UNDUE INFLUENCE

American
Conservation
Association

Undue Influence by Ron Arnold
American Conservation Association
1350 New York Avenue, N.W., Suite 300
Washington, D.C. 20005
Phone: 202-624-9365
Email: 74111.3156@compuserve.com
No Web site
EIN: 131874023
Type: Operating
EGA member
Charles M. Clusen, Executive Director

Harm: Pioneered pressure tactics to force environmental groups to act according to foundation wishes.
Funds a wide variety of anti-industry projects and organizations.

Founded in 1958 by Laurance S. Rockefeller. Receives a large annual contribution from the Jackson Hole Preserve, Inc., another Rockefeller environmental funding entity.

1998 Trustees:
John H. Adams, former Assistant United States Attorney in New York, President, Natural Resources Defense Council



 
  • Frances G. Beinecke, Executive Director, Natural Resources Defense Council, Board Member, Yale Corporation, Director, World Resources Institute, Director, Ethical Culture Fieldston Schools, former Chirman of the Board of the Wilderness Society and the Adirondack Council, Advisory Board, Environmental Leadership Program
     
  • Nash Castro, former General Manager, Palisades Interstate Park, former Acting Chief, National Park Service Police, former advisory board member, Scenic Hudson, President, National Wildflower Research Center, Director, Woodstock Foundation
     
  • Charles M. Clusen, former lobbyist, the Wilderness Society, treasurer, Scenic America, Senior Policy Analyst, Natural Resources Defense Council
     
  • William G. Conway, former President, the Wildlife Conservation Society
     
  • Henry L. Diamond, attorney and long-time Rockefeller family advisor
     
  • Fred I. Kent III, founder, Project for Public Spaces, founding member, Partners for Livable Places, board member, Neighborhood Open Space Coalition, editorial board member, Urban Design International Journal
     
  • George R. Lamb, board member, Adirondack Council
     
  • W. Barnabas McHenry, former vice-chairman, President's Council on the Arts and Humanities, general counsel, the Readers Digest Association, Inc.
     
  • Patrick F. Noonan, former executive director, The Nature Conservancy, executive director, the Conservation Fund
     
  • Story Clark Resor, vice chair, Conservation International
     
  • Laurance S. Rockefeller, Trustee, Natural Resources Defense Council;

Private philanthropist;
Former chairman, Rockefeller Brothers Fund;
Former chairman, Citizens Advisory Committee on Environmental Quality;
Trustee, the Laurance Rockefeller Charitable Trust
 

  • David S. Sampson, former Chair, New York State Bar Association Environmental Law Section, former Chair, New York State Freshwater Wetlands Appeals Board, former Executive Director, Hudson River Valley Greenway Communities Council, board member, Scenic Hudson Land Trust, board member, The Hudson River Foundation
     
  • Cathleen Douglas Stone, widow of Justice William O. Douglas, Special Assistant for Environmental Services for Boston Mayor Thomas Menino, former Chief of Environmental Services in Boston, board member,  Island Alliance of Boston, board member, Boston Public Library Foundation, former partner of Foley, Hoag and Eliot, LLP of Boston
     
  • Russell E. Train, founding director, African Wildlife Leadership Foundation, founding trustee, World Wildlife Fund, former president, Conservation Foundation, former Undersecretary of the Interior, former chairman, President's Council on Environmental Quality, former administrator, Environmental Protection Agency
     
  • Conrad W. Wirth, former Director, National Park Service

The American Conservation Association has been one of the most aggressive foundations in forcing environmental groups to obey their wishes. The following exchange took place at the Environmental Grantmakers Association annual retreat in 1992:

Chuck Clusen (American Conservation Association): I think the [environmentalist] community as a whole is not very strategic. And I think we need to start rebuilding that. And figuring out how to not only get the most bang for the buck, but how to make it lasting bangs. And to do several things at once, and so on.

Anne Fitzgerald (Switzer Foundation): Do you detect, though, a resistance in the larger organizations to becoming grant driven?

Donald Ross (Rockefeller Family Fund): Yeah. I think a lot of them resist.

Chuck Clusen: A number of us have been involved in this, Anne. There's definitely a feeling on the part of the not-for-profit organizations that in cases of some of the campaigns that they resent funders, not just picking the issues, but also being directive in the sense of the kind of campaign, the strategy, the style, and so on. I guess, coming out of the advocacy world, and having spent most of my career doing it, I look at it as, if they're not going to do it on their own, thank God funders are forcing them to start doing it.