Dr. Michael K. Dorsey is an environmental scientist, advocate, scholar, and entrepreneur. He is a co-founder and principal of Around the Corner Capital, an energy advisory and impact finance platform. He served on the Sierra Club board of directors for 11 years in three periods, as a petition candidate supported by reform-activists known as the John Muir Sierrans. Dorsey has contributed op-eds to the Los Angeles Times and The Wall Street Journal.[1][2]
Since the late 1980s, Dorsey has worked with firms, non-profits, foundations, governments and a multitude of others on the interplay of multilateral environment policy, finance and economic development matters across the Americas, Africa, Asia and Europe. In 1991, Dorsey served as a youth delegate to the U.S. First National People of Color Environmental Leadership Summit.[3] In 1992, Dorsey served as the youngest NGO representative on the United States Department of State Delegation the Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.[4][5][6][7] In 1993, Dorsey served on the task force for Bill Clinton's Council on Sustainable Development.[8] In the mid-1990s Dorsey worked at the African Centre for Technology Studies at the request of the centre's founder Calestous Juma.
In the late 20th century and early 21st century Dorsey served as Director of the Sierra Club.[10] His first two consecutive terms were from 1997 to 2003 as a petition candidate that was nominated through the efforts of reform-activists known as the John Muir Sierrans. Dorsey was appointed and re-elected to the Sierra Club Board of Directors in 2012 (for two years) and 2014 (for a full three-year term). In total he has served eleven years as a Director on the national board of the Sierra Club. Dorsey is also a founding member of the San Francisco-based Center for Environmental Health, is a member of the Executive Advisory Board of Plastic Pollution Coalition, and is a co-founding director of the Environmental Leadership Program. In 2017 he was appointed to the board of Food First.
Following Dartmouth College Dorsey was a visiting professor at Wesleyan University. There he collaborated with two former Wesleyan students: Evan Weber and Matthew Lichtash, and obtained a $30,000 grant plus free office space provided by the Sierra Club to draft an ambitious plan for climate action, which was the basis for the incorporation of the US Climate Plan 501(c)(3) nonprofit (aka Sunrise Movement Education Fund) incorporated in January 2014.[12]
Dorsey is also co-founder and former board member of Islands First, a multilateral negotiating-capacity-building organization for small island developing states facing disproportionate threats from unfolding climate change; a co-founder of Detroit XPAC, a nonpartisan political action committee whose goal is to help the expats of Detroit and of Michigan connect with their hometowns by collecting contributions and supporting candidates who will revitalize Detroit in a fiscally and environmentally responsible manner; and U.S. Climate Plan, the predecessor to the Sunrise Movement Education Fund, a climate policy advocacy group elevating the national dialogue, engaging the American people, and building political support for real climate policy solutions.[13]
