Section I: Capacity Assessment Summary

            Environmental Defense was an organization that was very much stuck in the past.  The litigation over thirty years ago that led to the banning of DDT was the crowning achievement of the groups’ founders, but there was little in the way of present momentum towards accomplishing policy changes of similar magnitude.  Without trying to marginalize the past successes of the organization, Environmental Defense needed to move forward in order to redefine the company in the present.

            According to Fred Krupp, there had been two waves in the environmental movement. One of the waves was the response to the use of public lands for commodity production, and it led to the creation of national parks and groups that protected swaths of land.  The next phase was the reaction of the environmental movement to the pollution and contamination of that land by industrial waste and by chemical byproducts such as fertilizers and pesticides.  Environmental Defense was active in this wave of the environmental movement as a lobbying/legal group, but Fred Krupp intended on focusing on the next wave of the environmental movement which he believed to be the compromise between the economy and the environment.  Krupp believed the American public could not stomach economically damaging restrictions in the name of environmentalism, so he positioned Environmental Defense as an organization that could lobby for environmental protection while understanding the impact on businesses and the national industrial output.

Environmental Defense tried to help towns like this shed themselves of heavy polluting industries

            Environmental Defense met difficulty in the early 21^st century getting the attention of donors through the blizzard of competing direct mail from other environmental advocacy groups.  Smaller groups were supposedly more focused on their missions, and most people active in the movement were active in a number of groups that they divided their donations and attention between.  Krupp wanted to create a funding source that would be stable, rather than one that relied on crisis after crisis to regenerate temporary interest in the organization. 

            Marketing had been a major hang up in the business strategy prior to Krupp taking over the organization.  Most environmental NGOs used some form of direct marketing to reach their clients, a process that Krupp deemed effective but needing overhaul.  In general, the membership of Environmental Defense was involved in as many as 4 other environmental groups, so fund raising was a competition between all the other groups to inspire the individual donor to action for one cause rather than another.  Because of this, direct mail had to use an appeal to crisis in order to solicit money, so donations came in fits with each crisis bringing in new floods of money.  Krupp wanted to focus on streams of income that could be developed on a more consistent basis, such as internet donors that he intended to bring in through a diversification of communication into social media and online communities.

            Krupp also wanted to shift the focus of the organization to international efforts.  With the explosive growth of China and Russia, pollution in those two countries was spiraling out of control.  Environmental Defense is concerned with the global environment, so they wish to attack pollution wherever it is a major problem.  Environmental Defense thus needed to move abroad, and in order to do so Krupp set up offices in other countries.  This had a negative impact of making it more difficult to raise money from American donors because it was harder to bring in donations by appealing to international crisis.

            Lastly, Environmental Defense needed to bring in expert leadership in the fields of technology and international organization to prepare the company and the board of trustees for the new realms of company operations and leadership.  Expansion was to take place slowly, and without jeopardizing the organization’s focus and mission.

Environmental Defense:

Organizational Strategy Development Outcomes

Location: Environmental Defense is based in New York, but the partner model of the organization means it has offices in several locations.  Aside from Washington D.C., Environmental Defense maintains several officers in other nations to bring both Russian and China on board the third wave environmental movement.

Staff: We have a staff of about 250, including a formal management hierarchy with a number of senior executives.  While it is necessary for the size of our organization to have a large number of management personnel. It is also our weakness compared to smaller “leaner” groups that devote a majority of their funding directly towards programs.  In addition, our professional staff (researchers, lawyers, etc.) have previously been allowed to set their own agendas to an extent.  Staffers are evaluated on a yearly basis against the expectations towards goal completion they set for long term and short term goals.  In addition, they are assessed for ability and potential, and salary raises and retention decisions are made after taking these three factors into account. 

Board: The Board of Trustees that oversees operations of Environmental Defense contains several people, including scientists and educators, people who would be considered experts in their fields.  The board of trustees is joined by a Legal Review Board that is chaired by James Benkard and staffed with various board attorneys and outside counsel.  The legal review board must sign off on decisions that have broad or dramatic impact.

Programs and Services:  Environmental Defense has been split into four different thematic areas, each responsible for a different environmental issue.  The four programs are focused around 1) Climate Control, 2) Stopping overfishing in the oceans, 3) Protecting people from toxic chemicals and waste dumping, and 4) Defending biodiversity, especially in rivers and watersheds.  Environmental Defense used to primarily be a litigation group, focused on the prosecution of lawsuits against businesses and against manufacturers, but the mission has gradually turned to lobbying.  At the moment, Environmental Defense is uniquely poised to be a mediator between the economic and the environmentally focused worlds, ensuring that neither the economy nor the environment suffers due to poorly thought out policies or exploitative industrial practices.  Environmental Defense still conducts litigation, but also uses direct cooperation with businesses, such as the successful campaign to

Funding: 42.8 Million in 2001.  Funding comes from a variety of organizational and individual donors, with a very small percentage coming from government entities.  Environmental Defense does not accept financial contributions from industries it is working to change.

Mission: To encourage the enacting of broad environmental protection legislation, and the successfully pursuit of lawsuits against environmentally irresponsible businesses.

Revised Mission for Improved Aim and Impact: Work with industrial leaders to ensure their businesses comply with environmental standards, protect environmental resources through legislation and litigation, and mitigate the impacts of human development on the natural world.

Mission Accomplishment Measures: The accomplishment of several long term goals, divided into administrative and program related goals.  The administrative goals deal with leadership objectives and use of technology and communication resources.  Program goals deal with enacting environmental changes.

Mission Gap:

Current Condition- Carbon Emissions create dangerous climate change, the oceans are over-fished and polluted, humans are exposed to toxic chemicals, and biodiversity is threatened through habitat loss.

Ideal Condition – The human impact on the environment is limited, leading to a stable climate and stable populations for all species. 

Mission Gap – Education of the human population and bringing industrial emissions under control.

Vision:

·         Climate Change – Cut down Carbon Emissions without causing undue stress on business in the United States, ideally this should slow or stop climate change.

·         Encourage farmers to leave fields fallow, and to keep carbon in the soil.

·         Prevent overfishing of the oceans, a major problem that is leading to the decline of the world’s blue water fisheries.

·         Control chemical pollutants that threaten human settlements by causing birth defects and illness.

·         Hold businesses and governments accountable for environmental “pillaging” and for irresponsible business practices that lead to the destruction of habitats.

·         Stop habitat loss for threatened species to ensure the biodiversity of plant and animal species.

Strategic Stretch Goals:

·         Scale the program to expand internationally into countries such as China and Russia that could benefit from education and activism.  These countries are becoming larger and larger producers, and thus larger and larger polluters.

·         Change consumer behavior, not just corporate behavior, to create public enthusiasm for change.

·         Bring public policy in line with the Environmental Defense mission.

·         Increase funding and participation in environmental efforts by communicating better with groups and with individual donors.  Don’t rely on direct mail as much.

SWOTS:

Strengths -

·         Board members with experience in their fields.

·         Staff that is motivated by the mission instead of by purely financial compensation.

·         History of success, with several victories in law and in commercial change.

·         Flexibility that allows compromise between business and environmental advocates.

·         Krupp’s leadership has been consistent and strong.

Weaknesses –

·         Distrusted by strong environmentalists because of business connections

·         Direct marketing for funds has a huge amount of competition, and relies on crisis

·         Message not very sharp

·         Membership hard to retain because of lack of investment in member development

·         Growth has been limited by the poor fund-raising environment.

Opportunities –

·         Plenty of interest from partners for expansion, businesses give access to Environmental Defense over competing groups because of their history.

·         China and Russia are huge countries, both of which are prime areas for expansion

·         Expansion into social media and internet communication can open up new funding streams

·         A larger Environmental Defense could tackle more issues

·         Partnership model allows projection of goals through corporate partnerships

Threats –

·         Economic downturn means less money for funding, split among just as many groups

·         Difficulty expanding internationally because funding is mostly from Americans

·         Expansion could lead to perception group is too big to be effective

·         Direct Mail marketing relies on crisis to drum up interest in the organization

·         Organization is greatly impacted by political changes.

SWOT Interactions –

Weaknesses and Threats:

·         Expansion of the group internationally could lead to even more distrust from environmental groups that think Environmental Defense doesn’t represent their niche interests.

·         Group greatly relies on Direct Mail marketing which in turn relies on crisis to drum up interest.

·         Political Change could greatly impact the membership of the group, and it is already difficult enough to raise money with all the competition for environmental advocacy money.

Strengths and Threats:

·         Board members have experience in their fields, would should help them appear as authorities if they expand abroad.

·         The staff is motivated by more than just fiscal compensation, but the economic downturn still means less money availability.

Weaknesses and Opportunities-

·         Message not very sharp, larger environmental defense could become unfocused.

·         Hard to retain membership, but expansion in social media and internet communication could open up new avenues for people to join Environmental Defense.

Strengths and Opportunities -

·         A motivated staff that is concerned with the mission of the organization rather than just financial gain is better prepared to expand the company into new missions and territories.

Strengths and Weaknesses –

·         History of success in litigation and business cooperation, but the financial downturn might make it harder to secure additional funding to continue successful programs.

Opportunities and Threats –

·         Political Changes can greatly impact the mission and funding of the organization, overseas expansion could somewhat mitigate this.

Strategy Narrative –

Environmental Defense will divide itself into four thematic groups, each concerned with a different issue.  To be sure, there will be problems in narrowing the focus of the group, but the size of the organization should let it simultaneously pursue a number of different environmental changes.  Each thematic group contains within it a number of different programs that are all focused towards one goal.  The programs can be policy related, or they can be partnership related.

The partnership program, cooperation with businesses and political leaders, allows us to extend our influence over decisions without overextending our funding.  We are able to give businesses the ability to claim environmental soundness (a commodity in today’s economy) in exchange for their help reducing their environmental impact.

Finally, we will continue to improve the organization by adding additional communication methods including internet and social media communication.  This will allow Environmental Defense to broaden our base of constituents while keeping in touch with them.  The biggest problem any group such as ours faces is finding a source of stable funding, and we want to engage our supporters to think of the environment year round instead of when prompted to act due to crisis.

Key Strategy Assumptions –

·         The political environment will remain as it is in 2003, with administration opposition to environmental issues generating enthusiasm among contributors.

·         Russian and China will continue to lag behind the rest of the world in implementing environmental protection methods.

·         The scientific data behind our environmental assumptions about climate change, overfishing, etc. are true, and reason to act.

·         Our leadership staff will continue to lead the organization in a positive direction.

Strategy Map:

Client -

·         Focus on changing consumer behavior rather than just corporate behavior

·         Create partnerships with corporations, proving that we can provide a benefit to the businesses

·         Engage government leaders on environmental issues to affect policy decisions

·         Work directly with businesses to change their environmental practices

Finance –

·         Move away from just direct marketing, too much competition for the attention of people

·         Convince American donors that they should support international efforts

·         Raise funding from government sources

·         Use internet and media to communicate with public, raise funding through new technology

Internal Learning –

·         Brief employees on management of technology resources

·         Make sure the board of trustees is engaged with the organizational mission

·         Bring in experts on communication and international development

·         Continue setting and meeting administrative policy goals

Growth –

·         Expand overseas by moving some operations into Russia and China

·         Use the partnership model to invite businesses to become our partners

·         Avoid being seen as too large to be effective by creating divisions within the larger organization.

·         Expand slowly and deliberately so funding keeps up with the increased needs of the organization.