Welcome to How We Won, a new newsletter about organizing victories and the people that made them happen.

I’m Lindsay, a Chicago-based writer and editor, and the creator of the Beyond November resource guide. In the overwhelm of living through what some days feels like a neverending tidal wave of crises and cries of “we’re cooked,” once a month, this newsletter will highlight a big community win — be it related to housing justice, climate, education or any number of other issues — and interview the organizers behind it about what worked, what didn’t and what lessons you can apply to the fight in your own communities.

I hope this is a source for grounding, guidance and hope in a difficult time. Thank you for being here, and hope to see you again next month. Onward! 

It’s a refrain all over the country right now, in the Midwest and the Sun Belt, in large cities and rural areas. A big tech company comes in with a proposal to build a massive data center that would have significant harmful environmental and public health impacts.

But a countermelody has emerged over the past year — more and more communities are resisting, and successfully beating, these data centers. 

“So many of us have been playing whack-a-mole all over the state as our state legislators keep approving laws to make it easy for big businesses to come in, especially data centers, and make it harder for regular citizens to even know what’s happening in the process,” says Kimberly Koczan, a spiritual director and clergyperson involved in the grassroots Fort Wayne Data Center Action campaign. 

When Google initially approached local leadership about the proposed data center project in Allen County, decision-makers like city and county government and the Chamber of Commerce were supportive—and much of the public didn’t know what was happening.

“We had to file FOIA requests,” Koczan says. “The secrecy is part of the playbook for a lot of these data centers.” 

Then the permit requests came flooding in. There was the application for 34 diesel generators, each about the size of a semitrailer, and then the emissions-spewing cooling towers, the lack of carbon-neutral energy sources. And then a little more than a year later, the company resubmitted their permit request, increasing the number from 34 generators to a whopping 179.

“There were so many alarm bells at once, and finally a mass of our city said, ‘This is bad,’” Koczan says. “We’ve gotten hundreds and hundreds of people out to ask for protection of our health and for the wellbeing of our watershed and community.”

Fort Wayne Data Center Action rallied the community to submit an influx of public comments about Google’s air permit requests to the Indiana Department of Environmental Management. 11 months later, those permits have not been approved, and organizers see the prolonged delay of their decision due to public outcry as a win.

The fight against data centers has been notable for drawing in community members across the political spectrum, and that’s as true in Allen County as anywhere else. Koczan says relationship building through intentional conversations has been key, including canvassing, roundtables and one-on-one conversations, and identifying people who can talk to their neighbors.

Koczan recalls a situation where she requested materials for canvassers from Sierra Club. The organization put the logo for their “Beyond Coal” campaign on the materials, and the canvasser, who is vocally supportive of coal, said they could no longer participate. The volunteer, Koczan says, holds very different political views from her and shares those beliefs online, but through phone and in-person conversations, she says the two can see one another’s common cause.

“Two years ago, all of the people most closely impacted by the proximity of this data center felt like they were virtually alone in this fight,” Koczan says. “There might have been nasty things said on some news media comment page [in the past], but now we’re seeing one another’s humanity. It’s allowing us to discuss things even beyond the data center. That’s been one of the most hopeful things, building that community.”

That community building and canvassing has been essential to building perhaps the most powerful force in resisting data centers, according to Koczan — an informed, proactive citizenry that is paying attention to moves like zoning changes and permits and getting ahead of the information. That proactivity allows organizers to educate decision-makers and each other before these critical decisions come to a vote instead of waiting for a public hearing to express opposition.

“So many people, even living quite close by, don’t know what’s happening,” Koczan says. “It’s amazing to me that something that was approved, even two years ago, we’re still meeting people that live within two miles who didn’t know what was going on.”

Koczan’s background in Kingian nonviolence informs how she engages with decision-makers. She says it’s natural to be angry and reactive when responding to the impact data centers would have on the community, but encourages people to build relationships with decision-makers to guide mutual wins.

“Agitation allows us to get in the door, but collaboration moves policy better,” she says.

Building a strong, sustained community base is essential for fighting burnout, too. The strength of the network in Fort Wayne helped Koczan feel confident to ask for support while recovering from a concussion. “Not one of us has to be on all the time, because you can make this a full time job for free,” she says.

These effective strategies have extended beyond Fort Wayne. Organizations like Earth Charter Indiana are working to build people power across the state, and organizers fighting data centers, in rural and urban areas and across all spectra, are connecting to share knowledge, including via a Facebook page called Protect Indiana. 

“Let’s use our story to benefit other communities,” Koczan says. “Our stories are not separate even though the process for zoning applications and permits and all these things are specific to a locale. The way we approach it if we’re not going to burn out has to be broader-based and collective.”

Not every attempt to stop a data center in Indiana has been successful, but the wins are growing. Earlier this month, following intense public pressure, developers American Tower Company withdrew a proposal for a 20,000–square-foot data center in Pike Township, which includes part of Indianapolis. And municipal leadership in rural Fulton County, in the north central part of the state, enacted a one-year moratorium on new data center projects. 

In Allen County, however, the fight rages on. 

There have been setbacks, of course, like Google’s failure to disclose the projected energy or water usage for the project. But Koczan says organizers are welcoming people from every age group to take action, and community members are learning a lot about civics and public processes.

After months of collective public pressure, on December 11th, 2025, the local community fighting the data center was able to sit down with representatives from Google, Greater Fort Wayne and the local energy company. “There was a lot of gaslighting, but there was still some accountability,” Koczan says.

A small victory emerged from those meetings as a result of local organizers applying sustained public pressure. When the company submitted a bill to the local tax base to cover a second round of stormwater drainage pipes, the public said no, and Google did end up paying for this infrastructure. 

“It sounds like a small win when it’s just a $200,000 bill, but the great thing about that is it sets a precedent that City Council and Google know that we are paying attention and we are not going to keep paying their bills,” Koczan says.

And the momentum continues, incrementally. The group engaged the City Council to hold Google accountable with a rally and march, and the council wrote to IDEM to ask for “strictest possible environment and permit review standards” to “protect the environment and our citizens.”

“Our story is one of small successes that came too late, but we’re persisting,” Koczan says. “These small successes are becoming more of a pain in the neck for everybody. We hope it means eventually they will give up on the worst practices before they get to 12 buildings.”

Koczan advises community members that “the large corporations are counting on our complicity,” and to approach the talking points the companies building data centers provide and the urgency with which they are being built with skepticism. She emphasizes the importance of people new to the fight to start by getting to know and build relationships with their public officials, showing up to meetings, and identifying people in the community who can do research about permits and other documents. 

“It does feel like taking on a giant,” Koczan says. “Sometimes we can get mired in hopelessness or not even having access to the power people to work collaboratively, so when we have successes, we know we might not get in the same room as these power utilities and corporations like Google, but we know they are paying attention. It gives us energy to keep going and to know we can make a difference.”

Join us every second Friday for more stories of How We Won. Thank you for reading and sharing. Keep going!