Clayton Daughenbaugh

Clayton Daughenbaugh
Residence
Berwyn, IL
Nominating committee candidate
Member Since
1991
Occupation
Community & Conservation Organizer, Retired
Sierra Club Leadership Positions

  • Grassroots Network Support Team since 2008 (current)

  • Wildlands and Wilderness Grassroots Network Team since 2005 (current Vice-Chair) 

  • Our Wild America Campaign Team – 2015 & 16

  • G.N.S.T. Coordinating Pair (liaison to Board of Directors) 2011-18

  • Renewables Siting on Public Lands Task Force 2009-10

  • National Wildlands Campaign Committee 1998–2005

Email
claytonhd@xmission.com
Statement

It was a 1995 Sierra Club outing to Utah’s red rock wilderness which began my journey as an environmental activist.  Back then I wanted to save a beautiful place for my kids and everyone else.  Times have changed.  The stakes are higher.  As climate scientist Katharine Hayhoe says: “Climate change presents a threat to the future of human civilization; the biodiversity crisis presents a longer-term threat to the viability of the human species.”

The Sierra Club’s priorities of clean energy and protecting 30% of the United States’ lands and waters by the year 2030 are right on point.  My 25 years’ experience as a national leader in wildlands campaigns enables me to assure our protection efforts will hold up their half of the bargain, alongside our renewable energy work, to assure a healthy planet.

When I went on that outing to Utah’s canyonlands I was working as a community organizer in Chicago neighborhoods -- supporting volunteers’ capacity to act, lead, and make decisions.  Skills further developed as that career morphed into conservation organizing.  The Sierra Club is a natural venue for such work.  Our strength lies primarily in our members and volunteer leadership working collaboratively with our staff.  My roles have focused on both protecting the planet’s lands, waters, and species but also on supporting volunteers via the Grassroots Network for whom I served six years as liaison to the Board, sitting in on all the meetings.  This positions me to play to our organization’s strengths so we can maximize our contribution to saving the planet.

To succeed we need a majority.  To gain a majority everyone needs to be invited in, welcomed, and leading.  The Sierra Club’s long overdue attention to Equity is vital as a matter of basic justice and as a strategic imperative.  Where would the protection of the red rock canyonlands be without the indigenous led Bears Ears National Monument?  We need everyone at the table if we’re to assure a healthy future not only for human civilization but for our species itself – for our families, our friends, our communities, and the entire fellowship of life on Earth of which we are a part.

I ask for your vote.  Let’s get to work.  Thank you.

Endorsements

Current Board:  Shruti Bhatnagar, Debbie Heaton (past 5th Officer), Patrick Murphy (V.P. for Chapters and Volunteers), Dave Scott (past President).

Past Board:  Jim Catlin, Ramon Cruz (President), Marion Klaus (V.P. for Conservation), Susana Reyes (V.P. for Conservation).

Past Sierra Club Staff:  Bob Bingaman (Senior Field Director), Dan Chu (acting Exec. Director and Our Wild American Campaign Director), Bruce Hamilton (Nat’l. Policy Director).

Grassroots Network Co-Leads:  Luther Dale, Doug Fetterly, Gwyn Jones (staff).

Current GR Leaders:  Vicky Hoover (CA/NV Wilderness Team), Joan Taylor (CA Desert Committee), Karen Yarnell (Wildlands & Wilderness Team).

Allied Leaders:  Allied Leaders:  Olivia Juarez (Green Latinos’ Public Lands Director), Mark Maryboy (there at the conception of Bears Ears Nat’l Monument; 16 years on the Navajo Nation Tribal Council), North Dakota Chapter, Florida Chapter, Utah Chapter

Election Forum Responses

Candidates were asked ten questions to give voters more information about relevant issues. You can view the responses of all candidates to a question by clicking on the individual questions below.

Question 1

Question 1

What is the role of volunteers in the Sierra Club? What can Sierra Club do to  better ensure volunteer leaders are equitably prepared and supported sufficiently  for their roles?

Volunteers are central to Sierra Club’s power. Power is derived from organized people – the more the better. Volunteer leaders embody that power and the authority shared amongst them and correspondingly with staff is vital to making our power impactful. Volunteer entities need to receive sufficient financial and staff support to enable them to fill their role in the organization.

Chapters are key and first but the Grassroots Network and Campaign leadership teams are also vital. The primary decision-making bodies of the organization should be volunteer led in teams with corresponding staff. Regional and national volunteer entities should be enabled to meet, in-person, with their corresponding staff partners at least every other year.  Gatherings of volunteer leaders should include opportunities for training appropriate to their role.

Everyone should be encouraged to bring in new people and support people in growth. Growing diversity among our leader and activist base is vital to our capacity to act successfully on the planet’s behalf. Collaboration and partnership among volunteers and staff should be the norm.

Question 2

Question 2

Sierra Club leaders and members can often be on different sides of issues–how  would you address dissenting views like this and create a more unified Sierra  Club? 

This is first of all a behavioral matter. As with the planet we need to proceed among ourselves with love and humility.  Odds are those with whom we disagree are speaking from a place of integrity, contributing in their roles, and deserving of respect and consideration. Not one of us can see the whole picture, we all come with a blend of knowledge, wisdom, and ignorance. When working across difference we need to first listen and learn and then speak from our place of conviction.  Each of us is going to be wrong on occasion, even when we’re certain we’re not. We need those who differ from us to help us collectively get things right.  The Board should model this behavior.

There are also structural elements. Various entities have primary responsibilities, rarely are they solely responsible.  Each must make space for consultation with others who have a role and an interest in the task at hand. When people are heard as a matter of habit and routine, dissenting views can be more readily resolved and accommodated.

It’s not always easy as collectively we’re faced with a situation where human impacts are rapidly diminishing the capacity of life on the planet to survive in any form resembling what is now present, this includes human life. The stakes are so high that emotions from people who care deeply, i.e. the Sierra Club, can be easily triggered. We need to proceed with care.  Forgiveness is important and apologies necessary.

Question 3

Question 3

What fundraising and budgeting ideas would you have as a Sierra Club Board  Director to make Sierra Club fiscally stronger?  

Transparency is key – see my comments in relation to #7 below. We also need organizational stability.  Our recent restructuring which focused on protections for nature and conversion to a clean energy economy will be helpful in that it highlights our core mission.  It has however, along with our fiscal difficulties, complicated both fundraising and budgeting (not to mention staff retention).

At this time, we need to reduce the organizational churn and focus on our core mission and consolidating our strengths.  Having a clear focus and functional budget is crucial to drawing in and sustaining donors. Focusing our organizational activities on the priorities of the membership will enhance growth in both numbers and giving. We need to highlight the work of our volunteer entities. This is a unique contribution of the Sierra Club to the environmental movement – our strengths will draw the money if we communicate. Our focus on Equity is also a key identifier among the large national environmental organizations.  We should promote it as well. The Sierra Club is a form of ESG (Environment, Social, Governance) investment in activism and grassroots power.

Question 4

Question 4

Environmental justice is core to Sierra Club’s mission. Please share one or more  examples of when you were able to cultivate relationships with EJ/frontline  communities?  

As then Chair of the Wildlands and Wilderness Team I initiated the establishment of the Native American Land Rights Subteam.  This group has coordinated, in partnership with indigenous allies, conversations whereby Sierra Club wilderness activists have learned from multiple perspectives.  Most recently resulting in local collaborative projects.  A second example would be my role as manager of the Groundswell Sierra campaign which defeated the attempted takeover of the Sierra Club Board led in part by anti-immigration organizations.  A third is my organizing work in Chicago neighborhoods where racial and ethnic diversification was underway and we proceeded in a manner including all residing in the community.

Lastly, I live this intersection, a white family in a majority minority community.  My wife and I enrolled our two sons in a Spanish immersion school.  They are bilingual where their parents are not.  The Bears Ears Intertribal Coalition’s vision for what became that monument is a guiding light.  The Coalition led with a desire for healing.  Healing of the land.  Healing of indigenous relations with ancestral places.  Healing of relations between Native American’s and colonizers.  Given my long association with efforts to protect Utah wilderness this experience was instructive.

Question 5

Question 5

How do you view the role of a nonprofit Board of Directors? What do you bring  that helps you fulfill the role of Sierra Club Board Director? 

The role of the Sierra Club Board is unique among nonprofit boards generally in that we are elected and guide an organization substantially volunteer led in collaboration with an extensive professional staff. The role of the Board is to both represent and lead the membership in partnership with the staff. To have both oversight and be engaged.

I bring to this a long career of working in non-profits with very substantial roles for volunteer leaders. Having served in all levels of staff from entry level to Executive Director and in between. That has necessitated working directly with non-profit boards. Within the Sierra Club I’ve long filled the corresponding role of volunteer leader. Also, in my six-year term as the Grassroots Network liaison to the Board I was present and participating regularly in Board discussions so I bring an acquaintance with the Sierra Club Board that is of unique advantage, having viewed the Board up close while retaining an outsider’s perspective.

Question 6

Question 6

What do you think is the role of national staff and representatives in the affairs of  Chapter decision making?

All need to proceed within the bounds of overall Sierra Club policy as established by the Board. Where a project or decision’s impact is solely within the territory of a Chapter the Chapter has the decision-making authority and the role of national (staff and volunteers) is advisory. That advise should be sought and considered.  When a project or decision’s impact is national in scope those roles are reversed. Wherever the ultimate authority is granted, consultation with the other should be the watch word. We need each-other’s expertise.

Question 7

Question 7

 Sierra Club has faced challenges around restructuring, staffing, and finances. As  a Board Director, what actions would you take to address these challenges? 

Regarding restructuring, it’s time for stability. We have been through a lot.  Especially on the staff side roles need to gain clarity and the relationships among the new roles need to mature. This will take time, we need to allow that time to occur.  On the volunteer side we need to make provision to insure the role of partnership within the new structure is retained. To date that hasn’t happened.  Seeing that it does would be a priority of mine. Volunteer/staff collaboration is at the heart and soul of the Sierra Club and we need to be attentive to it. A key benefit of the current restructuring is that Chapters who previously lacked staff support are now getting it.

The Sierra Club’s current financial challenges are serious. We need to live within our means, focusing on our core mission.  We need to grow our resources (see response to #3 above), most especially our membership. Those donations provide the greatest flexibility. Our approach with large donors should be similar, seeking support for our mission and overriding priorities (transition to renewables from fossil fuels, protecting wild nature) wherever possible. Building funding relationships which value our grassroots empowerment alongside our conservation objectives would be a plus.

Question 8

Question 8

Given that Sierra Club has limited resources, what would be the specific  environmental issues and priority areas that you would focus on as a Board  Director and why? 

Clean energy along with all things wild (land, water, critters, plants).

Climate scientist Katharine Hayhoe has succinctly summed up our situation: “Climate change presents a threat to the future of human civilization; the biodiversity crisis presents a longer-term threat to the viability of the human species.”  It’s about survival of ourselves and our common home. The Sierra Club’s priorities of renewables and protecting 30% of the United States lands and waters by the year 2030 are right on point.

My background will enable me to help assure out protection efforts will hold up their half of the bargain. We need to protect wilderness – big, connected, free – where it remains and we need alternative forms of protection where the other than human homes on our planet are fragmented and more heavily impacted.  We need to stop the incremental expansion of human dominance into new places.  We need to end the rule of fossil fuel corporations and promote a clean energy economy that is built close to home where oppressed and excluded communities are safe and empowered by control of their energy sources and connected across communities to assure resilience.

Question 9

Question 9

What do you see as the role and use of data in the Sierra Club's mission and  health, and how would you advance the goal of furthering data-informed, values driven campaigns? 

We need demographic data to drive our campaigns. We need to know where among people support lies for our mission and go to those places and organize. We need to play to our strengths but also not be conceding the “red” states and be busy identifying, organizing, and growing the pockets of support. We need data to drive our electoral priorities, to know where we can have the biggest impact.

We need scientific data to assure the effectiveness of our proposed solutions. We also need a bit of healthy skepticism about data driven efforts. Data implies technology and technology, while useful, is no assurance of success.  Success will come from relationships and allies. Political power is fundamentally relational. Data can help us identify and mobilize support we were previously unaware of and insure that our proposed solutions work. Data needs to be placed at the service of our values of Equity in our relationships with people and in our relationships with other species.

Question 10

Question 10

How do you view the role of outings fitting into the goals and objectives for Sierra  Club?

It was an activist outing to southern Utah’s red rock canyonlands that turned me into a Sierra Club activist. Outings enable us to build relationship with nature. We’re not likely to protect what we don’t know and love. Outings also build community. To this day some of the people who were on that activist outing remain some of my primary colleagues inside the Sierra Club.

A healthy and robust outings program is an essential element of the future health of the organization. It’s an entry point for future activists Outings support the relationship of people with the other-than-human parts of nature. We should encourage but not artificially mandate their connection to activism as that original outing did for me.