homepage - board of directors - 2009 election - candidate forum - rafael reyes
2009 Election Candidate Forum:
The Candidates
Rafael Reyes'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?
Member, SC Board of Directors: 5/06 – Present
Chair, Visibility & Outreach Advisory Cmte: 4/07 - Present
Chair, Cool Cities Mobilization Taskforce: 6/06 – 1/08
Organizational Effectiveness Committee: 1/05 – 5/06
Chair, Loma Prieta Chapter Bay Meadows Taskforce: 3/05 – 5/06
Chair, Sierra Summit Communications Cmte: 3/05 – 9/05
Chair, Beat Bush Campaign, Loma Prieta Chapter: 1/04 – 12/04
Acting Director and Chapter Chair, Loma Prieta Chapter: 1/02 – 1/04
Political Chair, Loma Prieta Chapter: 1/01 – 1/03
The accomplishments I’m most proud of in my Sierra Club leadership roles are:
• Board: ensuring our work on global warming has had the necessary resources, initiating our ClimateCrossroads.org online community, and building the technological and grassroots capacity of our Cool Cities campaign.
• Organizational Effectiveness: supported innovations such as the National Purpose/Local Action Project and the Sierra Summit
• Chapter leadership: leading in 2004 a highly successful battleground-state phone bank campaign, developing a top-notch local political team and revitalizing the chapter.
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 bring a strong understanding of organizational development having successfully managed staff, planned and led training, and mentored leaders. I have substantial fundraising experience with telefundraising, direct mail and foundation grants from my roles as acting director of the Loma Prieta Chapter and as development director for As You Sow. I bring a strong team- and results-oriented approach and very strong technology skills. Prior to making a career change to non-profit environmental work had a 15 year career in high-tech most recently with Hewlett-Packard where I was a senior systems architect and project manager.
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?
The most significant difference with the election is that the Sierra Club must move on a national level from playing defense to offense. This is structurally significant. To play defense it is necessary to be broad and generally focused on rapid response to unexpected challenges. Playing offense requires being much more focused and selective to drive an agenda forward. We will see an increased emphasis on work at the federal level given the important opportunities over the next 4 years. The Sierra Club has made significant strides to improve our effectiveness in preparation for this shift.
Also, while the political climate is substantially improved, we need to recognize that we have an enormous challenge to achieve the critical progress we need. It is essential to sustain our political impact – though now in many cases with a more solutions-oriented approach.
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?
Shifting to a pro-active, solutions oriented approach requires supporting rapidly scalable solutions. GreenWorks cleaning products are exceptional: low environmental impact compared to conventional toxic alternatives, cost comparable to conventional cleaners, and the scale of the market – some 20,000 stores carry GreenWorks. While there are other good products, unfortunately they are much more expensive and in far fewer stores – making them inaccessible to most Americans.
I am proud that the Sierra Club, after careful analysis, is helping introduce this product to Americans so their homes will be safer. The Sierra Club benefits through the cause-marketing arrangement which is appropriate. Use of the Sierra Club brand is an asset to GreenWorks. Supporting solutions is never totally perfect – solar power, electric cars, and GreenWorks too have room for improvement in production or the companies but it is essential to support the best solutions available if we are going to protect the planet.
What is your experience with outings, and what do you see as their role in the Club?
I frequently enjoy hikes with my wife and other members of my family. However, while I have been on some local Sierra Club outings, they have been few. Though not practiced in every chapter, outings are an essential to be able to “Enjoy, Explore and Protect the Planet.” Outings are a vital part of the Sierra Club’s community building and provide a hugely important avenue for people to experience the wonder of nature and as a result, recognize the importance of protecting it.
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?
The Sierra Club is among the country’s few volunteer-driven organizations. Volunteers and staff are members of one team with differing roles depending on context. All top-level policies at national and local levels are made, appropriately, by volunteers with staff input. But action plans and direction for implementation may come from staff once a policy is in place. We also have activities that are wholly volunteer driven. In our most effective initiatives staff and volunteers work as co-equal partners.
Essential to our impact is our grassroots presence and leadership. We’ve made strides in communication at all levels with Clubhouse, policy input forums, improved dialogue at the annual meeting, etc. However, there’s more to do. We need better advance notice and input on new initiatives, more relationship building between board and local leaders and use of video conferencing to bring people together, just to name a few needed steps
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?
I’m proud of my role developing leaders at the Loma Prieta Chapter. We revamped fundraising, made staffing changes, established better training, decision-making and institutional memory. In 2004 with the Bay Chapter we generated 30,000 battleground state phone calls. For these efforts I received the 2004 Honorary Field Staff award for volunteers who "have demonstrated grassroots campaign skills, and worked to build the longer-term grassroots political power of the Sierra Club."
As always, it’s essential to build teams, develop plans, have clear tasks, thank people, etc. However, the electronic tools enable us to do things on a far vaster scale. Two areas where things are most different are the degree of “coordinated decentralization” which is now possible as seen in the Obama campaign and secondly, the speed of action requiring much faster analysis and decision-making. We are now working to incorporate the learnings from the presidential race into our organizing.
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.
This is an area where the Club faces perhaps its most complex organizational challenge. Social changes are challenging the Club’s traditional notions of members and volunteering. Fewer people send checks in the mail for membership and younger people in particular are looking for much more flexible and specific ways to have an impact. The Club is already seeing declines in its traditional small member donor base. This is the same experience other similar organizations are having. In the coming years, it is likely that the Club will need to adapt with three major avenues for financial support: a) large scale major donors, b) more specific and decentralized small donor support, and c) private sector partnerships. For chapters, this will likely mean that a portion of chapter funds may be 501c3 restricted funds and greater utilization of online tools for small donor fundraising but tied more clearly to specific campaign requests.
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?
To continue to be successful the Sierra Club must draw in younger supporters and “look” more like the United States overall. To draw in younger supporters I have pushed for accelerating the Club’s technology initiatives including deployment of Convio online outreach system and the development of the online community ClimateCrossroads.org. To promote diversity, I have strongly supported our Diversity Initiative which is putting in place a number of actions to diversify the staff, bring training to chapters, and establish a more comprehensive strategy. It is also vital that we “introduce” the Sierra Club more broadly. For example, GreenWorks advertising with the Sierra Club logo in Ebony magazine and our Spanish language media work are key to present the Sierra Club brand to new audiences.
How effective are the Sierra Club's publication and electronic communication tools and which ones do you read or use?
I make extensive use of nearly all the Club’s communications tools. I also read our print media including local newsletters and the Sierra Magazine. Sierra Magazine is exceptional and is consistently cited as a key benefit by members. However, print media is in broad decline across the board raising questions about our other print media. There are significant opportunities to be more selective about our use of print, including shifting some, but not necessarily all local print communications to electronic form.
In general, our electronic communications offerings are good – sierraclub.org, Clubhouse for activists, email, video. Technology moves very fast so we need to continually work to make our tools as effective as possible. I’m pleased that we have made a major stride with the launch of ClimateCrossroads.org which I, in collaboration with Director Karpf, pushed for and have played an active role in guiding.