Meghan Sahli-Wells

Meghan Sahli-Wells
Residence
Culver City, California
Nominating committee candidate
Member Since
2010
Life member
Occupation
Environmental Non-Profit State Director
Sierra Club Leadership Positions

National Board Secretary (2022-present); Board Director (2021-present); Angeles Chapter PolCom (2023-present); West LA Group ExCom (2020-present) 

Other Leadership Positions

Culver City Mayor & Councilmember (2012-2020); Founding Board Director Local Progress (2013-2020); Co-Founder Bike Culver City (2010-present); California Zero Traffic Fatalities Task Force (2019-2020); Southern California Association of Governments (2014-2020); Clean Power Alliance (2017-2020); Mobile Source Air Pollution Reduction Committee (2019-2020); Metro Expo Line Construction Authority (2014-2017)

Email
Meghan.Sahli-Wells@sierraclub.org
Website
https://www.linkedin.com/in/meghan-sahli-wells-69287231/
Statement

Solving the climate crisis is the most important, urgent work of our time, and Sierra Club is the organization leading this existential fight. My motivation to continue as Board Director is rooted in our collective work to advance climate justice, support our diverse communities and biodiversity, to ensure we survive and thrive.

 Since my election in 2021, it’s been an honor to serve the Sierra Club community by setting policy and organizational priorities, listening to members, hiring our history-making Executive Director Benjamin Jealous, and working closely with our excellent staff and volunteers. I co-founded the Board’s Women’s Caucus (2021) and was entrusted by my colleagues to serve as Secretary (2022-present). With our current structural changes, budget challenges, and need to ensure the Sierra Club is positioned to succeed in the fight for climate justice, I believe I’m in an ideal position to continue advancing our critical work. 

 As California Director of an environmental non-profit, Elected Officials to Protect America, I work with elected leaders championing climate policies at all levels of government. With deep engagement in coalitions including Sierra Club, Center for Biological Diversity, Greenpeace, Center on Race Poverty and the Environment, Blue Green Alliance, and more, we collaborate to end fossil fuel extraction, hold polluters accountable, support a just transition for fossil fuel workers, and have been instrumental in the passage of several climate bills in the California Legislature. 

 A former elected official myself, I was a proud Sierra Club endorsed candidate (2012, 2016), receiving an Angeles Chapter Political Leadership Award in 2018. My biggest environmental achievements were won through close collaboration with Sierra Club volunteers and staff. Accomplishments as Culver City Mayor & City Council Member (2012-2020) include: leading Culver City’s transition to 100% renewable energy; spearheading the city’s legislation to end oil drilling; launching Culver City’s equity and youth empowerment initiatives; enacting Culver City’s Sanctuary City policies; initiating the city’s sustainable water policies and ban on polystyrene; and championing affordable housing and groundbreaking tenant protections.

 I hope to continue my Board tenure to advance our shared goals to protect our ecosystem, ensure outdoors access for all, act for justice, transform our energy system and build community power to protect our future. I would greatly appreciate your vote!

Endorsements (to date)

  • North Dakota Chapter

  • Florida Chapter

  • Utah Chapter

  • Vice President for Conservation Ross Macfarlane

  • Vice President for Chapters, Groups, and Volunteers Patrick Murphy

  • Treasurer Cheyenne Skye Branscum 

  • National Sierra Club Board Directors: Shruti Bhatnagar, Rita Harris, Debbie Heaton, David Holtz, Cynthia Hoyle, Tony Fuller, Dave Scott

  • Former Board Directors: Susana Reyes, Mike O’Brien  

  • Chair of Chapter Chair Representatives Mary Ann Ruiz 

  • Grassroots Network Representative Doug Fetterly 

  • Angeles Chapter Executive Committee Member, West Los Angeles Group Chair & Clean Break Committee Chair David Haake

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?

As a volunteer-led organization, volunteers are essential to the Sierra Club’s everyday operations and extraordinary successes. From hyper-local expertise and activism on the Group level to the Board of Directors leadership itself, encompassing over 3.5 million members and supporters, Sierra Club’s volunteers are the superpower that sets this organization apart from others. Volunteers organize and lead outings, they conduct endorsements and engage with elected officials to ensure Sierra Club’s priorities are translated into policies. They conduct research, connect with impacted communities, run meetings, testify at public hearings, raise money, craft policy, lead campaigns, protest, organize, recruit, inspire and so much more.

Supporting volunteer leaders is mission-critical, and includes constant communications improvement, providing accessible and relevant training, providing staff support and financial resources, ensuring Campfire and other digital resources are functioning and easily accessed, streamlining reporting tools, and advancing policy priorities. Supporting volunteer leaders also means listening to leaders’ needs. I’m excited about the new regional field structure, providing better access information and resources between local and national volunteers and staff within key geographic areas. As we strengthen and grow this structure, volunteer support will grow with it.

All board members serve on at least one Advisory Committee. For the past year, I’ve served on the Volunteer Leadership Advisory Committee (VLAC), which facilitates volunteer leadership, grassroots engagement, and activism within Sierra Club. This experience has helped deepen my understanding of diverse volunteer needs.

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? 

Sierra Club members are passionate leaders who represent a wide array of positions on issues, informed by lived experience, expertise, research, local knowledge, and at times bias. We need to support and train leaders to learn to recognize and overcome bias. We need to foster healthy dialogue and create spaces where we can learn from one another, with mutual respect, even in the face of disagreement. And rather than shy away from difference, I believe hearing differing views strengthens the Sierra Club. This can be a challenge, but it is one that leads to better outcomes. Ultimately, our work must be rooted in our mission, values, and strategic vision.

A good example of bringing diverse positions together to create unified policy happens in the Conservation Policy Committee (CPC), where I served during my first year on the Board. They have a deliberative process where new policies and updates to existing policies are proposed by Sierra Club leaders for consideration. The CPC consults with subject matter experts for their perspectives, they may create a Task Force, and implement a comment period, to ensure our Sierra Club community has a chance to be heard. The committee brings the diverse perspectives shared together, to craft Sierra Club policy that is guided by our mission, values, strategic vision and informed by stakeholders. Their recommendation is presented to the full Board for a vote to set official policy.

Question 3

Question 3

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

In partnership with Executive Director Ben Jealous and his Leadership Team, the Board has been actively addressing the deficit, prioritizing fundraising, and deepening relationships with donors big and small.

This vital work must continue for the Sierra Club to achieve its mission of exploring, enjoying, and protecting the wild places of the earth. Current work includes making it easier for Chapters to solicit and receive donations and manage financial reporting, improving communication between volunteers and staff within our regional field structure, streamlining the 501(c)3 and 501(c)4 funding structures, developing communications to gain and retain new supporters, fixing outdated digital systems, reducing redundancies, fostering large dollar donor relationships, while broadening our reach to donors at all levels.

In addition to these ongoing efforts, we must continue to tell our story: the story of hundreds of thousands of volunteers paired with staff excellence, translating into wins for the environment throughout the country every day, every year, through decades. We gain by showing our extraordinary work fighting climate change. This both strengthens our fundraising and attracts allies to advance our work.

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?  

My collaboration with frontline communities began when I was a Mayor and City Council Member in the fight to end oil drilling. Culver City, CA has 10% of largest urban oil field in the US, the Inglewood Oil Field. I built close relationships with community members living directly next to oil extraction. I also created alliances with communities and environmental justice organizations surrounding the oil field within the jurisdiction of Los Angeles County to pressure the oil operator and LA County to end drilling in the remaining 90% of the field. This collaboration included listening to and uplifting community voices, ensuring they were heard in committee meetings, workshops and hearings, and ensuring their concerns were reflected in the policies we created.

After terming out of office, I did similar work as a consultant for LA County Supervisor Holly Mitchell in 2021. We ensured environmental justice organizations were consulted closely and represented in the County’s oil drilling policies.

Today in my work as California Director of Elected Officials to Protect America, I am part of a coalition, the Last Chance Alliance, with several environmental justice organizations representing frontline communities in California. Our coalition focuses on ending fossil fuel extraction, prioritizing protections for frontline communities, and ensuring a just transition for workers in the oil drilling sector.

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 Sierra Club Board of Directors is the governing body for the organization, setting and guiding policy, overseeing staff and volunteer activities, ensuring sound fiscal management, and working closely with the Executive Director to implement the priorities we collectively set.

I had the honor of being elected to the Board in 2021 and was promoted by my colleagues to the Executive Committee in the position of Board Secretary in both 2022 and 2023. In this capacity, I work closely with President Allison Chin (and previously President Ramon Cruz) setting agendas, ensuring meetings are productive, participatory and reflect the priorities of the organization to advance our critical work.

I dedicate a significant portion of my time to the Sierra Club Board and bring deep environmental policy and governance experience to the Board from my previous work in local government and community organizing.

I have previous national Board experience as one of the founding members of Local Progress. And I have experience as a Board Director for governing bodies including Clean Power Alliance, Southern California Association of Governments, Metro Expo Line Construction Authority, Mobile Source Reduction Committee, Westside Cities Council of Governments, as well as grassroots groups like Bike Culver City, my local neighborhood association, and Transition Culver City.

These experiences have helped me develop critical skills that make a good Board Member: listening to constituents, collaborative policymaking, good governance, organizational management, fiscal responsibility, budget oversight, running productive meetings with respectful dialogue, and showing up!

Question 6

Question 6

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

National staff and representatives help support the vital work done in Chapters with resources like funding, training, guidance, and can include communications assistance, legal support for challenges to bad local projects, and more. Chapters are the experts on the ground for local issues and help raise the alarm for key issues that the Sierra Club should put its resources behind. By working together, local and national leaders amplify critical environmental fights and create campaigns to win them. These campaigns are most successful when they are guided by grassroots experiences and strengthened by national resources.

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? 

The restructuring in process is the result of direction and priorities identified by Sierra Club leaders over the past several years. The goal: to make sure Sierra Club is fully resourced and ready to achieve our mission to: “explore, enjoy and protect the wild places of the earth.” Implementation of this vision has been challenging and has been made more difficult by the reduction in charitable contributions across the non-profit and arts sectors. The changes taking place have been painful. We’ve lost great staff, and restructuring has left some feeling confused and unheard. 

Thankfully, we are turning the corner. Guided by the Board, the Executive Team has worked diligently, and we are on track to close the deficit and are increasing contributions, reducing redundancies, and improving operations. We’re addressing pay equity between Chapter staff and National staff. We’re improving communications, and building a strong field structure, working to provide more resources more effectively throughout the organization. As we address the organizational and financial management piece, we continue advancing the climate work.

Our Executive Director Benjamin Jealous, with the full support of the Board, has been engaging our volunteer base, Chapter by Chapter, in deep listening, sharing, and celebrating local victories, successful campaigns, and policy wins nationwide. This is what informs and inspires the structural work: to ensure Sierra Club can support the leaders who are fighting for our survival on this planet. We must win.

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? 

In alignment with our 2030 Strategic Vision, ending fossil fuels and ensuring workers have a pathway to family-sustaining jobs in clean energy is my passion, and the focus of my professional work and a lot of my Sierra Club activism. I dream of building a new energy paradigm where communities are not sacrificed but supported with benefits, protections, clean air, soil and water, and a thriving non-extractive economic base. Removing harmful fossil fuel infrastructure is a critical part of our work with frontline, environmental justice communities, while also reducing planet-warming emissions that are driving the climate catastrophe. This is where my local, statewide, and national work intersect.

Beyond my personal priorities, I work to ensure Sierra Club positioned to raise the resources needed for our many critical and intersecting priorities to solve the climate crisis, including clean water, clean air, clean energy, healthy soil, zero waste, preservation and protection of public lands and species, ensuring outdoors access for all, environmental justice, and our democracy work, to name a few. This is why I have focused on good governance and fiscal management to prime our organization to succeed in all our collective work.

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? 

When I was an elected official, good data was a key tool for good policymaking. For example, data helped name and expose adverse health impacts from fossil fuel drilling and explain the science behind those impacts. It helped educate the public and my City Council colleagues to see beyond the fossil fuel industry talking points, to understand the real trade-offs our city was making in allowing fossil fuel extraction to continue.

It’s important to note that data points can also be used too narrowly, and can be selectively used to hide larger lived experiences in communities. In other words, studies must include community perspectives, and statistics must be placed in people-centered contexts.

Ultimately, the combination of good data, excellent, long-term community organizing, incredible persistence, and connecting data points to real life experiences, contributed to our historic move to stop all new drilling and phase out existing oil drilling in Culver City. Those data points, that organizing, those stories, were studied and delivered by a coalition with Sierra Club volunteer and staff leaders, with whom I worked closely to achieve this incredible victory.

The Sierra Club has an immensely important task of informing communities and policymakers, with “data-informed, values driven campaigns.” Now that I’m on the other side, as a Sierra Club volunteer leader on the Board, I deeply appreciate the power and the responsibility of gathering, studying, and communicating data to win policy victories nationwide.

Question 10

Question 10

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

Outings are key to Sierra Club’s history and our ongoing work. They are an excellent way to inspire and recruit people to become involved in environmental protection. Outings spark joy and love: people want to protect what they love.

Sierra Club’s Outdoors for All campaign work recognizes the immense benefits of accessing nature and seeks to remove barriers to outdoors access for diverse communities throughout the country. This important work helps deepen relationships, broaden our base, and better our world.

Outings are also a powerful means of educating policymakers, so they can understand and experience the impacts of the environmental legislation Sierra Club leaders work so hard to pass. In my own community, where urban oil drilling is rampant, local outings with impacted frontline community members are one of the most critical education tools we have. As part of the STAND LA Coalition with local environmental justice organizations, Sierra Club has helped lead outings with local leaders, who have then gone on to pass groundbreaking legislation that Sierra Club helped inspire. Outings were instrumental in uplifting community voices, and exposing conditions on the ground, leading to significant policy victories to end the practice of neighborhood oil drilling in Los Angeles.