Last year an early-20-something couple came to my door promoting the Sierra Club. I signed up, but only because 1. they were not smelly hippies as I would have imagined 2. I felt sorry for their door-to-door hustling ways in the hot Florida sun, and 3. I kind of like nature.
My membership card in hand, I felt like a responsible citizen of the world.
In the coming months, however, I started receiving Sierra Club magazines and other literature, which I found REALLY ironic – preaching a message via dead trees – the very thing they are trying to protect. This had bothered me for quite some time – I NEVER read crap I get in the mail and I always hate seeing so much paper get wasted – I recycle, but I know not everyone does. Besides, recycling is still not as good as “never using the damn tree to begin with”.
A few months ago the Sierra people started calling my cell phone. I never really wanted to talk to them so I always got off the phone pretty fast. But after a number of tries I got pretty fed up with them trying to get me to donate. I told them to take me off every one of their lists, including the mailing list.
I may have stuck around longer, but I really get the feeling the a lot of money donated to the Sierra Club goes towards supporting the machine that is the Sierra Club. If anyone knows of a site with stats of “how much of your money actually goes to help and how much goes to administrative expenses”, please drop me a link in the comments.
Sorry Sierra Club. You just lost a member.
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{ 5 comments… read them below or add one }
What’s worse than wasting paper is wasting people’s time with a thoroughly obvious rant. Maybe tomorrow you can tell us how much you hate getting bubble gum on your shoe or how annoying it is to turn on the bathroom light at 4am.
And another thing. I hate it when I get bubble gum stuck on my shoe.
Nonprofits need to get on the Cluetrain just as much as businesses do. I work with lots of nonprofits and one of the very first things I suggest is to let your supporters TELL YOU what info they want, then they will actually value getting information from your organization. Advocacy groups must open up and evolve or their supporters will go elsewhere.
assuming you donated to the ’sierra club foundation’ see a report here:
http://www.charitynavigator.org/index.cfm/bay/search.summary/orgid/5838.htm
charity navigator reports that the foundation spent 3.7% on fundraising expenses.
if instead you donated to the sierra club, the 501(c)(4) organization…. they’re not evaluated “because they are allowed to spend a substantial portion of their revenue on lobbying our government and not every donation to them is tax-deductible.” see here:
http://www.charitynavigator.org/index.cfm?keyword_list=sierra+club&Submit2=GO&bay=search.results
I want absolutly and positivly nothing to do with the sierra club and its unterior motive to turn vast areas of this nation into uninhabited wildlands and as far as im concrned CARL POPE can go and haike a hike we dont need their radical ideas. I saw a copy of SIERRA magazine a few years ago its front cover showed some of those eco-wackos sitting in trees of platforms made of 2×4s and one was playing a guitar made of wood. SCREW IT SIERRA CLUB,SIERRA CLUB SUCKS,SIERRA CLUB KISS MY AXE