You asked in your questions why did ONRC have several executive directors [in short succession after Monteith]. About the time that James left, Andy [Kerr] had emerged as being the person most [publicly] associated with the organization. I would also guess that Andy Kerr’s name was better recognized by the populous than was ONRC or the Oregon Natural Resources Council. I think some of the directors who came after James were sort of in Andy’s shadow. They were the executive director, but Andy was in the public’s mind as the main person. I think that made things difficult. The executive director now, Marc Smiley, has to be very skilled and interested in just doing a lot of the fundraising for the organization. That becomes more and more the demand, rather than when you’re first starting with a few people sitting around a table editing the press release. That’s the difficulty with growing pains, in nonprofit organizations generally, whether they’re environmentally oriented or otherwise.
How has fundraising changed? Are foundations more of a factor than they once were?
Yes, in the context of how responsive we are to grass roots [groups] and forest activists. I don’t think any of our funding came from foundations in the early ’80s. As the ancient forest issue has been nationalized, foundations that were environmentally aware have gotten involved in funding. I don’t know what the percentages are, but a much bigger portion of our funding is from foundations than it was initially. I can believe and disbelieve the criticisms that have us being more receptive to the foundations than grassroots forest activists. But I do think that whoever pays the piper calls the tune, so to speak. In that sense, the foundations have made it easier for us to be a little more autonomous from our membership than would be the case if we were only looking to the activists for funding. What it comes down to is the activists don’t have any money. If you’re dependent upon them, you’ll be concerned that you’re addressing what they want.
We were criticized by the forest activists when the Clinton Forest Plan was about to be approved by the court. That plan had some ancient forest within what are termed “matrix.” The matrix is the cut zone, if you will. When the Clinton Administration first got into office, there were implied threats that they wanted to make sure that there was some timber supply and wanted to keep everybody happy. If we were to release some of the sales from the injunction, since they were going to be cut anyway, then [the thought was] we would have more favor with the administration. I think that ONRC took the most blame for it because we were felt to be the leader among the dozen or so plaintiffs in the spotted owl case, but all the plaintiffs agreed [to the deal]. That was dubbed by a lot of the forest activists as “The deal of shame.” Several years ago, I think it was 1994, we had a conference in Portland … Kathie Durbin witnessed all this, I think she wrote about it in Tree Huggers … Andy [Kerr] did this as a way for people to air their feelings. We thought it was better to let everybody say what they had to say and discuss this whole issue. One guy presented Andy Kerr with the golden chainsaw award for having given away forest. There were several people from the national conservation groups around and I remember feeling that he [Kerr] had died for their sins (both laugh). He was the guy who got crucified … Andy said afterwards, “The next time the nationals call me up and I say the grassroots won’t stand for it, they’ll know what I mean.” When Marc Smiley came on as executive director he said that he heard some people say to him “Gosh, are you sure you want to do that? The environmentalists in the Pacific Northwest eat their young.” It was sort of an interesting comment to me, since I realized it was definitely true, but I wondered if it was different anywhere else since this has been my only experience.
