personal and group wellbeing.

Community was mentioned as a reason for involvement by 94% of participants, followed by moral responsibility at 83% and a vision for a better future at 77%. Both current and former members described these motivations, including responsibility toward vulnerable communities, future generations, and the natural world. Meaningful work, useful skills, and clear responsibilities gave people further reasons to contribute.

Believing the work matters and feeling part of it

The researchers use "collective efficacy" to describe belief in what people can accomplish together, including confidence in a particular organization and its strategy. Their broader measure included recognizing and celebrating campaign successes, which can make progress easier to see. This factor appeared in 94% of current members' accounts of staying involved, compared with 53% of former members' accounts.

Problems involving collective identity, or a shared sense of belonging, appeared as obstacles among 53% of former members and 22% of current members. These included weak community ties, interpersonal conflict, and inadequate sensitivity to race, gender, or class. Neither numerical comparison provided firm evidence of a group difference after the researchers accounted for the multiple comparisons they made, so the percentages describe suggestive patterns rather than settled conclusions.

The interviews give those patterns a human context, with current members often describing friendships and shared work that helped them turn worry into meaningful action. The researchers call this "active hope": finding value in acting together without needing a guarantee of success. Some former members described growing isolation or disappointment, even when they continued to care deeply about the issues.

Exhaustion, disagreements, and different paths to change

Burnout or overwork and competing responsibilities were each mentioned by 66% of participants, making them the most common obstacles. Burnout appeared more often among current members than former members, showing that exhaustion did not neatly separate those who stayed from those who left. Participants described demanding jobs, studies, family illness, leadership pressures, and pandemic-era online meetings that made it difficult to protect their time.

Uneven workloads could leave a small number of volunteers carrying responsibilities that others no longer had the capacity to manage. People in both groups described boundaries, breaks, and delegation as ways to protect their wellbeing. Current members more often described supportive communication and being heard, with former members recounting unresolved conflict, rushed decisions, and national leadership overlooking local concerns.

Disagreement with an organization's strategy appeared among 53% of former members and 17% of current members. Some questioned narrow campaigns or felt disappointed by politicians they had helped elect, and others wanted stronger connections between climate work and racial or economic justice. Feeling shut out of these conversations could deepen the distance between a volunteer and their organization.

The researchers expected current members to favor community organizing over electoral work, and the interviews challenged that expectation. Current members often supported combining local action with elections and policy campaigns despite their doubts about political institutions. Many former members preferred work addressing immediate needs, such as reliable transport, greener neighborhoods, and livelihoods, because those changes felt more tangible.

What groups can learn about keeping people involved

Organizing gave people skills in public speaking, collaboration, planning, and leadership that remained useful beyond a particular campaign. Current members often connected that learning to a broader commitment to changing society, including struggles over racial and economic justice. Former members described taking those skills into other organizations, jobs, or educational settings, making departure part of a continuing commitment for some.

The researchers suggest that groups explain how their chosen strategies can produce change, recognize victories, and distribute work through clear roles. Their recommendations include making room for disagreement, addressing exclusion, and treating rest and mutual support as part of organizing. Connecting climate campaigns to local needs may help members see how their effort improves the communities they care about.

These findings come from a small, self-selected group of young California volunteers interviewed in 2022, which limits how broadly they apply across ages, countries, political settings, or paid organizing roles. The study captured people's accounts at one point in time and cannot establish that belonging or confidence caused them to stay, and several researchers' organizing backgrounds may have influenced their interpretations. The accounts offer groups concrete matters to examine: whether members understand the work, trust one another, have space to speak, and can contribute without being worn down.