Board of Directors Election Selection Information

This is the first time the New Jersey Chapter made endorsements in the BoD elections. They were made because the Chapter's leadership cares deeply about a number of issues regarding the role of chapters within the Club. The endorsements were made mostly based upon responses to a questionnaire the Chapter submitted to BoD candidates. This questionnaire is provided below.

BoD CANDIDATE QUESTIONNAIRE - 2008

In order to ensure a timely evaluation of your responses as well as speed the endorsement process, we request that you answer all questions in an electronic format (Microsoft Word documents preferred). Please be sure to number your responses according to the question being answered.

1.

The La Piana Associates presented its Sierra Club Organizational Assessment Report to the Board of Directors last May. Based upon the report, the Board-appointed Organization Change Steering Committee drafted the Project Renewal proposal and made it available December 3rd, leaving volunteers just several weeks to make comments on a number of far-reaching proposals.

Do you support postponing a final decision on Project Renewal until at least May 2008 to give adequate time for the membership to adequately understand and accept the Project Renewal proposals? If not, why not?

2.

The Project Renewal restructuring proposal recommends creating "Coordinating Pairs", consisting of one volunteer-lead appointed by the Board and accountable to the President and one staff-lead appointed by and accountable to the Executive Director. This would establish, for the first time, the practice of having staff persons appointing volunteers.

To ensure continuing the grassroots character of the Club, do you oppose having staff members, whether as a member of a "Coordinating Pair" or in any other capacity, being given the right to appoint volunteer activists? Why or why not?

3.

The Council of Club Leaders (CCL) is equivalent to the stockholders in a corporation, representing the membership through the Chapters. According to the Club's Bylaws, "Chapter delegates to the Sierra Club Council are designated to represent the membership…" Yet, according to a proposal within Project Renewal, the CCL will be enlarged with volunteers appointed by both the Board and by staff.

Would you oppose enlarging the CCL with members appointed by the Board and/or staff so that it will continue to remain the voice of the chapters? Please explain.

4.

Currently, Board of Director nominees are only required to be members of the Club in good standing continuously for one year prior to the date set for the close of nominations. As a result, Chapter ExCom members may have more years of Club experience than Board members, yet chapters have both inadequate and ineffective internal communications with national structures, two of the "key core problems" identified by the Organizational Capacity Assessment Report.

To improve internal communications between the Board of Directors and chapter leadership, would you support restructuring the Board to be similar to chapters, and be constituted with both members elected at large as well as with some proportion of Chapter representatives? If so, would you support increasing the size of the Board, or allocating a number of existing seats for chapter representatives?

5.

The proposed change in C3/C4 dues subvention funding for chapters, proposed for 2009, would make it more difficult for chapters to do advocacy work. Many chapters, smaller ones in particular, may have difficulty paying their lobbyist without sufficient C4 funds, or to getting reimbursed for their activities performed by volunteers.

Would you support restoring 100% of C4 dues subvention funding to chapters to strengthen chapters' ability to advocate for environmental protection? If so, how do you propose providing the funding?

6.

Currently, chapters are not allowed to submit joint grant applications with those foundations that the Club applies to, or may decide to apply to, nationally, or to set up their own C3 components to apply for local grants. As foundations often prefer a local component to the programs they fund or will sometimes only provide certain grants to fund local or state activities and projects, the Club misses many funding opportunities to be involved in local projects. To remedy this, the CCL voted in 2005 to recommend making reforms in this process by allowing chapters to apply for more grants funding but, thus far, the Board has not acted upon that recommendation.

If elected to the Board, would you support allowing Chapters to submit grant applications to the same entities to which the Club now submits or that are restricted for only local or state activities and projects? Would you support allowing chapters to set up their own C3 components so that they could apply directly for local grants? Please explain.

7.

Campaigns like the Cool Cities Campaign, which are laudable in bringing in new activists, often provide direct funding to these new activists rather than through existing chapters or groups, while at the same time calling for assistance from existing chapters and groups. This can create unnecessary tensions between nationally supported campaigns and existing state and local entities.

If elected, would you support providing funding for such campaigns as the Cool Cities Campaign through local chapters and groups to better integrate current and future national campaigns into existing grassroots structures. If not, how would you propose better integrating the national campaigns with chapters and groups?

8.

Over the last decade, Club management has greatly expanded its field staff, effectively creating a system of staff parallel to and somewhat overlapping that of staff accountable to chapters.

If elected to the BoD, would you support addressing the issue of the parallel sets of staff to better coordinate state and local advocacy work? What thoughts do you have on this issue?

9.

If elected to the Board of Directors on what aspects will you focus your efforts and provide leadership?