Sierra Club Foundation

• Solve the climate crisis primarily through a successful transition to a resource-efficient clean energy economy that better serves people and nature;
• Secure protections for public lands and waters, promote healthy ecosystems and communities, and fight for clean air and water;
• Expand opportunities for more people to explore, enjoy, and protect the planet by supporting programs and policies that reach across economic, cultural, and community lines to get people outdoors; and
• Build a diverse, inclusive environmental movement that reflects and represents today's American public, and prioritizes important connections between environmental health and social justice.

We partner with individual and institutional donors to align financial resources with strategic outcomes, provide flexible funding for innovation, build capacity in the environmental movement, and create partnerships with a broad spectrum of allied organizations around shared values and goals. As the fiscal sponsor of the charitable programs of the Sierra Club, we provide resources to it and other nonprofit organizations to support scientific, educational, literary, organizing, advocacy, and legal programs that further our goals.

As the fiscal sponsor of the charitable programs of the Sierra Club, we provide resources in support of its charitable scientific, educational, literary, organizing, advocacy, and legal programs. Chosen by the National Journal Group in 2012 as one of the Top 15 “Best Brands" in Washington, D.C., for influencing policy, the Sierra Club gives people a powerful voice in protecting the environment and public health. With nearly 3 million members and supporters in 65 chapters and more than 400 local groups nationwide, it has the resources to empower people and influence public policy through community activism, public education, lobbying, and litigation. While the Sierra Club is the world's oldest and largest grassroots environmental organization, it makes effective use of the newest technology—its electronic activist network represents millions. Hundreds of media spokespeople extend that reach, delivering to millions of Americans the Sierra Club's message that we can move beyond coal, oil, and natural gas to reverse global warming and create a clean, renewable energy future for all.

Programs funded by the Sierra Club Foundation have made tremendous progress. Since the Beyond Coal Campaign launched in 2010, its strategic, comprehensive advocacy has helped drive the proposed retirement of more than 250 coal-fired power plants. We have locked in the retirement of a total of more than 115,000 MW of installed coal capacity (representing a third of the total U.S. coal fleet capacity in 2009). These plants emitted more than nearly 500 million metric tons of CO2 in 2009 and produced 40 percent of the coal fleet's sulfur dioxide emissions.

Our most substantial lands victory in 2016 was the designation of three new national monuments in the southern California desert, totaling nearly 1.8 million acres. This is a historic moment and one that comes as a direct result of the hard work and decades of organizing in the California desert by committed Sierra Club volunteers, staff, and partners.

The Sierra Club's Environmental Law Program continues on the leading edge of environmental litigation, with 2016 victories including upholding a low-carbon fuel standard in Oregon against industry pressure, securing coal retirement plans across the country, notably from major Southeast polluter Duke Energy, strengthening the renewable energy standard in Colorado despite push-back from right-wing, dirty fuel interests, successfully pressuring WesPac Energy to abandon an oil storage and transfer facility in Pittsburg, California, and protecting wild lands from development in parks and communities across the country.

The Sierra Club's Responsible Trade Program made significant progress toward our ultimate goal of shedding light on the harmful impacts of our current model of free trade and creating public demand for trade rules that protect human health and the environment. We mobilized members and supporters to host meetings and educate allies; published infographics, policy briefs, and reports on the climate and environmental impacts of trade deals; and educated decision-makers about the importance of transparency in the negotiations process and environmental standards in trade agreements.

In 2016, Sierra Club Outdoors has heightened national awareness of the value of time spent outside, and provided opportunities for thousands of people across the country to do so. We worked with the White House to organize a successful roundtable on the value of public lands for public health, with more than 50 leaders in the field in attendance. Research about the benefits of getting outside that the Sierra Club helped orchestrate featured prominently in the event, which helped push forward important conversations about bringing the healing powers of the nature into mainstream healthcare.

As we reflect on the successes of 2016, we must also look ahead to the challenges of 2017 and beyond. "Resist, Build, Win" form the strategic framework for the next four years and drive 2017 priorities. We will not pull back from the fight for continued progress.