20 YEARS STRONG

When I first joined CVSC in 2016, we were a staff of six in a small office above 701 Whaley in Columbia. Each of our staff members wore multiple hats–lobbyist and coalition manager, political director and communications support, development director and field staff support, and so on. Our strategic plan primarily focused on building staffing expertise and raising financial resources necessary to win elections and advance environmental policy.

From 2016 to 2018, the team achieved nearly all of our strategic plan milestones–spending over $300,000 in elections, defeating two Senators who had scored 0% on our conservation scorecard, defeating several anti-conservation Representatives, and advancing major environmental policy in the General Assembly as a result of our electoral momentum, including the 2019 Energy Freedom Act.

In 2019, the team outlined a new strategic plan, focusing primarily on advancing bold environmental policy goals and using elections to get us there. We set our sights on moving South Carolina towards 100% clean energy, protecting 3 million acres of land and water across the state, ensuring communities have clean water to drink, protecting (and restoring) the rights of communities to hold polluters accountable, and more.

To achieve these bold goals, we invested heavily in building our policy, lobbying, and political expertise. In the 2022 legislative session, CVSC was leading the lobbying efforts on major land protection, clean water, polluter accountability, and clean energy legislation. Additionally, we had drafted all–or part–of five major bills that were priorities of the South Carolina Conservation Coalition, including establishing the goal of protecting 3 million additional acres of land and water in South Carolina and creating a program to prevent community exposure to toxic “forever chemicals” in drinking water.

These examples highlight how we have successfully protected the environment in a just and equitable way, but as we celebrate our 20th year as an organization and look at the opportunities and challenges ahead of us, we know we cannot let up.

On the elections side of the organization, we’re growing the Political Team by adding a Senior Vice President of Political Strategy, Katie Welborn Hagan, and an Upstate Political Manager. Katie’s expertise is already taking our election work to new levels, identifying races where CVSC’s voice can be most impactful, identifying new political tactics and strategies, targeting larger investments in more races, and more.

We also see opportunities to press even harder for our bold policy goals, including a pathway for major steps to 100% clean energy in 2024 and the chance to help create a new state park network of Rosenwald Schools in communities throughout the state (see Energy and Land sections). We’ve added multiple folks to our Energy and Government Relations Teams to capitalize on these opportunities and ensure we can out-work and out-lobby the anti-conservation interests at the Statehouse who would have us continue to rely on dirty energy sources and fail to invest in meaningful land protection efforts.

Recognizing that the environmental community is more powerful when we are connected with each other and communities across the state, CVSC has doubled down on our coalition-building efforts. We started our Partnerships Program in 2021 with only the 40-member Conservation Coalition as a focus. Today, we coordinate with the Conservation Coalition and work with 100+ other partners in coalitions focused on electric transportation, energy justice, historic and cultural preservation, clean water and public health, community economic development, and more.

JOHN TYNAN President