My Nonprofit Reviews

This could be a much better organization. Traditionally, it has focused solely on protecting the Upper Missouri Breaks National Monument here in Montana, and avoided straying into divisive social issues. Excellent! And it does quite a lot of good work on the ground in the Breaks. But it has so far resisted suggestions that it tackle the Elephant in the Room: that increased visitation to the monument is putting the wild nature of the Breaks at risk. I fear that this is because the organization gets support from commercial river outfitters and guides (and some outfitters and guides may be on the board of directors). The organization should consider supporting new BLM rules that would decrease the size of floating parties and ration river use through a lottery system like the one that is in place on the Smith River.

I worked for Northern Plains back in the 1970s, when it was a farmer-rancher coalition concerned with strip mining, power plants and mineral development generally in Eastern Montana. It had huge power and moral force in those days, due to the unusual composition of its membership (mostly very conservative rural people). Today, NPRC is basically just another conservation group, made up largely of older, very liberal people and very few folks from agriculture. And it gets into political correctness sometimes, which I think is a real distraction. NPRC does some good work now, but it is a mere shadow of its former self.

I've been a member since 1974 and am proud of how Audubon (historically, at least) has stayed out of social issues and welcomed a broad coalition of conservationists, regardless of politics. In recent years, the management has begun to get into social issues and DEI, which I think are distractions from conservation work. But I was glad when the board of directors refused to take the name "Audubon" out of the organization's title. (Some people wanted to do that because John James Audubon had owned slaves). Anyway, I continue to be a member. I love Audubon magazine and the real conservation work the organization does. The magazine is particularly high quality, easily the best in the conservation field.

Sadly, I recently let my membership expire. This used to be an excellent organization focused on protecting wild lands in Montana. But then it began to stray into social issues (race, policing, gender, etc) and get very politically correct. I wrote and urged them to stick to wild land issues, but they kept doing it. So eventually, I let my membership expire. Very sorry.

Until fairly recently, I was a loyal Sierra Club member since 1974. Then the club rebranded as a progressive organization, began straying into social issues (race, gender, etc) and getting very partisan. I am a very strong environmentalist, but I don't want my Sierra Club dues spent on social issues and other distractions. I wrote the Exec Director and raised concerns, but never got a response. I wrote the Board of Directors and got one sympathetic response, and also a neutral response from the President. But the club kept veering left and getting deeper and deeper into social issues. I began to get official club mailings ranting against "white privilege," "colonialism" and "patriarchy." Finally, I had enough, and regretfully dropped my membership. I continue to be a full tilt environmentalist, but no longer a Sierran.

Until now, I had been a member of The Wilderness Society since 1974. I've worked on wilderness trail crews, hiked in more than 50 wilderness areas, served as a wilderness steward for the Forest Service. TWS used to be an excellent pro-wilderness organization. But in recent years, it rebranded as sort of a "we like all public lands" organization, and watered down its advocacy for wilderness areas. Current website and publications rarely mention protecting designated wilderness, and instead talk about parks and public lands generally. Akin to Mothers Against Drunk Driving downplaying its work against DUI and instead spending most of its time on general highway safety issues. Also, TWS has gotten deeply involved in social issues (gender, race, etc) and DEI. It no longer publishes the excellent Living Wilderness magazine, which used to offer many pages of deep, detailed stores on real wildlands, along with poetry. Now, all I get is an 8-page newsletter that typically says nothing about wilderness, but is written very simplistically and goes on at length about public lands generally and often about social issues. Very disappointing. So I am not going to renew my membership. We need an organization that defends genuine wilderness!