Archive for the ‘Wildlife & Water’ Category

Charitable donations come from the heart –not the head, not the wallet. The World Wildlife Fund knows this — and so it seeks donations for its work in Mozambique by telling the story of one person who has benefited from it. That’s why the Due Diligence Test Panel described the email with words like ”heartful,” ”emotional” and ”hopeful.” They rated this fundraising email the second best of the test batch I had them review.

In contrast, the North Florida Land Trust is trying to impress donors with a summary of its accomplishments (550 acres protected in 2009) and the size and urgency of the threats. This is exactly the story that grantmakers want to hear — but everyday citizens find it hard to wrap their hearts around that. The test panel described the Trust’s email with words like “important,” but also “lacking” and “confusing.” They rated this piece second from the bottom in the test batch.

Here are some interesting numbers — look at the big deficit WWF overcame in one key area to clinch second place. That’s good environmental writing right there (click the image to see it in full size).

Environmental Writing Takeaways

Do you believe that WWF’s work in Mozambique is inherently more appealing than the work of the North Florida Land Trust? I don’t. Not by a long shot. WWF’s email is fundamentally about fishery management council meetings, which have brought tears to my eye on more than one occasion… of boredom. WWF’s email is the work of a crack fundraiser: someone knew that human angle was in there, they sifted through a pile of field reports until they found it – and omitted the rest.

WWF spun a silk purse out of a sow’s ear, so to speak. And the North Florida Land Trust has done the opposite — hiding a potentially moving story behind faceless issues and numbers.

My land trust clients tell me that landowners often cry when they sign the documents that will preserve the family farm forever. They are overcome with sorrow at the thought losing the land to ugly modern development. They speak movingly of preserving their family heritage and knowing that their grandchildren will hunt the fields, fish the creeks, and make pies with apples from the orchard. Saving the farm is gesture of hope for the future, a chance to make a difference that will last for generations. And for good measure, the whole community benefits from their choice.

But you wouldn’t know any of that from reading the North Florida Land Trust’s email, now would you?

Click the links below to see the original pieces and the full Due Diligence Test Panel feedback on them:

World Wildlife Fund

• “Showing Some Heart for Lake Niassa” fundraising email
• Due Diligence Test Panel critique of this email

North Florida Land Trust

• “Now is the Time” fundraising email
• Due Diligence Test Panel critique of this email

P.S. The true purpose of the DDTP is to evaluate draft fundraising and other materials – so you can improve them! Once I finish testing and launch the service, you’ll get your feedback in confidence. Not on the blog for all to see.

This bumper sticker neatly expresses some conventional wisdom of the conservation elite: Hunting and fishing aren’t just pastimes, they are “traditions.” Unfortunately, that seems to be a minority view, even among those who hunt and fish.

In the Anglers’ and Boaters’ Attitudes Toward Various Messages that Communicate the Benefits of Fishing and Boating: Results of a Series of Nationwide Focus Groups study, conducted by Responsive Management a number of years back, the researchers found that for many anglers, the word “tradition” was too strong. One of the focus group participants was quoted this way:

…it is not a tradition. To me a tradition is something that continues on, it is something that the past family members have done and you have done and future generations will do. That is not always the case. My parents were never real big on boating or fishing and things like that, but I am… and my daughter is not real big on fishing and boating like we are. It just depends on the individual and what they like.

Now – some of the anglers interviewed did buy the notion of these family activities amounted to family traditions, but as messages go, “tradition” is not a slam dunk. For a healthy number of people, it just comes across an overstatement.

In the Water Words That Work Message Method, “tradition” falls somewhere in the grey zone between the words that work and the words that don’t.

With all things recreation, the word to emphasize is family. That is the word that elevates the sentiments expressed in the sticker below into something important.

Photo courtesy ricardodiaz11 via Flickr

The Alliance for Sustainable Fisheries has released the results of an environmental poll, conducted by Responsive Management, which finds “the public strongly wants the ocean to be protected, but not with total marine closures.”

The sponsors are upset about the establishment of some new protected ocean areas where all fishing — both recreational and commercial — is banned. It’s a quality poll, but there are no real surprises — the main findings in the research echo other environmental polls and surveys:

“An overwhelming majority of U.S. residents support (90%) legal recreational fishing in general, with most of that being strong support. Additionally, large majorities of U.S. residents support legal recreational fishing in National Forests (80%), National Parks (78%), and Wilderness Areas (72%).”

And also…

“Among U.S. residents, support for protecting U.S. ocean waters and ocean life is nearly unanimous: 78% strongly support doing so, and another 17% moderately support it, for a sum of 95% in support.”

The finding worth discussing is this:

Disagreement is particularly high (86%) with the statement, “All U.S. ocean waters should be fully protected with no human use allowed.”

In market research, the public routinely rejects absolute statements of any kind, from any side of the issue, about any nature protection or pollution control topic. By honing in a the complete closure aspect of the marine protected areas, the Alliance has found the one aspect of the marine protected areas plan that a significant majority of individuals would object to. That’s another poll that goes on the pile in support of this word that works: balance.

Also noteworthy, there is some shoptalk in some of the questions — and this degrades the reliability of some of the findings. For example…

The survey asked respondents if they agree or disagree that some change to the natural
biodiversity in U.S. ocean waters is acceptable to guarantee a continued food supply through fishing and shellfishing: agreement (71%) far exceeds disagreement (20%).

Given the substantial number of people who don’t understand what biodiversity is, I’m not sure if this particular finding (in an otherwise solid environmental poll) can be trusted.

The pre-proposal deadline is coming up fast — but this just crossed my desk. The National Fish and Wildlife Foundation’s “Bring the Back the Natives” program is looking to fund initiatives that:

… initiate partnerships with private landowners, demonstrate successful collaborative efforts, address watershed health issues that would lead to restoring, protecting, and enhancing habitats and are key to restoring, protecting, and enhancing native aquatic species …

That sounds a lot like social marketing to me — you gotta be persuasive to get those landowners on board. Applicants must bring some of their own money: a $2 match for every $1 in federal money is required.

So here’s my Water Words nag: Remember your audience when you select your pictures. If you put pictures of native fish (like the one above) in your proposal, the grant officers will know you understand where they’re coming from. But once you launch your campaign, include pictures of landowners (like the one below) so they know you understand where they are coming from.

Source: USDA NRCS

Good luck! Click here for the scoop on how to apply. Pre-proposals are due 12/1.