MINUTES BOARD OF DIRECTORS MEETING. September 19-20, 2013 Airlie, VA

Transcription

1 MINUTES BOARD OF DIRECTORS MEETING September 19-20, 2013 Airlie, VA The Board of Directors of American Bird Conservancy, pursuant to notice duly given, met on Thursday and Friday, September 19 and 20, Attendance was as follows: Members and Officers in Attendance Warren Cooke Ken Berlin Dick Eales George Fenwick Jonathan Franzen Kay Hale Jennifer Haverkamp Carolyn Hendricks Nick Lapham Jim Macaleer Jeff Rusinow Larry Selzer Bob Weeden Nancy Weiss Members and Officers Absent Victor Emanuel Kay Hale David Harrison Bill Leighty Dick Raines Bishop Sheehan Craig Thompson Jeff Woodman

2 September 19, 2013 Call to Order and Welcome Board Chair, Warren Cooke, called the 61st meeting of the Board of Directors of American Bird Conservancy to order. Approval of Minutes The minutes from the September meeting were presented for approval. Jennifer Haverkamp moved to approve the minutes. Larry Selzer seconded the motion and the minutes as presented were approved by the Board. President s Report George Fenwick presented the President s Report, noting that it has been a great quarter for ABC. International bird conservation has expanded into Chile, ABC appears to be having a great funding year, Clare has ramped up the communications program already, fundraising for the Paton s project is going well, and more. ABC will be celebrating its 20 th anniversary in 2014 and the Board should be thinking about whether ABC should invite donors and past Board members for a celebration. Nominating Committee Nancy Weiss presented the Nominating Committee report. Many changes to the Board are anticipated for 2014 at this point. Three members are leaving the Board. Victor Emanuel and Nancy have reached their term limits and Jeff Woodman, due to other commitments, has declined to be re-elected. His new position with the Amazon Conservation Association makes it more difficult for him to participate and attend meetings. Dick Raines also feels over-committed and will step down as Vice Chair, but remain a director for now. There are five new Board members being brought today for election to the Board. Their resumes and information are in the Board package. Walter Matia is a returning Board member and known to many on the Board. Regina Phelps, Jeff Peters, Shoaib Tareen, and Cinnamon Dornsife are the other individuals up for election (which will be held during Executive Session). Warren Cooke thanked Nancy for doing such a great job as Chair of the Nominating Committee. Carolyn Hendricks has agreed to take over as Chair of the Nominating Committee. This year, the Board will be up to 23 members after the vote on the slate. Governance Committee Jennifer Haverkamp has agreed to Chair the Governance Committee. One of the first jobs will be working on a Director Self-Evaluation. This is a best management practice and should not take long for members to take. The Governance Committee will also review the meeting evaluation forms after each meeting.

3 Finance Committee Dick Eales presented the Finance Committee report. He began with the June 30 Treasurer s Report. Merrie reported that ABC is on track with the budget for this time of year. Dick reviewed the investment report noting that ABC had sold a small mutual fund that was not performing as well as the other parts of the portfolio and that a bond had matured. These proceeds were invested in an existing account. The Committee will be reviewing the investment portfolio at year-end to ensure investments are performing well. The Committee met by conference call on June 18 and addressed the issue of the bond maturation and socially responsible investing. Dick spoke to Cynthia Palmer regarding worst actor pesticides and which companies ABC should avoid. The investment managers participated in the call. Some mutual funds have holdings in Dow and Monsanto, but these are very small. As much as we would like to be pro-environmentally in our investments, keeping track of all of the companies in all of our investments would be a very time-intensive process. Thus, the Committee felt there was no need at this time to change ABC s investments. The Committee will continue to review the stocks held by the mutual funds. Jeff Woodman was not in the meeting but called later and said he disagreed with this strategy. He felt it worth the effort to not invest at all in companies related to pesticides. Board members discussed these differing approaches and the consensus was to follow the recommendation of the Committee. Development Report Rita presented the Development Report noting that updates were included in the report in the Board package. Rita related recent major gifts including a new Walton Foundation grant for Seabirds, a large grant from the DJ&T Foundation for Socorro Island, and a National Fish and Wildlife Foundation grant for Goldenwinged Warbler which will be a match for the Lessard-Sams Outdoor Heritage Council (MN) grant which started in July. She thanked the Board for their help in the last quarter in fundraising and to Jon Franzen in particular for help with the challenge grant for the Spring Appeal. Rita noted she and the Development Team would like to have help from the Board for such activities as: Helping with the fall challenge Members hosting dinner parties Bequests. The monetary value of planned gifts is more than $21M New Falcon Club members Gift memberships The Membership Program is going to be using a new cloud-based database Luminate. It is more secure and allows for more crowd fundraising.

4 Larry Selzer suggested the Development Team explore gift annuities. Members also asked about Legacy Circle members and how they are cultivated. Jack Morrison noted that Legacy Circle members receive many of the same benefits as Falcon Club members including invitation to special events, field trips, special updates, etc. Communications Clare Nielsen, VP of Communications, presented her five-year vision the beginning of a planning process that will result in a five-year plan for communications. She highlighted four main areas of opportunity: building a strong ABC brand; adopting a strategic focus on three or four topics per year for maximum communications impact; creating a strong and engaged community of supporters; and measuring our results. She presented current progress in these areas, such as increased consistency in design of ABC materials, and initial ideas on community-building and measurement. Discussion points included whether three years would be a better length of time for planning purposes, given frequent changes in technology, and the need for ABC to be clear about our brand. Regarding focus areas for communications, migratory birds was mentioned as a clear priority. A regional approach was suggested as a way to maximize impact, so that we could customize messages more specifically to the audience. Building on momentum in certain areas, such as cats and lead, was mentioned as a smart way to select priority themes. It was suggested by Board members that a Board-level Communications Committee could be helpful. Warren will work with staff on this and report back to the Board. Conservation Updates George presented the conservation updates, pointing Board members to the report in the Board package. Board members asked about ABC s participation in PIF V this summer. A presentation will be made during the Friday meeting. They also asked about how ABC is going to move forward with the lead program given the staff change this summer. Staff will present something in January. Friday, September 20, 2013 Merrie asked Board members to fill out Conflict of Interest forms which will be sent next week. She also gave out meeting dates for 2014 and Board members asked that these be included in each Board package. Conservation Options Under the ESA Mike Parr and Casey Lott presented information on the ESA. Mike began by noting that ABC does not have a set of detailed priorities on a species by species basis for domestic birds. He and staff are developing this.

5 Casey Lott presented an overview of the major components of the Endangered Species Act and recent ABC engagement with the Act. This presentation covered the topics of listing and delisting; critical habitat; section 7(a)(1) and 7(a)(2) consultations, Habitat Conservation Plans, Candidate Conservation Agreements, and 4(d) rules. The presentation outlined ongoing efforts to avoid listing Lesser Prairie- Chicken by the Western Association of Fish and Wildlife Agencies and industry, using a conservation banking strategy. Board members expressed their appreciation for the presentation and the periodic review of what ABC is doing with the ESA. It was suggested that ABC consider giving a national award to one of the federal agencies which would help raise ABC s profile in working on this issue. The threat of listing is also moving a lot of dollars towards mitigation and ABC should have a role in how the mitigation will work. Larry Selzer will work with ABC staff on learning more about mitigation and mitigation banking. Paton Property Update Rita and Clare updated the Board on the fundraising efforts for the Paton property in Arizona. This project has really helped integrate Development and Communications and has brought very good results. All of the funding has not been raised to this point, but Victor Emanuel has pledged to raise the remaining money. ABC took the lead in this project and used crowd fundraising to help protect a very important place for many birders. They have an emotional connection to this hummingbird haven. ABC will retain a presence at Paton s in the form of signage and brochures at a kiosk. Wind Update Mike Parr updated the Board on the wind program. Kelly Fuller has left ABC and a search is ongoing for a replacement. The goal is to hire two staffers: one who will focus on national issues and one on regional and local projects. ABC is anticipating the issuance of the 30-year eagle take permit (replacing the current five year permit requirement)coming soon and continues to work on FOIA requests. Board members discussed issues regarding ABC s involvement in wind energy and whether ABC is alone in their stance among environmental groups. Mike stated he did not feel ABC was alone as Cornell, American Birding Association, and more than 100 other bird organizations support our position. He stated again that ABC is not anti-wind but bird-smart wind. ABC will be reviewing two wind projects at Tehuantepec, Mexico with a total of 250 turbines for the International Finance Corporation.

6 Collective Impact George Fenwick gave a presentation on ABC s role at the Partners in Flight V conference in Utah this summer. ABC is viewed in a more positive light than ever by the bird conservation community given our role for this important international meeting. Dave Younkman reviewed ABC s work on the business plans for migratory bird projects and how ABC worked at the meeting. George would like to see ABC become a more collective impact organization, using partnership based approaches to achieve more for migratory birds. The PIF Steering Committee is still in place and ABC has a leadership role in continuing the work from the PIF V meeting. George sees a need to create a unified message that all of the groups can sell for migratory birds. Board members discussed the need to sell the vision for this, not the specific projects. It was suggested that a structure should be in place with some governance. The PIF Steering Committee might be able to take on this role. Energy Paper George led a discussion of the Board regarding the energy paper included in the Board package. It is a paper that is about ABC s philosophy on energy and where ABC can be involved. There are no surprises presented or unique roles. There was discussion by Board members on whether this should be a public document. George noted the original intent of the document was to drive ABC to do the most important things for birds. This document is not intended for the public, but we are considering a public summary. Board members expressed their concern that climate change was not addressed more in the document. It was also suggested that ABC write up a summary position for the website on its philosophy on the wind program. Executive Session The Board met in executive session. The Board meeting was adjourned.