Your opinions on the Sierra Club (Please) …

I recently volunteered an evening “canvassing” for the Sierra Club this is door-to-door ‘solicitation’ (they hate this term) of money to build support for the issues on their agenda. The particular issue we were building membership (getting money) for this time was Protecting America’s Forests. I think everyone across the board has some sort of positive feeling for this initiative.

As a ‘canvasser’ you are given a “rap” sheet to memorize so you can hit all the major points without really answering any questions – work fast move on is the motto. I was teamed with the top ‘canvasser’ to show me the ropes, he was a really good guy, and I believe he genuinely felt he was out doing quality work for the environment.

As we went to each house (the shift started at 3 pm) the point from the beginning is to run through these “rap sheets” quickly and get the person with whom you’re speaking to contribute as much money on the spot as possible. This is where I began to notice a disturbing trend – membership values changed according to the way the house looked, the cars in the driveway, and other superficial nonsense. The opening line of the “rap” includes the statement “we are the nations oldest and largest grassroots environmental group.”

This is when I became most concerned by the motivations of the Sierra Club, because I take grassroots to mean getting out there and educating individuals on important issues face to face. Getting them to vote, telling them where to find more information on important subjects – what they can do to help etc. What I’m getting to here is - we went into a large neighborhood area about 100 residences (homes, duplexes, and apartments). The first home we stopped at told us she supported us, but could give no money because this was low-income housing- so he skipped the entire neighborhood (all low-income). This wasn’t a race thing at all it was just about money. Speaking with other ‘canvassers’ later I found this to be standard practice.

I set out on my own from about 6-9 pm - the shifts are late to catch people after work. I was dressed nice to give an appropriate impression at the door. Unfortunately most people feel the same way I do when someone knocks one their door at night asking for donations – suspicious, annoyed, both, or even frightened- times have changed. All told I received one $10.00 donation and 5 people told me they would support the Sierra club on through the website. Can you blame someone for not contributing money to a stranger at the door? However the Internet pledges are not even tracked!?! This baffled me – until I returned to the office and saw how the ‘canvassing directors’ were not pleased with the poor night everyone had (in their defense they were far from angry- just displeased).

I understand it takes a great deal of money to lobby against the various powerful organizations who seek to log National forests, Drill in the Artic refuge, etc., but my opinion has changed to some extent about the Sierra Club. Why do they need cash right NOW at the door so badly?

I was hoping to get some input from the BBS on personal experiences, feelings, and opinions on the Sierra Club. I am going to be doing some research on where all this membership/donation money is going and how it is used - to quell my own curiosity. I truly hope that the Sierra Club is doing good work and is not just another money making venture that pulls on concerned citizens hearts and guilt’s them into contributing their hard earned money.

KC

 

While I still find that the Sierra Club is overall a good organization, some of their rhetoric on certain issues is approaching unacceptable levels. There is no middle ground whatsoever; every issue is good or bad/ black or white. On the use of Nuclear power I think they are reaching PETA levels of exaggeration to scare people to death, this treatment continues with nuclear waste disposal. Create the classic NIMBY fear scenario and I guess the money starts to roll in - but in their defense often you have to fight dirty to win against a rotten opponent.

 

This is an unbiased look at what some of the better-known environmental groups do with the donations they receive. Answered many of my questions/ confirmed some of my suspicions - you have to fight fire with fire occasionally, but not all of the time …

Fat of the land
Movement's prosperity comes at a high price
By Tom Knudson
Bee Staff Writer
(Published April 22, 2001)

As a grass-roots conservationist from Oregon, Jack Shipley looked forward to his visit to Washington, D.C., to promote a community-based forest management plan. But when he stepped into the national headquarters of The Wilderness Society, his excitement turned to unease.

"It was like a giant corporation," Shipley said. "Floor after floor after floor, just like Exxon or AT&T."

In San Francisco, Sierra Club board member Chad Hanson experienced a similar letdown when he showed up for a soiree at one of the city's finest hotels in 1997.

"Here I had just been elected to the largest grass-roots environmental group in the world and I am having martinis in the penthouse of the Westin St. Francis," said Hanson, an environmental activist from Pasadena. "What's wrong with this picture? It was surreal."

Soon, Hanson was calling the Sierra Club by a new name: Club Sierra.

Although environmental organizations have accomplished many stirring and important victories over the years, today groups prosper while the land does not. Competition for money and members is keen. Litigation is a blood sport. Crisis, real or not, is a commodity. And slogans and sound bites masquerade as scientific fact.

"National environmental organizations, I fear, have grown away from the grass roots to mirror the foxes they had been chasing," said environmental author Michael Frome, at a wilderness conference in Seattle last year. "They seem to me to have turned tame, corporate and compromising."

Salaries for environmental leaders have never been higher. In 1999 --the most recent year for which comparable figures are available -- chief executives at nine of the nation's 10 largest environmental groups earned $200,000 and up, and one topped $300,000. In 1997, one group fired its president and awarded him a severance payment of $760,335.

Money is flowing to conservation in unprecedented amounts, reaching $3.5 billion in 1999, up 94 percent from 1992. But much of it is not actually used to protect the environment. Instead, it is siphoned off to pay for bureaucratic overhead and fund raising, including expensive direct mail and telemarketing consultants.

Subsidized by federal tax dollars, environmental groups are filing a blizzard of lawsuits that no longer yield significant gain for the environment and sometimes infuriate federal judges and the Justice Department. During the 1990s, the U.S. Treasury paid $31.6 million in legal fees for environmental cases filed against the government.

Yet look closely at environmentalism today and you also see promise and prosperity coming together to form a new style of environmentalism -- one that is sprouting quietly, community by community, across the United States and is rooted in results, not rhetoric.

"I'm so frustrated with the opportunism and impulsiveness of how groups are going about things," said Steve McCormick, president of The Nature Conservancy, which uses science to target and solve environmental problems. "What's the plan? What are the milestones by which we can measure our success?"

But as the Bush administration takes control in Washington, many groups are again tuning up sound bites -- not drawing up solutions. "President Bush is forging full steam ahead ... to open up the Arctic!" says John Flicker, president of the National Audubon Society, in one of the first mass-market fund-raising letters focusing on Bush's environmental policies. "I need you to make a Special Emergency Gift."

There is no clearinghouse for information about environmental groups, no oversight body watching for abuse and assessing job performance. What information exists is scattered among many sources, including the Internal Revenue Service, philanthropic watchdogs, the U.S. Department of Justice and nonprofit trade associations.

Sift through their material and here is what you find:

Donations are at flood stage. In 1999, individuals, companies and foundations gave an average of $9.6 million a day to environmental groups, according to the National Center for Charitable Statistics, which monitors nonprofit fund raising.

About three-fourths of all contributions in 1999 came from an estimated 8 million to 17 million Americans. Most personal contributions were modest, but some were not.

Vice President Dick Cheney, then-CEO of Halliburton Co., gave $10,000 to the Conservation Fund. Harrison Ford gave $5 million to Conservation International. Julian Robertson Jr., a leading money manager, gave more than $100,000 to Environmental Defense and more than $50,000 to The Nature Conservancy.

"This is a growth industry -- a huge growth industry," said Daniel Beard, chief operating officer at the National Audubon Society. "There is a lot of wealth that has accumulated in this country over the last 20 years. And people are wanting to do good things with it."

John Muir, the California naturalist whose spirited defense of the Sierra Nevada brought conservation to the forefront of the nation's attention a century ago. Living on bread, oatmeal and water, Muir would disappear into the Sierra for weeks, then return and pour his passion into print. "Climb the mountains and get their good tidings," he wrote. "Nature's peace will flow into you as sunshine flows into trees."

David Brower, the legendary former Sierra Club leader who led successful battles to keep dams out of Dinosaur National Monument and the Grand Canyon in the 1950s and '60s, said success springs from deeds, not dollars.

Today, there is a new approach -- junk mail and scare tactics. Five other major groups -- including household names such as Greenpeace and the Sierra Club -- spend so much on fund raising, membership and overhead they don't meet standards set by philanthropic watchdog groups. "What works with direct mail? Threats and crisis," said Beard, the Audubon Society chief operating officer.

Many environmental groups, The Wilderness Society included, also use a legal accounting loophole to call much of what they spend on fund raising, "public education."

In 1999, for instance, The Wilderness Society spent $1.46 million on a major membership campaign consisting of 6.2 million letters. But when it came time to disclose that bill in its annual report, the society shifted 87 percent -- $1.27 million -- to public education. The group also shrank a $94,411 telemarketing bill by deciding that 71 percent was public education.

Comfortable office digs and sumptuous fund-raising banquets are another drain on donor dollars. The Sierra Club spends $59,473 a month for its office lease in San Francisco. In Washington, Greenpeace pays around $45,000 a month.

In June 1998, The Nature Conservancy spent more than $1 million on a single fund-raising bash in New York City's Central Park. Carly Simon and Jimmy Buffett played. Masters of ceremonies included Dan Rather, Peter Jennings, Mike Wallace and Leslie Stahl. Variety magazine reported that the 1,100 guests were treated to a martini bar and a rolling cigar station.

"The goal was to raise (our) profile among high-dollar donors," Conservancy spokesman Mike Horak said in a statement. And it paid off: $1.8 million was raised.

Salaries gobble up money raised, too. In 1999, top salaries at the 10 largest environmental groups averaged $235,918, according to IRS tax forms. By contrast, the president of Habitat for Humanity, International -- which builds homes for the poor -- earned $62,843. At Mothers Against Drunk Driving, the president made $69,570. Among environmental groups, Ducks Unlimited paid its leader the most: $346,882.

"Those salaries are obscene," said Martin Litton, a former Sierra Club board member, who worked tirelessly over a half-century to help bring about the creation of Redwoods National Park in 1968 and Sequoia National Monument last year. Litton did it for free.

Full article:
http://www.sacbee.com/static/archive/news/projects/environment/20010422.html