Best practices for collaborative conservation philanthropy

Abstract

Collaborative conservation brings diverse stakeholders together to sustain healthy landscapes and strengthen communities. Organizations fostering collaborative conservation depend on philanthropy to advance collaborative conservation, while philanthropic organizations depend on these organizations to advance their missions. Both face challenges engaging with each other as they work toward shared goals, yet open dialogue about how funders and practitioners work together is rare. The authors of this paper represent equal numbers of funders and practitioners who, together, identified eight best practices that are practical, effective actions funders and practitioners can take to better achieve shared conservation goals. These eight best practices are: (1) collaborate, (2) nurture relationships, (3) invest in capacity, (4) plan well, implement well, (5) engage diversity, (6) support entrepreneurial spirit, (7) reduce burdens, and (8) tell our story. By centering around collaboration, relationships, and diversity, these best practices exemplify several growing and valuable trends in philanthropy that support collaborative conservation.

Inclusive approaches for cumulative effects assessments

“…We budgeted substantial funds for community meetings, which was re‐allocated to support training, trauma‐informed facilitation, artists, and gifts when the pandemic forced travel restrictions. While these expenses may not be considered typical in Western‐driven research or assessment processes, we found that they may have improved the experience for participants and ultimately helped to create a better regional CEA (Sanderson et al, 2022; Trisos et al, 2021).…”

Partnerships between organizations that manage protected land in California are associated with groups with environmentally oriented missions

“…We also see this work as supplementing existing empirical work exploring the many dimensions of partnerships in conservation activities such as efforts to understand the diversity of stakeholders involved in caring for local environments (e.g., the STEW‐MAP project from the US Forest Service) and work mapping and analyzing the social networks of conservation actors (e.g., Guerrero et al, 2020). Further work is also needed to explore how partnering can be planned as a potential mechanism to improve biodiversity outcomes while strategically managing land (Gerber & Rissman, 2012) and adhering to best practices related to collaborative conservation (Sanderson et al, 2022).…”

Conservation philanthropy: Growing the field of research and practice

“…Finally, two of the papers in the collection draw on the experiences and practical knowledge of funders and practitioners to derive applied best practices for grant‐making in the context of donor exits (Le Cornu et al, 2023) and collaborative conservation (Sanderson et al, 2023). Le Cornu et al (2023) address a gap in research on exits—that is, the ending of funding relationships—by developing a conceptual framework of exit types and best practices for conducting responsible exits.…”

“…They provide a roadmap for funders interested in doing so. Finally, recognizing the need for more open dialogue between funders and practitioners, Sanderson et al (2023) convened 16 funders and practitioners to co‐produce best practices for collaborative conservation philanthropy. The best practices identified are diverse and practical, focusing on donor–practitioner relationships, investment priorities, and administrative processes that can help donors and practitioners achieve shared conservation goals.…”