homepage - board of directors - 2009 election - candidate forum - chris warshaw
2009 Election Candidate Forum:
The Candidates
Chris Warshaw'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?
I have held a number of Sierra Club leadership positions at both the chapter and national level. At the chapter level, I have served on the core team of the Loma Prieta Chapter’s Cool Cities campaign since I started graduate school at Stanford University in 2006. I helped recruit and manage over 20 local Cool Cities teams as well as 2,400 local climate activists. At the national level, I have served on a number of major committees and task forces, including the Visibility and Outreach Committee, the Online/Offline Internet Committee, the Social Networking Committee, and the Cool Cities Task Force. On each of these committees, I sought to use my experience in grassroots strategy and tactics to build the Sierra Club from the bottom-up by helping to develop strategies to increase the activism of our online supporters and build the Internet infrastructure of local chapters.
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.
Energy and environmental policy: I have significant experience in environmental policy from my experience as an economics consultant for the E.P.A. and the U.S.
Fish and Wildlife Service. I am currently studying the political economy of energy and environmental policy at Stanford University. I plan to use this experience to develop new strategies for the Sierra Club’s Climate Recovery Campaign to fight climate change.
Managing a Grassroots Organization: I was the National Field Director at Democracy for America from 2005-2006 where I coordinated over 400 local groups and thousands of grassroots leaders. I plan to use this experience to build the Sierra Club’s grassroots base.
Technology/communications: At Democracy for America, I used the Internet to raise hundreds of thousands of dollars for progressive political candidates across the country. I plan to use this experience to bring thousands of new online members into the Sierra Club.
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 Sierra Club has a vital role to push the pace of environmental change in the months ahead. Specifically, we need to make sure that the economic stimulus plan that Obama passes in 2009 includes sustainable green energy policies. It should include programs to build a new high-speed rail network, subsidies for renewable energy, mandates for energy efficiency, and training programs to train the green workers of tomorrow.
We need to pursue multiple strategies to push this green agenda. First, we should mobilize Sierra Club members to run targeted campaigns in the districts of wavering members of Congress. Second, we should finance national media outreach programs to show Americans how green jobs can help rebuild our nation’s economy. Third, we should accelerate our efforts to use the Internet to leverage the excitement of the election and recruit the next generation of Sierra Club members.
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?
Managed properly, business partnerships could play a vital role in the years ahead. These partnerships will help grow the market for green products and expose the Sierra Club to a new generation of green consumers. However, we should carefully review potential partners to make sure that their products support the mission of the Sierra Club. We should also gather feedback from Sierra Club members to make sure they support new potential partnerships. After we decide to embark on a new partnership, we should establish a committee of staff and volunteers to determine potential ways to leverage the partnership to build the Sierra Club and grow the market for green products.
What is your experience with outings, and what do you see as their role in the Club?
As an avid hiker, I believe that outings are a crucial service provided by the Sierra Club to environmentalists and outdoors enthusiasts. These outings enrich people’s lives and are a crucial reason that many members join the Sierra Club. The core of the Outings program is healthy, but I would make several changes to enhance it going forward. First, all outings should be listed on a centralized, national website that members can search to find outings in their community. Second, there should more opportunities for members to self-organize outings. Eventually, any member should be able to post a hike on the national website and invite other Sierra Club members to join them. Third, we should partner with other outdoors organizations and environmental groups to co-organize outings. These outings would spread the Sierra Club brand and bring more people into the Club.
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?
Staff and volunteers are both key components of the Sierra Club. But we should take several steps to enhance the communications between senior staff, active volunteers, and other hardworking Sierra Club members and supporters. First, we should provide new software tools and training to chapter and volunteer leaders to help them organize more effectively. Second, the Club should use the Internet to collect more information about the interests and opinions of local members and grassroots leadership. For instance, we should conduct a monthly online survey of our online members each month and a more detailed annual online survey of our chapter leadership volunteers. Finally, Carl Pope, board members, and other national leaders should conduct a listening tour with Sierra Club members each year to give local members an opportunity to register their opinions in person and hear more about national Sierra Club’s strategies and tactics.
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 have very strong experience at grassroots organizing. As the National Field Director at Democracy for America (DFA), I coordinated over 400 local grassroots groups and helped plan thousands of volunteer-lead events. I have also led a number of other grassroots campaigns and organizations. In 2004, I helped organize over 25 monthly Meetups around Massachusetts during Howard Dean’s 2004 presidential campaign. More recently, I helped organize 20 Cool Cities teams across the Silicon Valley area.
The lack of a clear organizational hierarchy is the biggest difference between 20th century and 21st century organizing. In the 21st century, online activists will increasingly seek to organize their own events in response to national events. I believe that the Sierra Club needs to embrace this new model of organizing and give our members new tools and training to create their own groups, events, and local campaigns to help build a climate friendly country.
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.
Local chapters and groups are a vital part of the Sierra Club. The national Sierra Club needs to ensure that Chapters have the expertise, training, and infrastructure to finance themselves over the long-term. The first step to accomplishing this vision is to make sure that Chapters have the most robust technological infrastructure possible. This infrastructure should include software to enable local chapters and grassroots to send emails to their members, self-organize events and collect RSVP’s, and manage their membership. Second, we should do more to enable local Chapter staff and volunteers to have the training they need to be effective by expanding our Leadership Development Program or running a larger set of grassroots trainings. Third, we should develop matching grants to provide Chapters with incentives to fundraise locally and build their infrastructure. Finally, we should partner with chapters to raise money for local initiatives in the Climate Recovery Campaign.
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?
It is crucial for the Sierra Club to reach out to a diverse set of communities to build new members and leadership for our organization. Students and youth are critical to the future of the Sierra Club. We should focus our initial strategies on reaching out to students by 1) helping youth find jobs in the environmental movement, 2) publicizing our outings program, and 3) creating a “young environmental leader” fellowship at major universities. It is also critical to reach out to other diverse cultures and communities. I would guide our outreach to using focused metrics and analytical research to guide our campaigns. I would support this approach by hiring more staff at the national level and reaching out to other organizations in these communities to plan campaigns that matter to people in each diverse culture.
How effective are the Sierra Club's publication and electronic communication tools and which ones do you read or use?
I believe that the content of the Sierra Club’s publications and electronic communications is incredible. While I enjoy reading the Sierra and many of the Club’s email newsletters, I also find that too often our electronic newsletters are overly long and rambling. Moreover, they are often far behind the current day’s news. As we move toward an Internet-based world, the challenge is to make the Sierra Club communications continue to be 1) timely and 2) relevant in our members’ lives. The monthly Sierra Magazine will continue to be important. But I would focus more of our electronic communication resources on providing timely updates and action alerts that respond to current national news. These communications should be targeted to local news and events in our members’ home states to ensure that the communications are relevant to the lives of our members.