Sierra Club Reviews

If you want to understand why the Democratic party is so disorganized and ineffective, look no further than the Sierra Club. Even the most driven and dedicated liberals will quickly be beaten down by the futility of it all. Little to no work ever gets done because of the insane amount of bureaucracy that permeates throughout the organization. New leadership is trying to modernize operations (and correct a $40M budget shortfall) with a massive restructure that is at odds with the organization's "bottom up" organizing that is largely governed by old, white, retired volunteers who are stuck in the 1970s environmental movement and have zero boundaries or professionalism. HR seems to be non-existent. No one can apparently balance a checkbook. As an added bonus, some employees were just notified a former co-worker (presumably from HR) stole their social security numbers. If you want to be a part of real progressive change, or even just a minimally functional workplace, look somewhere else.

Past year and a half, particularly since the new ED came in 2023, there has been backsliding on equity and justice work. The entire equity team was laid off, as was the environmental justice and the internal investigations team (all these teams were majority POC), the latter was responsible for addressing discrimination and harassment complaints. Now it’s not clear who does this. Union has filed labor complaints against management, leadership has stifled all forms of feedback (no more staff zoom calls with comments or speaking from non-leadership allowed, no more employee engagement survey), new leadership has a higher salary than old despite budget issues and layoffs, massive restructures and unexpected job description changes of many staff jobs. I worked there for 5 years and know a lot of staffers in nearly all areas of the org and not a single one—not a single one—feels good about being there right now. If you have strong values for social and environmental justice and/or you’re a person of color, be cautious. The organization has serious budget issues, but new leadership appears to be sacrificing the soul and values of the org in the hopes (or under the guise) of addressing the budget.