ReWorld Volunteer Spotlight: Amy Riley
As an entirely volunteer-run organization, ReWorld depends on a team of dedicated individuals from around the world who freely offer their time and talents to make our work possible. Our Volunteer Spotlight series aims to peel back the curtain on some of these incredible climate crusaders. For our first installment, we sat down virtually with Amy Riley, ReWorld’s Marketing Communications lead.
A Saint Louis native now based in California’s Riverside County, Amy has been a volunteer since April 2023. She shares how her work in the renewable energy sector and her love of nature led her to join ReWorld, as well as some lessons and highlights from her first year on our leadership team.
Tell us a little about your professional journey and how it led you to volunteer with ReWorld.
I’m a marketing communications (marcom) professional in the climate space, but that wasn’t how I started. I initially wanted to teach English to speakers of other languages, but I quickly learned that was not the right path for me. By lucky chance, I was writing a book review blog at the same time and had a lot of success with it, and that’s how I jumped into marcom.
I worked for a communications firm in transportation electrification where I supported public utilities as well as government agencies with their outreach programs. That’s when I got really interested in doing more climate work, which is what brought me to ReWorld. I saw a post from our co-founder Prudhvi Dharmana in the Work on Climate Slack channel about needing help, and I thought, “You know what? I like energy, I like transportation electrification, but I also like trees, and those other things that we think of more immediately when we think of our environment.” So that’s how I came to ReWorld.
What are your roles and responsibilities at ReWorld?
I’m the marketing communications lead which involves overseeing a lot of different things — from how we message and position ourselves to working with our content lead who developed this really robust blog system to social media — which is where I’ve actually spent a lot of my time because it’s my strongest background area — to just getting the word out about ReWorld. I also do a lot of volunteer recruitment, so when people are interested in coming to ReWorld I’m often one of the first people to have a call with them to tell them about the organization.
It sounds like there’s a lot of crossover between your professional career and the work you do with ReWorld. What are some of the similarities and differences?
It’s actually been really interesting. As you know, one of our goals at ReWorld is to be able to provide volunteers with new experiences and learning opportunities — so when I was first thinking about joining, I wanted to work on PR, which I have some experience in but wanted to strengthen that muscle. But they already had someone doing that, so Prudhvi suggested taking a leadership role in marcom instead, which sounded great.
There is a lot of crossover, but it’s also been a really big learning experience for me. I’ve done a lot of work in the public sector and the for-profit sector, which is very different from nonprofit. You have to take a different, lighter approach and keep in mind that fundraising is always a huge part of it.
For example, one of the biggest differences in nonprofit is that we have to very blatantly ask for money in a way that’s different than when you’re trying to sell something. But there are still rules around that, which I’m still learning. You have to be careful in how you approach it. And I think there are also a lot of expectations around how resources are being used. You don’t want to be showing anything that looks like somebody’s donated money might be going towards something frivolous.
When you were choosing to volunteer, what drew you to the climate space in general and ReWorld specifically?
In terms of the climate space, whenever I’m suffering or having a bad day, I like to go out into nature. I almost feel like I’m becoming a birdwatching nerd — not literally, but kind of. And I love to hike. I feel like I live in one of the most beautiful states in the country, and it’s under threat — especially all of the natural resources and biodiversity that California has. That really bothers me. So being able to contribute, give back, or fight that is very, very rewarding.
Previously I was getting paid to work on climate in the energy space, which I think is one of the most important areas we can be working in, but my heart is really with nature. That’s what drew me to ReWorld — that and the shared passion that the founders have for protecting biodiversity.
Can you expand on why you think energy is such an important space in terms of climate work?
We’ve built for ourselves a world where we rely very heavily on energy, and prior to just a couple decades ago, we were completely relying on fossil fuels to power our world — that’s both the electricity in your house and the gas in your car. And then there are the expectations we’ve come to have in terms of goods and movement of goods. A lot of Americans especially I feel are not aware that the thing they’re ordering from Amazon has gone through many hands and many places and cost quite a bit of fossil fuel allotment to get to them.
So this is the world we’ve built, and we can’t just change the way we live… well, we may be forced to if we don’t get there fast enough. But that is one of the reasons why energy and working towards renewable energy sources is so important. And it leads into the whole idea of the “electrification of everything.” Electricity is very efficient — an electric vehicle is more efficient than a gas vehicle in terms of the energy that it uses. If we can get our appliances, our transport, our whole world to be more efficient using electricity, and then power that electricity through renewable sources like wind and sun, then we’ll still be able to have the lives we’ve grown accustomed to — but they’re going to be cleaner, better for us, and better for our planet.
Of the work you’ve done with ReWorld, is there anything you’ve enjoyed the most or that you’re most proud of?
I’m really proud of the team we’ve built. We have a really great volunteer team; everyone is really dedicated. Obviously people have to come and go — it’s volunteer work, everyone has to eat, different life situations come up — but that is something that I feel really good about.
We work very closely with the Wildlife Conservation Network, and one moment that meant a lot to me was when I decided to go up to San Francisco for an event they were having. I got to meet Rosamira Guillen (the co-founder of Proyecto Tití), as well as Prudhvi and our core team member and science advisor Shruti Sarode. It was totally worth it — I really enjoyed getting to meet everyone and learning more about conservation.
I believe conservation work like what Rosamira is doing is really the key in many ways to solving the climate crisis, because it’s very community based. On the surface we think, “Oh, we’re saving the monkeys!” — but they’re also creating local income for people and instilling a sense of pride about their community and the land that they’re from. Learning more about that was really awesome.
What motivates you to keep volunteering with ReWorld? What do you get out of this experience, either personally or professionally?
Part of it has just been the satisfaction of expanding my own network. When you work at one company, you get very focused on their world and the way they do things. I think being a part of ReWorld, having the privilege to be on the leadership team and having some input into strategic decisions, has been really rewarding. And getting to see how other organizations operate — not just ReWorld, but also WCN and Proyecto Tití, and a few other nonprofits we’ve interviewed — has been really helpful and I think makes me a better professional.
What do you like to do outside of work and volunteering?
My favorite weekly activity is playing pub trivia — I absolutely love it. The people I play with are very casual, but we do try to play most weeks. I’m not very good at it all the time, but this year I decided to track how we were doing. We play at a couple different places, and I learned that where we’re playing actually makes a difference in how the same score can affect our outcome. It’s nerdy.
The other thing that sometimes surprises people is that I’m a huge fan of horror. I love horror movies and books. Part of the reason is because I know if I sit down to watch a horror movie, it’s definitely going to keep my attention.
Lastly, is there anything you’d like to plug or share with our readers?
Follow ReWorld if you don’t already! I don’t think I have anything to plug right now besides that, but I hope to soon. I will say that I am open for work, so if anyone wants to hire me, I’m here!