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2009 Election Candidate Forum:
The Candidates
Phil Wheeler'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 of Finance & Risk Management (FaRM) Advisory Committee (2008-2009):
• Participated in development of Club’s 2009 budget
• Risk Management Liaison to Outdoor Activities Program Team
Member of Outdoor Activities Governance Committee (2006-2008):
• Leading role in Mountaineering and International Outings review task forces; prepared final reports
• Lead role in other OAGC initiatives
PV-SB Group ExCom Member and Six-Year Chair (1991-2008):
• Shaped development in community to protect open spaces
• Projects to protect native plants and habitat
• Election of environment-friendly city councils
• Chapter ExCom representative
Chair of Angeles Chapter Safety Committee (2008-2009):
• Revised Angeles Chapter Safety Policy
• Implemented Quick-Turnaround outings approval and website publishing to enable short-notice outings
Member of Recreation Issues Committee (2007-2008):
• Contributed to review of 2007 Forest Service rule making
Member of Training Governance Committee (2007-2008):
• Sunset in May 2008; contribution limited
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 will bring proven leadership skills to the Board – as a former ExCom chair, current Chapter committee chair and member of GovComs and a Board Advisory Committee. Being a team player and having the ability to work collegially are essential skills I have demonstrated. I’ve successfully worked on Club committees and in business to resolve (and minimize) conflicts. While no financial professional, I have made difficult financial and staffing decisions in business – and understand our Club’s financial issues and challenges as a member of the Finance & Risk Management Committee (“FinCom”). I can write (consult as a tech writer and editor in aerospace on occasion) and am conversant with Office tools (developed PowerPoint-based Outings Chair and Global Positioning System courses for the Club within the past three years). I’ve also worked with website development (e.g., http://philwheeler.net/) and social networking tools like Ning at our Activist Network (http://sierraclubactivistnetwork.ning.com/) and Facebook.
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?
Barack Obama’s election was excellent news for all who care about our environment, the economy and social justice. But our Club cannot be complacent and simply assume all we hope for will occur: Remember the Clinton administration and NAFTA. We must work hard to ensure that our promising new federal administration fulfills its commitment to give the environment and our movement the necessary priority to combat global warming and protect our endangered places and species. We should have new opportunities to work with immeasurably more receptive government officials and agencies in pursuing our objectives – and with that opportunity we can adopt a more collegial style where we find that to be effective. There will still be situations – state and local governments, entrenched federal officials – where we will need a more assertive approach. And we can learn from Obama’s successful campaign, adopting his techniques to energize and expand our constituencies.
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?
Business partnerships, carefully chosen, can benefit the Club financially and in its ability to influence industrial organizations to become more green in their practices and products: Both can be key assets in attaining our environmental goals. Choosing to do cause-related marketing with Clorox has created angst within the Club – as shown by the Council of Club Leaders’ motion opposing this partnership in the September annual meeting: Such grassroots input must be considered by the Board and its task forces.
In April a Green Works Contract Review Task Force was appointed; based on its report the Board extended the Club’s Clorox arrangement through 2009. In July a broader Business Partnerships Task Force was appointed, charged with completing its work in early 2009. As a Board candidate who may soon deliberate on these matters I believe it is wise to hear the report of this task force before locking in a position.
What is your experience with outings, and what do you see as their role in the Club?
My outings experience is comprehensive – as an outings leader (since 1991) and in outings administration (outings chair, navigation instructor/examiner, OAGC member, Angeles Chapter Safety Chair and FaRM Liaison to the new Outdoor Activity Program Team). The words of John Muir "Explore, Enjoy, and Protect" and "Hear the trees speak" have been watchwords for our outings program for a century – and the program continues to be one of our most valuable forms of outreach and attracting new members. But we can and must do more. We can use outings to reach out to new constituencies by conducting outings and activities of interest to young adults, families, and America’s diverse cultures – to bring new vitality into the Club, expand our program and extend the reach of our conservation message. And we must work more closely with our conservation activists to help them make better use of outings in their campaigns and causes.
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?
Project Renewal resulted in an organization with joint staff-volunteer leadership. While never experiencing any difficulty in working with staff in the old GovCom structure, the new shared leadership approach is one I welcome. The Board should and will fine-tune the details of the new organization as experience dictates in 2009 and beyond.
The best way to improve the connection between the national Club and the grassroots (chapters and groups) is increased involvement of the grassroots activists and entities in the principal national conservation initiatives – a connection which has been tenuous in recent times. As we move into an era where we depend more on restricted c(3) funds the national Board, Advisory Committees, Coordinating Pairs and Teams must find ways to enable chapters to use these restricted resources to support our national initiatives: Our financial resources must support our most important resource, our activists, in the pursuit of the Club’s goals.
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?
In my early Club days I tabled, recruited new members at local meetings, encouraged members to become outings leaders and supported outings to “places we’ve saved”. As a Club leader (ExCom chair, committee member and chair, etc.) I’ve sought to engage new and more diverse members.
As we move beyond the 20th century into the 21st we can and must utilize the new tools at our disposal such as the social networking tools typified by MoveOn.com and our developing Activist Network. In this we can learn much from Barack Obama’s superlative and successful presidential campaign which demonstrated the value and viability of these new web-based tools. Specifically the Board must:
•Foster development and enhancement of our Activist Network and its social network outreach
•Engage new constituencies in this outreach
•Develop metrics to measure the success of these efforts.
Our financial resources are limited; our outreach cannot be.
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.
The next two, five and ten years: Our approach to financing our volunteer work will surely change in the next decade as we transition to depending more on strongly restricted c(3) funds from a time when unrestricted c(4) and c(3) funds were prevalent. Likely no one has the crystal ball to fully anticipate this financial future, just as in 1999 we could not predict where we are now.
I fully support more innovative funding approaches such as those proposed in the question – subject to any regulatory and Club policy constraints. Last July the Board established a Chapter Funding Allocation task force to study this issue from a broad perspective including the impacts of funding changes on chapters, some of which could be quite subtle. As a 2009 Board member I will look forward to deliberating on these results in early 2009 and taking positive and progressive action on their recommendations.
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?
Increasing our outreach to new constituencies – youth and diverse cultures – is vital to the future of our Sierra Club. Unless our membership transitions over time to become more representative of our changing national demographics the Club will be increasingly marginalized. Specifically we should:
•Judiciously increase the Club’s financial support to the program proposed by our Diversity Council; I believe our financial commitment to this work has been marginal.
•Use our best-of-class outings program to support our outreach, by designing outings and activities – and reshaping how we define outings – to attract more diverse constituencies, for example those who consider family events as “outings”. In this pursuit the success of our Puerto Rico Chapter’s outings program can provide guidance.
•Develop goals and metrics to tell us if our diversity initiatives are working and will ultimately succeed or if we need to define and pursue new approaches.
How effective are the Sierra Club's publication and electronic communication tools and which ones do you read or use?
Our publications are of varied effectiveness. I’m very web oriented, but I still find the Sierra magazine, our chapter’s Southern Sierran newsletter and my local group’s Foggy View newsletter to be valuable in print versions for continuing reference. Our chapter also has a thrice-yearly Schedule of Activities (most recently 73 pp) which lists chapter-wide outings and is viewed by hikers as an essential publication. Budget issues will, in time, move us toward fewer print publications and more electronic publishing – but I fear we will lose contact with many long-term members and outright alienate others in the process.
Clubhouse remains an essential asset. The improvements of 2008 are notable and needed. Social networking tools, such as those currently prototyped at our Activist Network (e.g., http://sierraclubactivistnetwork.ning.com/) hold much promise for our future; I look forward to using the fully developed Activist Network tools John Barry and others will provide in 2009.