David Karpf

David Karpf
Residence
Washington, DC
Nominating committee candidate
Occupation
Professor
Sierra Club Leadership Positions

National Board of Directors (2004-2010), Board Executive Committee (2005-06, 2008-10), Sierra Club Vice President for Trainings (2003-2004), Sierra Student Coalition National Director (1999-2000), Sierra Student Coalition National Trainings Director (1998-1999) Co-lead, Sierra Club National Mobilization Team (2017-2021), Editorial Board, Sierra Club Organizing Manual (2016)

Email
davekarpf@gmail.com
Statement

I have been a member of the Sierra Club for 29 years. I joined on my 16th birthday, and spent much of my young adult life in the national leadership of the Club’s student-run arm, the Sierra Student Coalition (SSC). To this day, the SSC has an award named in my honor. I was first elected to the Sierra Club’s National Board in 2004, while I was in my first year of graduate school. For about fifteen years, the Club was half my life. 

After leaving the Board, I started my career as a professor of political communication. I teach and conduct research on how social movement organizations build power and win victories in the digital age. My research has won national accolades. I frequently advise political nonprofits on how to create leverage in a changing communications environment. In the classroom, I impart to my students many of the same lessons I was taught in my Sierra Club days. 

I am looking to be re-elected to the Board because I have grown concerned about the state of the Club. Recently, it seems as though every time the Sierra Club is in the news, it is because of fresh reporting on internal strife and division. It appears, from the outside, like we have forgotten some of the fundamental principles that have made the Club such a vital force for progressive change. 

2023 was the hottest year ever. We are living through the consequences of past climate inaction. I have two young children, and I worry about the world they will grow up in. There has never been a more important time for the Sierra Club to be good at the things we do best: building grassroots power, organizing strategic campaigns, and pressuring the powers-that-be in defense of climate justice. We need to be a force that pushes the political system to speed up. For the good of the planet, the Sierra Club’s best days have to be ahead of it.

I think the Board could use another steady hand right now – someone who knows the organization and its history, but also has some critical distance. We’ve been through rough patches before. I believe I can help guide us through this one.

Endorsements

Former Sierra Club President Lisa Renstrom, current Sierra Club Vice President for Chapters, Groups, and Volunteers Patrick Murphy, Former Sierra Club Organizing Director Bob Bingaman, 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 the Sierra Club’s power base. The thing that makes the Club unique among national environmental organizations is our grassroots leadership at the state and local level.

Supporting a massive, federated organization like the Club’s isn’t easy. It requires resources (staff, training, and an infrastructure of two-way communication) and constant maintenance. And, particularly in a moment where the Club is trying to patch a massive hole in the budget, it is critical that the board ensure we do not hollow out our volunteer capacity.

When I previously served on the board, we collaborated with Marshall Ganz to launch a nationwide training program that helped prepare and support our volunteer leaders on the ground. We also held the 2005 Sierra Summit, which convened the entire grassroots leadership to help set the Club’s strategic direction. I have heard that there are plans to organize another Sierra Summit. I think that’s great, and would be excited to help make it a reality.

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? 

The first step is trust. We are not always going to agree. (I have studied the history of the Club – there has never been a decade without significant disagreements.) But the route to productive  disagreement runs through building meaningful trust and shared organizational identity.

The best way to build trust is through convenings. Bringing back the Sierra Summit would be an excellent move in that direction.

The second step is a fair process where all sides are heard and feel that they have been listened to. Such processes require a lot of time and shared commitment. At times we need to move quick, with the collective understanding that we will try our best and make amends when we mess up.

The third step is making sure we continue to center collective action. The thing that brings us back together when we disagree is the shared sense that together we will win. We have to make sure we don’t lose sight of the campaigns and causes that bring us together in the first place.

Question 3

Question 3

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

There’s an old saying, “don’t tell me your values. Show me your budget.” The Sierra Club isn’t alone in its budget shortfall right now. Every progressive organization is facing the same downturn.

I do not expect there is going to be a “magic bullet” solution to our near-term funding woes. So what matters right now is prioritizing our commitment to volunteer capacity- and power-building while we manage the next few years of likely short-run budget deficits. The best way to attract more donations is to win important campaigns that remind people why the Sierra Club is a crucial force for the planet.

I unfortunately have some experience with this – the Club also faced declining revenues throughout my earlier six-year term (’04-’10). We had to make hard resource allocation decisions and make every dollar count. It isn’t easy, but it is a necessary harsh reality of nonprofit management. Funding levels are cyclical. They fluctuate over time.

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?  

Throughout the ‘00s, the Club had to work on repairing breaches of trust between the traditional environmental movement and frontline communities. (We also had to fend off a hostile takeover attempt by anti-immigration activists – I originally joined the Board as part of the “Groundswell Sierra” slate that repelled the takeover attempt.)

ne thing I am proud of from my previous term on the Board was that we continued to prioritize our Environmental Justice work, even when we were making significant cuts to many other programs. We tried our best to make it clear that we valued EJ work through our budget.

For the past decade, I have primarily contributed to the movement through my research and my public writing. There too, I have tried to demonstrate my commitment not just to environmental issues as they have historically been narrowly defined, but to the broader cause of progressive power-building that is necessary for achieving the ideal of equitable, multiracial democracy.

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 Board makes governance decisions. The staff puts those decisions into action. That can be a tangled mess. It’s important that the Board focus on high-level strategy and policy, rather than trying to micromanage the Executive Director. But it’s equally important that the Executive Director answers to the Board, and the Board answers to the volunteer leadership.

The most important thing that I bring to this task is experience. I served on the Board in the aughts, working with Carl Pope during the late George W. Bush and early Obama years. I served on the Board Executive Committee when Carl announced he would step down and we selected Mike Brune as the new Executive Director.

The additional value I bring is a decade of critical distance. I know how the Sierra Club works, but am not invested in the current internal disagreements. I think it will be helpful to add a Board member who understands the Club’s culture and values, but can ask “Wait. What are we really arguing about right now?”

Question 6

Question 6

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

I think it is important that the Sierra Club remains a volunteer-led, volunteer-run organization. That is our power base. It’s what we bring to the broader movement that no other national organization can provide. But we also have to be “One Club,” and that Club includes our talented, committed staff.

Carl Pope used to say that the Sierra Club was structurally like a bumblebee – on paper, it shouldn’t be able to fly. And yet it does. One thing I learned from home was that the frictions between staff and volunteer leadership are “dynamic tensions.” They are always going to be there. They can be productive, but only if you continue to build and maintain trust and solidarity.

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? 

This is where I think it will be useful that I have been outside of the national leadership for a while. We have been through restructuring and financial downturns before. It is a difficult process, and one of the best things we can do is raise good, hard questions about our assumptions. (What was this structure set out to accomplish? Is it working? Which stakeholders are being heard, and which are being ignored? Has the whole thing become so complicated that it works well on paper but is unworkable in practice?)

I don’t have a specific agenda for what actions we should take. I have a commitment to our values, and a fair amount of expertise in how nonprofit advocacy organizations build power in the digital age. And I have a fresh set of eyes. So I have a lot of questions about the current structure, to get myself back up to speed. And I suspect those are approximately the questions that Board members should be asking anyway.

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? 

The two immediate priorities are the climate crisis and the crisis of electoral democracy. The Sierra Club’s entire theory-of-change is premised upon a functional liberal democracy. If the U.S. tumbles into authoritarianism, we are incapable of achieving our broader environmental goals. And, if we don’t succeed in both helping to chart the path for a just transition to a clean energy future, and accelerating the pace of that transition, then all our other work will eventually be rendered moot.

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? 

I wrote a book in 2016 titled Analytic Activism: Digital Listening and the New Political Strategy. It is about how progressive political associations in the United States can institute a culture of testing and digital listening to identify new leverage points in a fast-changing communications environment.

I mention this not to brag, but to indicate that I have so much more to say on this topic than will fit within the 250 word section limit!

The short version is: (1) treat digital interactions with the membership as a form of passive democratic feedback, (2) build an organizational culture that runs lots of small experiments and continually tests our assumptions about how you gain and build power, (3) be aware of the limitations and biases of that data, and (4) build an organizational culture that takes that all that feedback seriously.

Question 10

Question 10

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

Our outings program serves four strategic purposes.

(1) It gets people out into nature, fostering environmental values and reminding us what we’re fighting for. This is directly worthwhile in its own right.

(2) It is a recruitment tool for potential members and future leaders. People who show up to hikes eventually go on to show up for other meetings and events as well.

(3) It provides a space where our existing leadership can (re)build shared trust and solidarity. This bridges back to the trust- and relationship-building efforts that I mentioned in response to question #2.

(4) It connects us to our organizational history, a reminder of what makes the Club special and what we fight for. Some of the Sierra Club’s distinct power comes from the depth and longevity of our contribution to the fight for environmental protections. The outings program has been a crucial part of the Club, dating back to the “High Trips” of the 1910 that were instrumental in campaigns to protect public lands.