The listserve is not use to hearing about the weather in various parts
of the United States. I am looking forward to the weather in San Diego
from March 20-24. The following memo discusses the assertions put forth
in the "Cruz memo" as false. The Sierra Club Foundation thought that
there were so many problems with what was said they had to reply. When I
read the "Cruz memo" I thought it is a shame that an organization that
does such good work has to suffer this. I am so glad that here in Iowa
it means we talk about the weather. - Big Smile.
To: Sierra Club Leaders and Activists
From: John DeCock, Executive Director, The Sierra Club Foundation
Many of you have received and email message containing a press release from
Dick Lamm and Frank Morris, two candidates in the Sierra Club's Board of
Director's election. A third candidate, David Pimentel, later added his
name to the release and related statements. Because that press release
contained a number of false and reckless assertions about The Sierra Club
Foundation, we felt it was important to provide some information to set the
record straight. It is not our purpose in any way to intervene in the
internal political affairs of the Sierra Club. We are a separate
corporation governed by a separate Board of Trustees. Our comments relate
only to correcting some factual inaccuracies and deflating some flights of
fancy.
There is no real value for the Foundation in addressing three candidates
statement point by point. Instead, we would like to provide some general
information that provides real information about our donations, our donors
and how we make grants.
First, The Sierra Club Foundation has a clear policy on accepting anonymous
donations. We adhere to this policy rigorously That policy states, in
part;
The Board of Trustees authorizes the Executive Director and the Sierra Club
fund raising staff to accept donations in confidence when the following
criteria are met:
1) It has been determined that the sources of money are lawful;
2) That restricted purposes for the money do not promote a private
benefit for the donor either directly or indirectly;
3) That confidentiality would not violate any legal requirement for
disclosure;
4) That disclosure of the identity of the donor would not bring discredit
upon the Foundation because of the source of the funds.
Although this does not help to feed the multiple dark and draconian
theories put forward by the candidates press release, it is the ethical
basis on which we operate in acceptance of anonymous donations.
Second, Neither Dick Lamm, nor Frank Morris, nor David Pimental has made
any attempt to communicate with The Sierra Club Foundation to inquire as to
whether or not the statements they made were supportable by fact. I have
no idea why they did not take that basic step to fact-check their release,
but they did not. It appears they were either provided with grossly
inaccurate information or they speculated based on the little they know
about the relationship between the Foundation and the Club. We may never
know why the chose to send out such a terribly flawed statement.
Third, the Foundation retains full discretion and control of all funds
donated to us. There are no unknown restrictions. Any restrictions on the
funds we grant to the Club are clearly laid out in our grant agreements and
the proposals made by the Club. There is nothing mysterious or
inappropriate about granting funds according to donor intent. Every
charity in the country does it. If a donor offers to fund a program that
we cannot support, we simply decline the gift. All of the programs we fund
for the Club are well documented.
Fourth, a good portion of our recent large gifts has gone to organizations
outside of the Club. This includes other large, national environmental
organizations as well as hundreds of grants to send school children on
outdoor education wilderness trips.
Fifth, the fiduciary duty to know the source of the gifts lies with The
Foundation. No Club Director is in breach of their fiduciary duty because
the Foundation has respected a requests for anonymity from donors. In
fact, the Club and its members should be reassured that we are meticulous
in our relationship with our generous supporters who wish to remain
anonymous. It is a completely ordinary arrangement that is in place in
nearly every nonprofit organization that accepts gifts.
Finally, the large gifts we received in 2000 and 2001 one were the result
of a fortunate confluence of events. The stock market boom of the late
90's put some of our donors in the position to make extremely generous
gifts. We received no such gifts in 2002 when the impact of the faltering
market really began to have an impact. We exercised good foresight and
planning in how we administered those gifts and budgeted to grant them out
over a period of five or more years so that our good fortune would be
extended through less rosy economic times. This is in fact what has
happened and activists all over the country doing good environmental work
are supported by the outcome of that planning. We retain discretion and
control over a considerable amount of the original gifts as anyone can see
by looking through our annual reports, publicly available on our web site.
When you strip out all the wild conspiracy theories of the candidates press
release, you are left with this reality. The Sierra Club Foundation was
extraordinarily successful in fund rasing in the 2000 and 2001 and we
zealously and lawfully respect requests for anonymity from our donors.
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