homepage - board of directors - 2009 election - candidate forum - david scott
2009 Election Candidate Forum:
The Candidates
David Scott'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?
Current roles:
Co-Chair, New Administration Task Force. Coordinating the process for conveying Club recommendations on appointees and policy to the Obama Administration.
Member, Mission Strategy Advisory Committee. Developing recommendations for the Board on long-term opportunities and threats facing the Club.
Member, Curbing Carbon Campaign Design Team. Developing Club campaign to get comprehensive carbon dioxide emissions legislation.
Previous roles:
Vice-Chair, Conservation Governance Committee, 2007-08 (Appointed 2005). Coordinated the Club’s National Conservation Program. Helped develop our Smart Energy Campaign, including successful projects on car emissions, mercury reductions and renewable energy. Also helped lead the America's Wild Legacy Campaign.
Chair, Sustainable Planet Strategy Team, 2004-2005 (Appointed 2002). Responsible for Population, Trade, and Energy Programs.
Regional Vice President, 1999-2001. Led the Arctic Refuge fight in the Midwest, where a former Republican senator cast crucial votes against drilling. Led campaign for stronger Great Lakes pollution standards.
Chair, Ohio Chapter, 1999-2002. Conservation Chair, 1996-1999
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've worked as a poverty lawyer for twenty years. I've also taught university courses on current environmental topics. My legal background gives me an understanding of how to get results -- whether they come through litigation, legislative and administrative lobbying or other means. I have advocacy and negotiation skills. As a poverty lawyer, I also have first-hand knowledge of an "other America" that is still a world apart from most environmental organizations.
My club leadership experience is a "skill and ability" in itself. I'm leading our outreach effort to the Obama Administration. I had a central role in planning and implementing the Club's major conservation campaigns -- a program with a budget near $30 million. I've resolved conflicts between club entities. I've chaired a 20,000-member chapter and understand the challenges chapters face. I know this organization -- how it works, what could work better -- and that experience is invaluable.
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 must seize this opportunity to press a pro-environment agenda with the President and Congress and start undoing eight years of Bush. We must help President Obama make his promise of comprehensive climate legislation a reality, and help get a strong international climate treaty negotiated and then ratified by the Senate. That means using grassroots advocacy like we've never used it before, and I'm taking the lead in planning that campaign.
Stimulus spending must go towards energy efficiency, renewable resources and other environmental needs. We must press to protect and restore forests and wetlands and reverse eight years of damage -- damage not only to our environment, but to our institutions and laws.
Chairing the Obama Administration Task Force has helped me get the thoughts of volunteer leaders and staff about what needs to be done. The list is long. I will use that collective wisdom in pressing our agenda.
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?
The Sierra Club's good name and reputation are one of its most valuable assets. I will protect them. When decisions are made about whether to associate the Club with a business, it is essential that we have clear guidelines and standards that members can find easily and a clear decision-making process that's rigorously followed. I'm trying to make sure that happens. I agreed to serve on a task force that's looking at standards used by similar organizations, examining the Club's existing standards and processes, surveying members for their input and preparing recommendations for the Board.
Business partnerships can have real value. There is an environmental benefit in promoting genuinely sustainable products, and the Club has received substantial revenue from business partnerships for years -- Sierra Club affinity credit cards are one prime example. Those funds support our work. But we need a clear decision-making process with rigorous standards.
What is your experience with outings, and what do you see as their role in the Club?
My first club role was leading local outings. The obvious potential of outings is that people care more about what they’ve seen up close and personal. I spent two months in central Alaska in 2000 and then spent time in Alaska’s Tongass National Forest in 2001. When I made congressional lobbying visits about Alaska wilderness protection, that experience was invaluable in helping me to convey my real feeling for the places I wanted to protect.
Outings have to be fun -- our national outings program seems to be succeeding well at providing that. I’m sure many chapter and group outings do as well. I’d like to see us expand programs like Inner City Outings and Building Bridges to the Outdoors as part of an energetic outreach to minorities and young people.
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?
Some role divisions are clear and must be. For example, volunteers set broad club policy and volunteer entities establish priorities for volunteer activists and staff to implement. When it comes to implementation, I believe that staff and volunteers can and should work together as respectful colleagues engaged in a common purpose. As Club employees, staff obviously report to whoever has supervisory responsibility in the national or chapter management systems. But I believe in the team concept: we're colleagues in a noble cause.
I am glad the national club now has a staff person whose designated role is outreach to grassroots leaders regarding our coal campaign and climate work. We can't possibly succeed in what we must get done in Congress without the enthusiastic engagement of grassroots leaders, and I will work to make sure every national campaign team includes outreach as part of its core workplan and really does it.
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've led several successful grassroots efforts, including a campaign to get Congress to reject Arctic drilling in 2001 and a statewide campaign to stop a legislative giveaway of Great Lakes coastal lands.
The obvious change in grassroots organizing is the growing importance of the internet as an advocacy tool. The danger is that the ease of “point-and-click" activism might blind us to the continued importance of traditional advocacy tactics: getting constituents to call, write or visit their legislators, knocking on doors , turning people out at rallies. We need to use the internet effectively – to use social networking sites and technology to make it easy for people to join together, contact legislators and press for change. I'm helping to develop recommendations for the Board on how to link online organizing to our traditional advocacy work -- how to be sure online activists can be engaged in traditional advocacy, too.
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.
Chapters must be able to rely on the dues subvention as a source of income. And where we have well-funded national programs -- for instance, our coal campaign -- the staff involved in those campaigns must work closely with chapter leaders on our common goals. I'm glad the Club created a management position to ensure that happens.
Realistically, the future of funding for aggressive chapter and group-level work is likely to have to rely more heavily on chapter-level fundraising efforts. Fundraising training can help, and I also support the intensive Leadership Development Training now provided by Volunteer Services. But we also need to give chapters ongoing hands-on help in fundraising.
Regarding non-demographic criteria for distributing funds, putting too much emphasis on legislative success would open a can of worms. Few victories have single causes, and red-state chapters face greater challenges. I'd support some fair incentives and rewards, though.
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?
If we want to get more young people engaged, we need to talk to more young people. There are lots of things we can do – from exploring the potential of social networking sites as organizing tools to seeking funding for Youth Climate Action work. As Vice-Chair of the Conservation Governance Committee, I made it a point to choose some young activists when I filled leadership positions in the Club.
Increasing diversity requires us to look beyond our traditional priorities. Environmental Justice principles should be incorporated broadly into our programs, and we need more EJ staff. We need to be more creative in finding common ground with other people’s biggest concerns – for example, working to improve conditions in our urban areas, supporting efforts to train people and get them jobs in the new energy economy, and expanding outreach efforts like Inner City Outings.
How effective are the Sierra Club's publication and electronic communication tools and which ones do you read or use?
I check the main page on Clubhouse regularly, and I have been using my own Clubhouse blog and comment board to get input on what we want from the next Administration. Many people have commented there, and this kind of comment process has real value. I used it previously in major club policymaking processes, including the development of our Energy Resources Policy.
I read much of the regular email communication from the Club -- Clubhouse email, Insider, Currents and other topical email. They're well-done and are a resource that's available for those who want to take advantage of them. Sierra magazine is another important tool. I'd like to see more electronic publications focusing on wilderness and wildlife.
Club listserves are an invaluable resource for communication about legislation. We have to get the Activist Network and our social website up and running full-tilt, but I am confident that is coming soon.