"Strength & sustainability"

Protecting the Bay Area - your community, every community

The San Francisco Bay Chapter is pleased to announce the inauguration of the Strength & Sustainability program, a new major-gifts effort, that is part of our five-year strategic plan to secure the financial resources needed to support critical environmental organizing efforts throughout the Chapter.

Donors supporting the Strength & Sustainability program directly fund the grassroots outreach that has made our local Bay Chapter the leader in environmental protection. In the last five years we have won over 70% of our campaigns by directly involving thousands of Sierra Club members in the environmental issues that most affect their local communities.

Even with all of our successes there are ever-increasing pressures on our environment and natural world. We need to do more. Through the generous support of Bay Chapter donors, the Strength & Sustainability program will help us expand our outreach around the Bay to:

protect open space and limit the further congestion of our freeways in Alameda and Contra Costa Counties;
safeguard the East Bay shoreline and wetlands from large casinos and development projects;
meet 40% of San Francisco's energy needs with clean renewable energy to establish the Bay Area as the nation's leader in solar power;
protect the Tuolumne River and secure our water supply by moving forward with the earthquake retrofit of the Hetch Hetchy water system - without a massive new expansion of water diversions; and
care for the natural beauty of Marin County by passing a 10 year Countywide Plan that limits monster homes and other inappropriate development.

Launched this past October, the Strength & Sustainability program has already been supported by more than 30 individual donors who have stretched beyond their previous giving to the chapter. We express our heartfelt gratitude to Strength & Sustainability's founding supporters. Please join us in acknowledging their leadership and exceptional commitment to protect and preserve the natural beauty and scenic areas that make the Bay Area a special place to live.

To make a contribution yourself, or to find out more about the Strength & Sustainability campaign, please contact our Chapter development director, Bill Walsh, at (510) 848-0800, ext. 309, or email wwalsh-at-sfbaysc.org

Founding contributors

Ed Bennett, honorary Chapter chair
Gordon Bennett, Chapter Executive Committee, and chair Marin Group
Margot Kramer Biehle, Marin Group Executive Committee
Jim Blickenstaff, chair Mount Diablo Group and former city councilmember San Ramon
Michael Bornstein, Chapter director, and Py Driscoll
Mike Daley, Chapter conservation director
Steve Gensler
Marlyne Hadley
Totton Heffelfinger, former chair, Chapter Wetlands Committee
Andy Katz, chair, Northern Alameda County Group
Steve Krieg, Chapter Executive Committee, and Nikki Ausschnitt
Norman La Force, chair of Strength & Sustainability, Chapter Executive Committee, and former mayor, El Cerrito
Marge Macris, Chapter and Marin Group Executive Committees
John Rizzo, Chapter chair
Mary Schmidt, Chapter major-gifts consultant
Jane Seleznow, former Chapter chair
Bob Solotar, Chapter Executive Committee, chair Chapter Conservation Committee
Thomas Steuber
Matt and Liz Tucker
FinePrint Software
Bill Walsh, Chapter development director
Jon Wurfl

Plus several anonymous donors.