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2009 Election Candidate Forum:
The Candidates

Robin Mann's responses to the 10 questions of the candidate forum:
Candidate responses were limited to 150 words per question.

What leadership positions have you held in the Sierra Club, and what have you accomplished in those positions?

As local Group ExCom member, I have helped the Group conduct local conservation and political efforts and served as the lead on three local grassroots campaigns.  As chapter Water Issues Committee chair, I represented the Club in collaborative efforts to strengthen various state-level requirements and guided the related grassroots engagement, and helped launch and build a new state-wide clean water coalition.   I chaired three national campaign teams, working to build effective volunteer and staff teamwork, and guiding deliberations on strategy, outreach and grassroots mobilization.  I served on and chaired the national Conservation Governance Committee, prior to its sunsetting, and helped lead its efforts to oversee a broad range of conservation entities and to resolve conservation policy-related conflicts.  As a member of the Board, I have been particularly involved in helping implement the conservation-related Project Renewal restructuring and procedural changes, and overseeing early development of our new Climate Recovery Partnership.

What needed skills or abilities will you bring to the Board of Directors: A team player? Conflict resolution experience? Financial expertise? Technology/communications? Other? Be specific.

I have experience gained in leadership roles over more than 20 years at group, chapter and national committee and Board levels.  My experience with building and leading national campaign teams informs my thinking about how to encourage effective staff and volunteer teamwork.  My post-graduate economics training provides a useful foundation for my involvement in Board financial decision-making.

A lot has changed in the last 6 months—President-elect Obama's victory, the unprecedented economic crises, the number of people energized by the election. How should the Sierra Club view its role in this changed environment?

We have a tremendous opportunity to engage with allies and help build broad public support for the Obama agenda on green energy and climate change mitigation and adaptation.  Our demands should be ambitious and prioritized, but we need to make them achievable by building the essential broad public support.  We must achieve a vastly greater engagement of our own members, enabling us to maximize our influence as a strong, progressive voice. We should build and maintain our influence with Obama administration officials by using it strategically and in a focused way, recognizing the importance of prioritizing our demands on the administration and the Congress, and preserving our influence by maintaining our focus.  Building relationships with labor and justice advocates in support of shared goals in advancing a Green Economy and Green Jobs agenda is a key contribution we will make to the achievement of our environmental objectives.

Please comment on the question of the Club engaging in business partnerships, including the Club's recent experience in cause-related marketing with Clorox Greenworks line of household cleaning products?

Particularly compelling and convincing to me in reaching a decision on Greenworks was the affordability of the products -- offering us the opportunity to engage more consumers in ‘buying green’.  Early results showing an increased market share for all green cleaning products were affirming.  Equally positive is the opening of an opportunity to prod Clorox into recycling its Brita filters in the U.S.  Generally, my view is that business partnerships can enable the Club to advance our conservation goals through promoting responsible corporate behavior, while augmenting the declining non-tax-deductible revenues from contributions.  We need to be smart about how we do this.  The need for a better-defined process for screening potential marketing arrangements was made clear in the initial evaluation of the Greenworks decision.  More importantly, development of a new business partnerships policy, informed by Club-wide input, will clarify what principles should guide the Club in considering any future opportunities.

What is your experience with outings, and what do you see as their role in the Club?

My experience with national outings is very limited but I hope to improve that at some point. I have mainly taken advantage of occasional involvement in local outings and an ICO day trip.  The potential to build the synergy between our Outings Program and our conservation work is enormous, and concerted efforts to do so have been undertaken in recent years.  Outings offer the opportunity to engage our members and others in enjoying our wild resources and to nurture their desire to protect them.

In the spirit of One Club, what do you see as the proper relationship of staff and volunteers to each other and to the mission of the Club in 2009 and beyond, and how would you improve the connection between National Sierra Club operations and grassroots leadership?

I support the allocation of responsibilities that have been clarified through the Project Renewal process.  The volunteer leadership decides what our conservation policies are and defines what our conservation priorities will be, informed by input from staff and volunteers, alike. The relationship of staff and volunteers involved with leading our campaigns and programs should be collaborative, drawing equally on the expertise of all team members.  

A fundamental principle underlying the establishment of the Activist Network is the importance of strengthening the support for local activism.  We must enable the Network to reach its potential as best we can, given the immediate tight budget conditions we face.  As we build our online capabilities, we must determine how to synergize our online activism and our on-the-ground work at the local level, and I strongly support identifying this challenge as an important priority for attention in the coming months.

What is your experience with grassroots organizing? What do you see as the key differences between 20th century grassroots organizing and 21st century grassroots organizing?

My direct experience with grassroots organizing has relied primarily on traditional, on-the-ground organizing tools with some simple, electronic outreach.  The much more robust online organizing capabilities the Club is developing offer a great opportunity to connect and engage a vastly greater number of our members and others in our campaigns.  As noted, however, it is imperative that we determine how to create a mutually reinforcing relationship between our online organizing and our local, on-the-ground activism.

What is your vision of ways to finance the Club's Chapters, Groups, and volunteer structures in the next 2, 5, and 10 years? Would you support mechanisms such as national-chapter fundraising partnerships, new types of grants, allocation of funds based on non-demographic criteria, or general assistance in outside fund-raising? Suggest other ways. Please be specific.

I strongly support the development of collaborative national-chapter fund-raising partnerships, in support of our new Climate Recovery Partnership in particular.  I also believe we must provide support to chapters and volunteer entities in identifying appropriate local and regional foundations to approach for support.  It seems important to evaluate the merits of non-demographic criteria for allocating funds, given the highly varied donor communities our chapters face.  I also expect the Convio system to help chapters build much more effective fund-raising programs through the addition of online giving.

The Club is undertaking work to bring more youth and diverse cultures into our membership and leadership. What specific strategies would you advocate to accomplish this?

The development of online organizing and social networking are critical to bringing more youth and diverse cultures into our membership and leadership.  Our new Justice and Communities Program, which will oversee the expansion of our relationship building with diverse communities, has an important role to play in guiding our activist leaders in building potential new connections to diverse communities and youth, and also attracting new members and leaders.  Another important strategy being pursued is to strengthen the coordination among the various programs that relate to youth, including the Building Bridges to the Outdoors Program and the Sierra Student Coalition, and to build their leader engagement opportunities.

How effective are the Sierra Club's publication and electronic communication tools and which ones do you read or use?

I subscribe to several electronic communications, including Currents, Taking the Initiative, The Green Life, and RAW.  There is a diversity of function, tone and depth that offer the opportunity to engage and inform a variety of audiences.  For instance, the edginess of RAW seems very well-suited to reaching younger audiences.  

Regarding print media, my view on print newsletters has changed over the past couple of years.  I think there are alternative ways to deliver time-sensitive conservation and outings information more effectively and affordably, and I strongly believe that Chapters and Groups should at least be exploring ways to enable their members to opt for an online subscription, allowing them to cut down on mailing, and free up scarce resources for use to better effect.