Winners of the 2020 Conservation Standards Case Study Competition, the Endangered Wildlife Trust (EWT) and the International Crane Foundation (ICF) have been working together to conserve crane populations and their ecosystems across Africa. Both organizations are committed to critically examining their work and looking for ways to improve it.
Through the encouragement of a donor and other colleagues, EWT and ICF discovered the Open Standards for the Practice of Conservation (the Conservation Standards (CS)) as a process that could help support their commitment to learning and improving. Both organizations quickly embraced the CS and began a journey to deeply integrate the CS and associated tools, like Miradi software, into their collective work, as well as the work of the individual organizations.
This journey included the deep immersion of staff persons from each organization in the Conservation Standards community (Erica Cochrane, ICF and Claire Relton, EWT). To make this possible, EWT and ICF have provided the space and resources to completely integrate the CS into their organizations’ work and to support active involvement in the Conservation Coaches Network (CCNet), the Conservation Measures Partnership (CMP), and CMP learning initiatives.
As Claire and Erica worked together to make the CS a major part of their organizations’ operations, they found that staff very often expressed that the CS had value for their work (including by facilitating organization, critical thinking, and workflow) and that they would like to have access to more training, coaching, and mentoring opportunities.
Furthermore, several donors, such as the Disney Conservation Fund and certain investment bankers, indicated that they had increased their giving specifically as a result of their use of the CS.
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Photo Credit: the International Crane Foundation (ICF) and the Endangered Wildlife Trust (EWT)
