Best practices for collaborative conservation philanthropy

At the Mighty Arrow Family Foundation, we’re all about entrepreneurial spirit and thinking outside the box. That’s why I was proud to contribute to this new article, Best Practices for Collaborative Conservation Philanthropy.

With threats like climate change multiplying the challenges facing our lands, waters and communities, the stakes couldn’t be higher. We must get more strategic, more effective, and ensure every dollar is having the greatest impact. At the same time, we must recognize that past approaches to conservation aren’t necessarily what we need today. We must evolve, adapt, and be open to new ideas.

So what is “collaborative conservation”? It brings diverse stakeholders together in a sustained consensus-building process to address complex environmental management challenges. A year ago, eight funders and eight practitioners came together for two days to discuss how to work better together.  From that conversation we developed best practices to advance collaborative conservation.

You can read the full article to dig into the details. There are lessons for both the funders and the practitioners.  Here’s a snapshot:

  1. Collaborate refers to engaging diverse stakeholders in an intensive and creative process of consensus building with a sustained commitment to problem solving.  

  2. Nurture relationships refers to intentional efforts to cultivate connections and networks among funders, practitioners, and community partners.  By stepping outside the office and beyond an agenda, open-ended curious conversation can lead to greater impact together.

  3. Invest in capacity refers to directing resources towards building and sustaining staff, organizational systems, physical infrastructure, and the knowledge, skills, and abilities of staff and volunteers. Both funders and practitioners are challenged with capacity issues that need to be supported.

  4. Plan well, implement well refers to proactively strategizing about goals and tactics, then deliberately implementing projects to achieve those goals.

  5. Engage diversity refers to the practice of including people from different backgrounds, including race, ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, religion, education, socio-economic status, etc. This requires intentional action and slowing down your process to engage others.

  6. Support entrepreneurial spirit refers to funders and practitioners taking risks, learning new tools, and evolving their theory of change for impact.

  7. Reduce burdens refers to simplifying grant applications and reporting, providing general operating funds, and building trust-filled relationships. 

  8. Tell our story refers to engaging our communities, other stakeholders, and supporters by powerfully communicating what we are doing and why.  Funders need to be more open to funding communication strategies within practitioner organizations. 

These approaches are essential to the future of conservation—and they’re already happening across the West. As the article states, “the COVID-19 pandemic has prompted numerous changes consistent with many of our best practices, and these changes have shown that the evolution we are encouraging is possible.”

While this conversation was focused on conservation organizations, I have found these best practices to be relevant across all our funding focus areas.  I encourage fellow philanthropists to embrace these best practices. You can take steps now, including investing more in general operating support, strengthening relationships, and loosening application and reporting requirements.

Our communities and the natural world are in urgent need of collaboration. As funders and practitioners, we can team up now to create transformational change.

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