SIERRA CLUB - STOP BUSH/BEAT BUSH CAMPAIGNS

To: Volunteer Leaders and Staff

From: Carl Pope and Bruce Hamilton

RE: New leadership of our Stop Bush/Beat Bush Campaigns

We are facing environmental assaults from the Bush Administration and theCongress unlike anything we have witnessed. The Board of Directors and theConservation Governance Committee have resolved that our efforts to stop
these attacks, and then to defeat George Bush in 2004, should be our ourhighest organizational priorities. To accomplish these goals they havecalled on all branches of the Sierra Club to align their activities and resources with these objectives.
To carry these programs out we have adopted three primary strategies: raising people's sights by promoting visionary solutions to environmental problems; building community by establishing one-on-one, personal relationships with our friends and neighbors ; and using guerilla warfare to stop attacks on the environment.
We must hold Bush and other public officials accountable by exposing the impact of their policies where they are most vulnerable to public counterpressure; we must build an informed community of environmental citizens who understand what Bush is doing because they are talking with their friends and neighbors about this; we must inspire them to action with a vision of where America should and can go.
To stop the Bush Administration assault on the environment we have designed and are starting to implement a huge public education and public mobilization effort. We are also coordinating through the Integrated National Conservation Action Committee to plan and fund an aggressive lobbyingprogram to head off the assault in the Congress and to hold elected officials and President Bush accountable before and after votes and administrative actions that attack environmental programs.
We are also gearing up a separate huge voter education effort (the Environmental Voter Education Campaign) for 2004 and a powerful 2004 electoral program (Sierra Club Political Committee).
A cultural challenge that we face within the Sierra Club is that we have tended to design and run separate independent conservation programs on a wide variety of topics: Conservation Law, Environmental Partnerships,Population Stabilization, Forest Protection, Green Trade, Energy and Global Warming, Lewis and Clark. We do not believe we will be able to defend the environment from Bush's policies or ultimately beat Bush unless we do coordinate and align our various programs in a completely unprecedented way. Our resources and volunteers and staff must be intensely focussed on our overarching goals and our chosen strategies. Each of our activities must be designed and coordinated to the maximum extent possible to work together to stop Bush.
For the past 9 months the two of us have been trying to coordinate this effort from the staff side. We have also been carrying out our other duties as Executive Director and Conservation Director. We plan to remain deeply involved. These mega-efforts must be the highest priority for the two of us for the next 14 months. We also realize these mega-campaigns need full time senior staff leadership, focused around the clock, leadership which does not get pulled off to address other critical Sierra Club business. We need to manage these efforts on a full-time and much tighter
fashion.
As a result, we have approved a reorganization of our senior staff. We are giving a special national assignment to two of our most talented strategists and campaign managers. We are also reassigning and elevating other key staff members to achieve maximum alignment and coverage.
Starting immediately Legislative Director Debbie Sease will become the National Campaign Director. Debbie will oversee and coordinate the entire Stop Bush effort. At the same time Northwest Senior Regional Staff Director Bill Arthur will become the Deputy National Campaign Director for Field Operations. Bill will continue to report to National Field Director Bob Bingaman, but he will assume a national role of planning, aligning and coordinating all of the field programs focused on stopping Bush.
All of the various major programs of the Club the legal program, the legislative program, the political program, the field program, the partnerships program etc. will feed into this overall effort. Holding them accountable for their contribution to this overall effort will be the joint responsibility of Debbie and Bill. (They will continue to be supervised by the present staff structure for activities other than the Stop Bush campaigns, and in a formal, administrative sense.) Volunteer leaders will continued to determine policy issues which arise in the implementation of each program. But Debbie and Bill, along with the PEAC Committee, will be charged with ensuring that the entire national organization carries out the Board mandate that stopping, as well as replacing, Bush, are the Sierra Club's highest priorities for the next fourteen months.
Devoting Debbie Sease and Bill Arthur to these national campaign management tasks will leave some significant holes in our management structure, but luckily we are blessed with a deep bench of talent in the DC office and Northwest Region.
In the Northwest, Kathleen Casey will be assuming the role of Acting Northwest Regional Staff Director between now and November 2004. Other staff members will also be asked to take on additional acting duties and we will be adding some staff to make sure the essential work is accomplished in Bill's absence.
In the DC office Melanie Griffin will take on an acting assignment as National Programs Director in addition to her ongoing duties as Director of Environmental Partnerships. At the same time Debbie Boger, our Senior Representative on Energy issues, will assume a full time acting assignment as Deputy Legislative Director. Between the two of them they will take over most of the former duties of Debbie Sease, freeing her up to devote full time to the vital National Campaign Director role.
As we move forward with implementing this aggressive effort, we must prioritize our work. Some of the tasks that we have routinely done in the past may no longer be done, or may be done in a new fashion. Tasks which used to get attention as top priority may now have a lower priority. Some traditional efforts may need to be deferred or dropped. It is important that we all respect the need for that flexibility and keep our eye on the bullseye -- stopping Bush.
Debbie Sease has already begun the transition and is in the process of contracting with a management consultant who can help us pull together a comprehensive set of campaign plans and help us identify key bottlenecks, choices, and opportunities. This is the most complex and difficult thing we have ever undertaken. We are going to reflect the seriousness of that challenge by reaching out in new ways to new sources of professional expertise.
Debbie and Bill will be joining a set of senior volunteers and staff who have been charged by the Board to steer this effort. The Public Education and Alignment Committee (PEAC) is chaired by former President Jennifer Ferenstein, and also includes President Larry Fahn, VP Chuck McGrady, and Board member and former President Robbie Cox. The lead senior staff working closely with this committee are Carl Pope, Bruce Hamilton, Deputy Executive Director Maggie Fox, Debbie Sease, Field Director Bob Bingaman, Political Director Margaret Conway, Media Director Kerri Glover, and
Communications Consultant Kim Haddow, and now Bill Arthur. As you can see, this has the attention, involvement and support of the highest level of the Club volunteer and staff structure.
Raising funds for this effort has also been made one of the highest priorities for 2004 by the Board.
In the coming months we expect these megacampaigns will touch every part of the Sierra Club -- if we are doing our job correctly. We will be having a dialog with the Council and the Board at the annual meeting later this month to explore the opportunities -- and the challenges -- which this moment poses.
This campaign, and these temporary staff assignments, will run through November 2004.
In the meantime, please join with us in thanking these stellar employees for taking on this increased responsibility to help lead us to victory.