THE FUTURE OF CONSERVATION NGOs
Seeking innovative ideas for transformative change

We are calling for submissions from anyone from any sector or background with bold ideas for concepts, projects, businesses, products, models or structures. Ideas must meet the following criteria for consideration:

1. Reimagines and redesigns

   Contributes to the development of a reimagined and redesigned conservation NGO sector that can better respond to the social and environmental challenges the world is facing.

2. Challenges and transforms

   Challenges the status quo and aims to build a just, equitable, and sustainable future for people and the planet.

3. Feasibility, fundability and relevance

   ​​Can be feasibly taken to the next level, is fundable and financially sustainable and can be considered relevant or replicable in a global context. Considers financial, technological, market or other dependencies or obstacles.

4. Provides a good fit for collaboration and co-learning

   Brings richness and strength to the collaborative process of co-learning and incubation. Challenges and aspirations can be effectively addressed alongside the host institution.

€5,000 in prize money and a place in a tailored co-learning and incubation programme with either the Luc Hoffmann Institute, Impact Hub or IUCN CEESP.

The collaborative programmes of co-learning and incubation will start in the second half of 2022 and the length and duration will be agreed between the winner and the host institution. The programmes are expected to last at least 6 months.

The host institution will work alongside winners to take their ideas to the next level of implementation or testing. Winners and the host will collectively design the co-learning process, with elements that may include:

1. Coaching or Networking

●  1:1 conversations with fellow entrepreneurs and change-makers.

●  Curated introductions to potential partners, clients and/or funders.

●  Participation in a Community of Practice that enables peer to peer learning.

●  Monthly knowledge sharing conversations.

●  Access to the incubating organisation’s networks and contacts.

2. Financial & Funding Support

●  Potential access to funding and/or support to fundraise for the idea.

●  Opportunities to pitch to international investors.

●  Access to bootcamps and coaching to get investment-ready.

3. The opportunity to form a project team within the host institution and lead the project with sustained support throughout the different stages of the project development (for those ideas incubated through the Luc Hoffmann Institute only).

4. A six-month membership with Impact Hub (for those ideas incubated through Impact Hub only).

Why co-learning?

The host institutions seek to avoid a ‘top-down’ process of incubation that maintains the status quo. Instead the Luc Hoffmann Institute, IUCN CEESP and Impact Hub aim to learn from the winning ideas, collaborate together and, where relevant, challenge their own approaches and practices.

In this section you will find some examples of projects and ideas that have been innovatively addressing the challenges facing conservation NGOs. We will be continuously updating these, and we hope they serve as inspiration for the type of solutions this challenge is seeking.

1. Colectivo amasijo is a women-led collective that rises from the will to care, conserve, and celebrate.

They create the conditions to actively reflect on the origin and diversity of food, de-hierarchizing knowledge and focusing on the “doings” (haceres) as a way of learning.

They listen to the narratives of women close to the land—non-dominant narratives—and cook collectively as a way to share, learn, and relate. Through food, the interdependence of language, culture, and territory is understood as a network of interrelationships.

2. Flock together is a birdwatching monthly support club combatting the underrepresentation of black, brown & POC in nature.

The six pillars of Flock Together are: building community, challenging perceptions, showing the benefits of nature, championing ecological protection, offering mental health support, and providing creative mentorship for the next generation. Their mission is to “create a world where every person of colour has the freedom to explore and engage with the natural world, on their own terms."

3. Success Capital is an LGBTIQ+, youth-led, managed, & serving organisation linking grassroots experiences with global and regional mechanisms.

Their work is centred on three pillars: a) participatory decolonized knowledge production, b) peer to peer systemic knowledge sharing and c) supporting variant forms of civic action.

To help you prepare, below you'll find a preview of the questions contained on the application form.

1. Provide a clear description of the specific problem that your idea aims to solve, using non-expert language. Include evidence of the problem, ideally from your own experience as well as from secondary sources. Focus on setting the stage for your solution (rather than describing how you intend to solve it).  If your idea is specific to one region, please state in which geographic area (country, region, specific site) you are trying to solve the problem. (200 words or less)

2. Describe your idea, including how it will contribute to solving the problem identified and to reimagining and redesigning a conservation model that can better respond to the social and environmental challenges the world is facing. (250 words or less)

3. What makes your idea innovative? Describe how your idea challenges the status quo to create more equitable, inclusive and future-relevant pathways for conservation . Remember, not all ideas may be ‘new’ per se – some may have been implemented in communities and localities for decades – yet the innovation could lie in the process of mainstreaming them and changing the system.  (200 words or less)

4. Describe how your idea aims to build a just, equitable, and sustainable future for the planet. In answering this question, think about how your idea addresses existing inequalities in conservation work and seeks to improve life on Earth. (200 words or less)

5. Does your idea relate to one or more of the themes identified as areas where change is most needed in conservation NGOs? Describe how your idea contributes to change within this theme (or themes), thinking about which elements of the theme (or themes) it addresses. If it does not not relate directly to any of these themes, use this space to provide more detail on the change your idea seeks to create. (200 words or less)

-  Operational and funding models

-  Communication and narratives

-  Interdependency and inclusivity

-  Legacy, power and principles

-  Other

6. Describe who will benefit from your idea, both directly and indirectly. Where possible, include numbers of beneficiaries and when answering think about their characteristics and geographic locations. (150 words or less)

7. Have you begun to test your solution, put it into practice or develop a minimum viable product?

- If YES, describe any outcomes or data you have to demonstrate impact so far. Describe any problems you encountered and how you want to improve your solution. (200 words or less)

- If NO, describe the assumptions you are using to predict impact. What do you need to move from idea into practice or testing? (200 words or less)

When answering this question and thinking about impact, try to tell us what type of information you think is important to track. We encourage you to think outside the box and make suggestions that can steer away from traditional ways of measuring impact. Make sure that you tell us how they can be measured.

8. How would your idea be sustained financially over time? Describe the funding or revenue model and any specific financial milestones achieved to date or projected. (200 words or less)

9. Describe the potential of your idea to be replicated or deployed in a global context, or considered relevant in localities outside of your own. What are the potential obstacles that stand in the way? (200 words or less)

10. How does the idea benefit from the strengths, expertise, and assets of yourself and/or your team members? Describe individual or team links to the geographic, social or cultural context of your idea. (200 words or less)

11. What is the next major milestone for your idea and what is the biggest problem you face in achieving it? (150 words or less)

12. What is conservation to you? Describe how you feel about this term. (150 words or less)

Please see the challenge FAQ for more information.

Where are we coming from?

“It matters what matters we use to think other matters with; it matters what stories we tell to tell other stories with; it matters what knots knot knots, what thoughts think thoughts, what descriptions describe descriptions, what ties tie ties.”

- Donna J. Haraway, Staying with the Trouble: Making Kin in the Chthulucene

At the Future of the NGO initiative, we acknowledge the importance of recognizing our positionality, including the way we understand the concepts and knowledge we are using and sharing. By reflecting on where we are coming from and how we interpret our key concepts, we aim to engage in the ongoing debates that we believe are central to the sector, and which have been a major motivation for this project in the first place.

Here we present our understanding of some key concepts. These are by no means exhaustive, static or definite; we are in an ongoing learning process and we hope that this starting point serves as an invitation for our readers to join us in the discussion!

Conservation:

The Future of Conservation NGOs project has been, above all, an effort to provide the conservation sector with a space to embrace uncertainty, uncomfortable discussions, and deconstruct itself. Central to this has been the recognition that the term conservation itself is fundamentally controversial, and comes with a legacy and a long history of unresolved issues.
One of our main learnings throughout this process is that conservation means very different things across people, race, class, gender, discipline, schools of thought, sectors and geographies, to name a few. There are diverse understandings upon why, who, how and what to conserve, and one of the main goals of this Innovation Challenge is to better understand our interlocutors’ view on this.
This said, we also acknowledge that there is no neutrality in these debates, and that stating that we don’t have our own opinion around what conservation is would not only be naive, but simply dishonest. Here, we want to share with you OUR understanding of conservation, hoping that this will create an open discussion.
For us, conservation refers to: ways of being and living that are intended to maintain, establish or improve thriving relationships among all life on Earth.

References:
LHI’s understanding of what conservation means is mainly inspired by the thinking of:
Robin Wall Kimmerer – Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge and the Teachings of Plants
Sandbrook, C. (2015) ‘What is conservation?’, Oryx, 49(4), pp. 565–566. doi: 10.1017/S0030605315000952.
Wyborn, C. et al. (2020) ‘Imagining transformative biodiversity futures’, Nature Sustainability, 3(9), pp. 670–672. doi: 10.1038/s41893-020-0587-5.

Impact:

Throughout this initiative we talk about impact. For the Innovation Challenge, we are seeking for innovative and unconventional solutions that positively impact conservation outcomes. But, what do we mean with impact for conservation effectiveness?
As previously stated, conservation is normative and means different things for different people. In this sense, the way one understands positive impact for conservation directly reflects our own values and ideas of what is better for life on Earth. In the conservation sector, impact indicators have been traditionally shaped by the values and views of the donors, which often ends up in the imposition of Global North conservation priorities and styles in projects implemented in the Global South.
While using the word impact constantly, we want to acknowledge that we understand that this is a normative concept, that it is not subjective and that it must be constantly examined. We want this Innovation Challenge to provide a space for the ideation, mainstreaming and discussion of new ways of looking and measuring impact for conservation.

Minimum viable product:

“A minimum viable product (MVP) is a development technique in which a new product or website is developed with sufficient features to satisfy early adopters. The final, complete set of features is only designed and developed after considering feedback from the product's initial users.”

References:

What is a Minimum Viable Product (MVP)? - Definition from Techopedia (no date) Techopedia.com. Available at: http://www.techopedia.com/definition/27809/minimum-viable-product-mvp (Accessed: 17 April 2022).

Positionality:

“Positionality is the notion that personal values, views, and location in time and space influence how one understands the world. In this context, gender, race, class, and other aspects of identities are indicators of social and spatial positions and are not fixed, given qualities. Positions act on the knowledge a person has about things, both material and abstract. Consequently, knowledge is the product of a specific position that reflects particular places and spaces.”

References:

Warf, B. (2010) ‘Positionality’, in Encyclopedia of Geography. Thousand Oaks: SAGE Publications, Inc., pp. 2258–2258. doi:10.4135/9781412939591.