Strength & Sustainability

Climbing out of fear and into action

This column features insights and perspectives from Sierra Club members who have made recent contributions to Strength & Sustainability, our local Chapter's major-gifts program. The goal of Strength & Sustainability is to strengthen and sustain our Chapter's leadership, outreach, and campaign-organizing capacity. Our successful campaigns influence environmental policies and campaigns throughout California and the country.

This month's writer, Bill Walsh, is not the average Strength & Sustainability contributor (if there is such). He gave up his corporate career to work for the environment and eventually to found the Strength & Sustainability campaign itself. Not everyone will want to make such drastic changes, but we hope everyone will choose to do their share for the environment, and for those in a position to make a substantial donation, Strength & Sustainability may be a helpful vehicle.

In 1995 I started rock climbing to help overcome my fear of heights. I never dreamed it would become a large and central part of my life. It seemed extreme, dangerous, and crazy. Nearly all my preconceived notions of climbing were negative or inaccurate. I will always remember my first multi-pitch climb and the almost-paralyzing fear I felt. Now I occasionally teach climbing and often take friends, family, co-workers, and even Chapter supporters out for their first rock-climbing experiences. I especially enjoy seeing their perceptions change from fearful or otherwise negative to inspired, appreciative, and excited about climbing.

In many ways, the misconceptions I had about rock climbing paralleled those I had about the Sierra Club. In 1991 I started working as a professional environmental advocate in Washington DC for a public-interest group. Before long I started hearing gossip about the various environmental organizations and their many faults. I heard a lot of criticism of the Sierra Club, how it was "big", how it "compromised" and even "sold out". Although I was disappointed by all the criticisms and tension between what I thought should be natural allies, I decided to continue with my new career as an environmental advocate because the core purpose of the work matched my interests and values.

My environmental spark had come the year before. I was cleaning my new car when a crazy hippy-dippy tree-hugger guy approached me. He was working with an environmental group. I went on automatic pilot and politely said I couldn't give him any money and asked him to leave, as I continued cleaning the car. As he was walking down the driveway, he turned and complimented me on how nice my car looked.

That night I went to Manhattan with friends and easily spent $300. I woke up with a vacant feeling and kept thinking about the guy trying to raise money for the whales . . . or was it the trees? I thought about the word "legacy". I tried to think what contribution I was making to good causes, and found myself coming up nearly blank. How could I spend $59.99 a month for cable TV, and give nothing to a worthy environmental cause? I was in my sixth year in corporate America in New York City, suit and tie, working long hours and making decent money. After work, my co-workers and I would regularly go out with clients, or go to New York Knicks or Ranger games, and catch up on the latest "media and values" gossip. Sometimes we would talk about other topics, the Exxon Valdez oil spill, for example, . . . drunken captain, yada, yada, yada, "How could this happen?" my friends and I would ask aloud. I never took any action, but my new car was sitting in the driveway, clean as a whistle. I wasn't happy, and it was time to make a change.

A few months later, I moved to Washington DC to learn about environmental advocacy. One of my first jobs was for an organization that raised money for various progressive groups. This diverse experience gave me the opportunity to see which environmental organizations were the most organized, efficient, and effective. A year later it brought me to the West Coast. I soon learned that while different groups have different places in the "movement", the Sierra Club is unique for its coordinated work on multiple levels - national, state, and local. This seemed smart, thorough, and very pragmatic.

Because of the Club's range and its long, irrefutable list of precedent-setting accomplishments, it became clear that all the horrific rhetoric I had heard was completely inaccurate. When I did the research, I came to know and respect the Sierra Club as the most successful and influential environmental group in the United States.

In 1999 the local Sierra Club Bay Chapter asked me to sit on its Fundraising Committee as a volunteer advisor. For years the Chapter had contracted with expensive telemarketing companies to do its fundraising. These companies would advocate for the Sierra Club one night and switch to another cause the next. The Fundraising Committee determined that the Chapter should bring its fundraising in-house. We believed the Chapter would be better served by hiring its own membership-outreach representatives, who shared the environmental values of the Sierra Club. We developed a plan to hire and train passionate, articulate defenders of the natural environment to work permanently as dedicated local Chapter staff. In May 2000 we brought the program in-house, and I was honored when the committee invited me to serve as director of the new program.

Today our telefundraisers are highly educated, effective, and passionate about the environmental issues we work on. Because they are dedicated environmentalists, they represent the local Chapter well when communicating with our members and other Chapter supporters. In addition to bringing in most of the funds that keep our Chapter strong and nimble, our team has the ability to change campaigns in an instant and help with critical Chapter campaigns when needed. They are highly effective at recruiting new Chapter volunteers and getting out the vote on election day.

Thanks in part to the success of our phone program, the local Bay Chapter has generated the means to grow tremendously over the past seven years. One of the most significant benefits of our growth is that the Chapter has greatly expanded its organizing capacity, making us better prepared than ever to take action on critical and strategic environmental issues as they arise. Serving four Bay Area counties, Alameda, Contra Costa, Marin and San Francisco, we fight for clean air and clean water, habitat and open space, parks and public lands, clean energy and energy conservation, and smart urban planning and viable transportation systems.

The San Francisco Bay Chapter is regarded by individuals and organizations across the country and around the world as an emblem of hope and inspiration for advancing smart and sustainable environmental solutions. With daily headlines about climate change and the critical need for energy conservation and new technologies, people everywhere are counting on the Bay Area to lead the way toward a green and sustainable future. The Bay Chapter is poised to step up; the time is now; and our Community Choice Energy plan is a good example of our global-warming activism. With a track record of winning more than 70% of the campaigns we undertake, we're confident that the Bay Chapter is ready for another significant growth spurt.

A key part of our immediate action plan is to further bolster our capacity through hiring, training, and supporting several new passionate and skillful community organizers. The Chapter's priority objectives over the next few years include promoting green values during the national presidential campaign and working to establish the Bay Area as the world's leader for clean and renewable energy. We can find solutions to the challenges presented by climate change if we continue to be hopeful, creative, and resourceful. Here at the Bay Chapter, we're heartily promoting conservation and the implementation of technological advances in clean-energy production and distribution as sound and achievable first steps. We're also heavily involved in protecting the Tuolumne River from potentially devastating new water diversions to distant urban areas. The work we do not only helps keep the Bay Area green and beautiful, it sets important precedents nationwide.

In light of the urgency of all of these issues, we are also developing the Chapter's major-gifts program. We call it Strength & Sustainability to represent both the Bay Chapter's leadership role and its unwavering commitment to preserving our natural heritage. While most of our 38,000 members support the Chapter with modest annual contributions, many of our supporters are able and willing to make substantially larger investments to the local Bay Chapter. We recently received a $20,000 challenge gift from one of our donors who agrees we can do more and we must do it quickly. Our staff has worked hard, and the result is we are well positioned to set the new environmental standard.

You can help by supporting Strength & Sustainability. Participation in this program requires a minimum gift of $1,200 per year and offers unique opportunities to be a part of the Bay Chapter's legacy of environmental action. I'm inspired every day by the large and small ways our Bay Chapter members contribute to the collective cause. I often think of Dave Brower and how he would often paraphrase a native American proverb, "We do not inherit the Earth from our ancestors, we borrow it from our children." This is what it's all about.

I would love to talk with you personally about ways you can support the Chapter and how that might help advance your personal environmental goals. In fact, I'd like that a whole lot more than I ever liked that new car in my driveway. And hey, if you've always wanted to try rock climbing but haven't found the right opportunity yet, we can talk about that, too.

You can reach me at (510)848-0800, ext. 309, or