Clean Water Action

Who else is there to keep you updated when you never have the time to be concerned about issues that concern your drinking water.

The folks at Clean Water Action in Oakland are dedicated and hardworking!
My first experience with them was an in-​person interview, which lead to a day of observation in the field. My trainer in the field was very knowledgeable, explained to me their strategy and helped me practice my own. He did a good job, because I ended up raising a lot of money in a little time! I really enjoyed speaking with people about protecting our natural resources. I had to decline a job offer from CWA after being offered a promotion from my current employer, but this decision was hard-​thought due to the positive, hardworking environment I enjoyed at CWA.
It is really important to note that not everyone as a knack for going door-​to-​door, and not everyone is receptive to strangers knocking on their door. Obviously, with that combination, people may have negative experiences and wish to share those.
That being said, it’s more important that we as a community understand that no one else is standing up against industries and working tirelessly to protect our essential natural resources. As an environmental scientist/​biologist, I recognize and appreciate the importance of their work, including the recent plastic bag ban in CA, among many others.
TAKE HOME MESSAGE:
Be patient, be kind, and be proactive in helping this organization help you! If you think the organization needs work, then get involved so you can help implement those changes! Positive vibes, folks– we’re all human after all!

CWA is an organization full of people who genuinely care about fighting for our environment. In a world where so many take for granted simple pleasures, like clean tap water, CWA is on the front lines maintaining this lifestyle by organizing communities and lobbying government officials. It was a pleasure to work with such motivated individuals and I will definitely continue to spend my free time volunteering with them.

It’s really too bad that so many people have had a bad experience with/​as CWA canvassers. Just last night I had a couple stop by which prompted me to check out recent Unilocal reviews.
I first learned of CWA about 4 years ago through their canvassers. I had a great conversation with a polite and informed person who was passionate about the topic.
Over the last few years I have had CWA canvassers stop by 3 or 4 times. I also have had follow up phone calls from telephone canvassers. All experiences and interactions have been positive.
I live in a suburban working class neighborhood on hills. I don’t imagine it’s an easy gig by any stretch of the imagination. We know these days it is all too easy to delete that e-​mail and hang up on telemarketers. The fact that CWA continues to have people passionate about the topic who are willing to beat the pavement and get out there and educate people — speaks volumes to me.
The only bummer from my perspective is that like many people, I have a very strict budget and a unexpected knock on the door for a donation — even if I support the cause — can mean a smaller or even no donation from me. Even if I want to send something later — the canvassers do not get the recognition for the donation.
I’m sure it’s possible — like every other human interaction we have — that there might be some bad apples out there or some people that have less than stellar social skills, but I hope that you at least find a way to support the cause because at the end of the day that’s really what matters.

Sara Z. is obviously a manager or director of CWA, who has little if any actual canvassing experience with this organization. My experience is much different. CWA doesn’t care about their canvassers, they don’t respect them, they put them into dangerous situations in bad neighborhoods, and they don’t pay them what they deserve. In fact, over 90 percent of them end up making less than minimum wage. Stay far, far away.

Canvassing is not for everyone. It requires positive thinking, perseverance, motivation, and dedication to a cause. It is a proven and effective way to ensure that there is a diverse voice on legislative issues. By reaching out to people door to door one can be educated on issues they wouldn’t have otherwise known about. Though we do live in an time full of technological advances and social media sites, face to face interaction has the power to get people more engaged with an issue; studies have shown that people become more engaged when they can see and hear each other well, basically interacting the way humans have interacted for thousands of years!
What I love most is the fact that by canvassing with Clean Water Action you have the opportunity to gain entry level experience at a non-​profit. You are trained to speak articulately about local and national environmental issues. Since starting work with Clean Water Action I have been able to gain insight on legislation processes, and scientific research after weekly briefings given by the Clean Water Fund staff.
I am sorry to see such negative comments posted by previous trainees on this page. I can honestly say that that I was trained sufficiently by passionate individuals who did not teach aggressive tactics. Of course the importance of fundraising is emphasized, because of the fact that CWA is a citizen funded group and ongoing fundraising is essential to the organization’s ability to continue to fight to protect water. I never thought I would be the type of person to have enough confidence to knock on a stranger’s door and talk to them about an issue I am passionate about, which is why I know that after a successful four months of canvassing, I was given the tools I needed to succeed to effectively organize for a cause I care deeply for– protecting California’s water.

I work full time in tech and in fall of 2011 I wanted to get out from behind a computer, meet new people, and work part time doing something fun. I’ve done volunteer work for political campaigns in the past, so I had some experience in both the tech side and fundraising side of campaigns. I found an ad for a part time job at Clean Water Action on Craigslist and decided to apply. I went through a short interview process and was hired for a trial period. What happened next was miserable.
It soon became extremely clear that my only job was to raise money. I learned very little about the cause and was told to memorise talking points and «trained» to scam people out of their money. On the first day I was told that if a person did not donate that it was *my fault* for not doing my job correctly. This training only lasted a couple of days and then we out for my first canvass.
None of the canvassing is strategic. CWA has a laundry list of areas that they visit on what appears to be a random basis. Most of the people I talked to were not interested in our cause and were quite upset at me for visiting them so late. (We actually canvassed until 9PM, which I found very rude.) I asked leadership why we didn’t do a little bit of research to find our target audiences and work to revisit supporters, but my comments were brushed off.
Not only was leadership incompetent, but some of the canvassers were just horrible people. One night I was paired with someone who was «one of the best.» I witnessed him bully people into giving money. At some points nearly yelling at them for not donating and then making rude remarks after they closed the door.
I didn’t meet my goal enough times to pass my trial, which was fine because I didn’t want to stick around anyway. It also seemed that if any employee didn’t meet their goal for an X number of nights they were let go. Previous work did not matter, if you got tough neighbourhoods, they didn’t seem to care. If they CWA didn’t get their money they had no use for you.
Salaries seemed to be based on «commission.» Yes, they actually pay commission on the donations they receive. If a canvasser exceeds their goal, they get a percentage of
donations they raised. This probably contributed to the hostile environment and honestly most used car salesmen are probably nicer
The bottom line is, don’t give money to CWA and don’t apply for a job there. They’re not a good organisation.
Oh also, during my time there they actually found bed bugs in the office. Gross.

I worked for CWA in 1983 – 1984 and can honestly say I was one of the canvassers who deserved a «single star» rating. I can offer insight into how this is an inevitable outcome of their policies and procedures.
For starters we had a «quota,» and received a percentage for monies collected above that quota and our salary was taken from it. Ultimately about ¹⁄₃ of your donation goes to support the canvasser’s paycheck. The rationale is that they’re doing more than fundraising through the public outreach the canvass provides, although I’d say the alienation of a pushy canvasser makes this a bad investment and a net loss for environmental consciousness raising.
I don’t remember for certain but I believe close to 10% of your contribution funds the field office and transportation to neighborhoods. There might be a small staff of modestly paid employees at the office. For instance one office I worked for had two employees, a director and office admin, to support about 8 canvassers.
At the time a share of the contribution would fund the activities of state and national organizations that weren’t necessarily part of CWA but with very high overlap in agenda.
It’s no excuse to blame the pushiness on the quota concept but it does explain the degree of desperation that comes with canvassing. I earned about minimum wage and received no benefits but I enjoyed working for something I believed in and meeting 30 new families a night. I believe, however, that the organization and others using a similar arrangement are exploiting youthful idealism.
There was a heavy dose of groupthink and conformity. To maintain morale, field managers had to ensure that ideological opponents, or even those slightly deviating from a rather small sliver of the environmental spectrum. didn’t gain an upper hand and, if necessary, would be terminated. This is probably no different at the Heritage Foundation, Focus on the Family, or Greenpeace. Also of concern was the strange insistence that all neighborhoods will contribute equally and that not meeting your quota can’t be attributed to demographics, but rather your own thought processes. This was just plain silly.
It was fun to work around smart people and it gave me much insight into the left. I attended conferences such as the Midwest Academy, where I could mingle with progressives as well as outright Socialists.
If I could do this as a retirement job I’d consider it, but only if I didn’t have the quota looming over my head. But that would make the canvass unsustainable since there simply aren’t that many people independently wealthy enough to do this kind of work.

I’m not sure if we’re getting the same person over here in South Berkeley, but I just had a very aggressive and rude canvasser. I work at home, was on a conference call, put the call on hold to answer the door. Told him I couldn’t talk because I was on a work call. He didn’t care and kept pushing me until I had to slam the door in his face. And during the whole thing he stared me down uncomfortably. I even went outside to see if he keyed my car — sounds ridiculous, but that’s how aggressive this guy was.
For the record, I would support the effort but just didn’t have time to talk to him. However, given how I was treated, I’m turned off of this organization. Sorry, but this is not how you raise support.

Just minutes ago I was visited by an overly-​aggressive canvasser from Clean Water Action.
I have a no solicitors sign clearly visibly by my front door and when I pointed this out to the representative he became defensive claiming he wasn’t soliciting.
Whether asking for signatures, donations, or selling magazine subscriptions, if you knock on my front door uninvited you either are soliciting or casing my house for a robbery.
Failure to properly train their volunteers has removed any possibility of me ever supporting this organization.

Tonight, Clean Water Action representative locked on my door. Off course I don’t mind donating money to a good place. However, this guy was very rude.

During the past 2-​days, I’ve had 2 different Clean Water Action representatives knock on my door. The time was early evening, about 6pm.
In both cases, the following happened:
1) the rep attempted to hand me a board with signatures. I didn’t take the bait.
2) the rep talked somewhat wildly about ‘environmental action; for instance, the first rep talked about «you know how bad fracking is» and a donation to CWA will help stop this practice. The second rep talked about Global Warming.
3) I asked for specifics about what CWA did, but their answer was vague and general.
4) I asked for some literature so I could read offline, and decide if I wanted to support them.
5) I was told the had no literature and the only way to donate was right there, on the doorstep.
6) both reps told me that «most people sign and write a check».
However, what caused me to write this review, and to put a 1-​star review, was this. As I was standing inside my doorway, listening, BOTH reps looked inside my house. It felt like they were casing the house for a robbery. I felt so uncomfortable as they did this, I immediately grabbed the door and closed it, stepping out onto the porch.
I find this organization to be aggressive, secretive and creepy and will not donate.

Here’s a suggestion to the folks at Clean Water Action: in this day and age, especially situated so close to Silicon Valley and its amazing technological innovations, wouldn’t it make sense to allow people to join your well-​meaning organization through your website? That is, why rely on canvassing to recruit new members? Many other organizations have learned that online membership registrations can be very cost-​effective and efficient.
This is what I experienced recently: someone came to my residence asking me to sign on with Clean Water Action. I’m a supporter of a variety of environmental causes, which I try to thoroughly research before joining. I’ll admit that I wasn’t familiar with Clean Water Action when this young man came to my door. Consequently, I didn’t feel comfortable making a donation on the spot. I politely requested information that I could review at my leisure and then decide whether to join and how much to contribute.
He then told me — and no, I am not making this up — that the only way to join Clean Water Action was through community canvassing. There is no way to sign up online.
Does anyone else find this surprising? How hard can it be to create a mechanism by which cautious individuals like me can learn about an organization and then join at a later date? I was flabbergasted. And now I can’t join even if I want to, because of my reluctance to make a spot decision about an organization that is unknown to me.
Anyways, after researching the organization, I don’t think I’d join anyway even if a canvasser comes by again. According my research, nearly 30% of the funds collected by Clean Water Action goes to administrative and fundraising expenses. This is too high, in my opinion. The charities to which I contribute have much lower AFRs, such as 3.6% for the National Marine Sanctuaries Foundation and 15% for Trout Unlimited.
Edited to add on 6÷12÷2012:
I received a message through Unilocal regarding my review. The sender addressed my concerns about the amount of money that goes towards administrative and fundraising expenses. This was the comment:
«the other groups you mentioned with less overhead are also much smaller than CWA and therefore less able to take on as many concerns as CWA does.»
I will grant, if you believe CWA’s website about its membership, that CWA has more members than either TU or NMSF. However, does size really matter? Let’s break it down to hard numbers using the most up-​to-​date information.
For CWA, its latest financial statement reported income = $ 8,269,806. Of this, $ 1,927,342 went to administrative and fundraising expenses. Thus, 23.3% of its income did not go to support their cause.
By comparison, NMSF reported an income of $ 6,096,807 and admin/​fundraising expenses of a mere $ 333, 975, or only 5.4%. It’s worth pointing out that despite having an income that was 25% less than CWA, they were able to spend almost the exact same amount to support their causes.
Lastly, TU had an income of $ 33,005,515 and admin/​fundraising expenses of $ 3,573,760, or about 10.8% of the their income. Their income was nearly 4x that of CWA, but their expenses were less than twice as much. And despite being a much smaller organization, their fundraising efforts were clearly more effective and efficient than CWA.
So, again I will argue that there are better organizations than CWA for your environmental dollars.

The San Francisco Clean Water Action office is absolutely one of the best jobs I’ve ever had. The work is extremely important, and the training program is second-​to-​none. The atmosphere is energetic, political and positive. It’s great to work for an organization that cares about it’s members and the work it does. A lot of other phone jobs I’ve had before didn’t care about either, just about profit. But CWA wants to get work done and it does. It feels good to talk to members because there is always a campaign we’ve just won. The skills I learned here have helped me in innumerable ways, from public speaking to being able to talk in an educated way about environmental and political issues with all different types of people.
Some people find this work difficult because as an employee, you have to pay for yourself to be there. I didn’t have to do that at other phone jobs, but those jobs were dishonest to the people they called (the members) because those organizations would almost literally throw the member’s money away. I’d rather work for a place that is honest and get trained to raise money for a great cause, than work for a place that is totally unmotivating, disheartening and dishonest.
Work for CWA! It rules!

I have no problem with the group itself, but their employment practices are fucked. They hold you to sales quotas from day one, and most people I trained with this week got fired on day three. Another guy and myself were lucky to make it to day five but no further. Their training program is more of an «employment audition». On top of that, you only have 2.5 hours on the phone to make quota due to unnecessary nonsense sales meetings where you never really talk about the issues. Then when you do get on the phone, good luck trying to make a call. The phones were all messed up Wed, Thurs, and Fri.(all really important nights for me). I’ve telemarketed before and to be honest, if you’re good enough to get through their training program, you should probably be working a commission job making bank. I know they’re nonprofit but it’s not right to use and abuse a desperate workforce, even if it is for a good cause

Interesting how it’s non-​profit, but they run this place like a profit driven, crazy, corporate sales maniac-​machine that wants to just make money all day long.
There’s practically no chatter about the causes, except that they want to raise money for the cause.
Raising money isn’t bad, but the attitude is.