The Sierra Club Foundation Annual Report 2011

ANNUAL REPORT 2011 | THE SIERRA CLUB FOUNDATION
“The Beyond Coal
campaign has had
great success stopping
more than 150 new
coal-fired power plants,
and it empowers local
communities to lead
from the front while
BLOOMBERG SUPPORT FUELS CLEAN ENERGY FUTURE
In July, Bloomberg Philanthropies pledged $50 million ($40 million to The Sierra Club
Foundation) to help the Sierra Club move America beyond coal toward a clean energy future.
The gift is the largest individual donation to the Climate Recovery Partnership, and it also
represents Bloomberg’s biggest gift to any environmental organization.
“We all have to do our part. I wouldn’t ask you to do anything I’m not willing to do
myself—and I’m willing to do $50 million,” stated Mayor Bloomberg. This funding will
expand the Beyond Coal campaign from 15 to 45 states and double its workforce.
Bloomberg announced his historic gift in front of GenOn’s coal-fired Potomac River
Generating Station, a Virginia power plant that our campaign has targeted since 2003. In the
past year, the Club’s organizing campaign generated 1,200 comments in support of the plant’s
retirement; sponsored a candlelight vigil outside the plant that drew 400 participants; rallied
2,500 Power Shift participants outside GenOn’s lobby offices in Washington, D.C.; sponsored
a mercury hair-testing event that attracted extensive media coverage; and sent volunteers to
the GenOn annual shareholder meeting in Houston to ask the CEO to retire the plant. The
Sierra Club also commissioned air pollution modeling to demonstrate pollution impacts in the
Congress continues to
watch from the back.”
– MICHAEL BLOOMBERG
MAYOR, NEW YORK CITY
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