Gravely Range, Montana Photo: Pete Bengeyfield
Are You In? The Legacy Fund
A message from John Sterling, Executive Director
Since 1989, The Conservation Alliance has served as the outdoor industry’s collective commitment to protecting wild places. With The Conservation Alliance Legacy Fund, we are taking an important step to ensure that our work is a permanent feature of the outdoor industry.
The Legacy Fund Campaign will raise a $3.5-million endowment to provide a permanent source of operational funding for the organization. Thanks to early commitments from several member companies, we have already raised more than half of that goal, and expect to secure commitments for the entire $3.5 million before our 20th Anniversary celebration in August, 2009.
Back in 1989, The North Face, REI, Patagonia and Kelty founded the Alliance to give companies a means to pool annual dues and give that funding to organizations working to protect wild places for their habitat and recreational values. Since then, Alliance membership has grown to 150 companies, and we have contributed more than $6 million to the most effective conservation organizations in North America.
Benefits of Staff
Remarkably, The Conservation Alliance functioned for 16 years with no paid staff, zero operational expenses, and largely on the passion and volunteer time of an overextended board of directors. That board recently recognized that the Alliance needed more firepower if we were to effectively confront the growing threats to our special wild places. So, in 2005, we added staff, while maintaining our commitment to give away 100 percent of our members' dues to conservation projects.
Since then, membership has doubled. Our annual grant budget exploded from $360,000 in 2004 to $800,000 in 2007. We supported more conservation projects in 2007 than in our first four years combined. We now facilitate opportunities for our members to be directly involved in the work of our grantees. The Conservation Alliance is poised to be an organization worthy of the challenges we face.
Act Now for the Future
Recognizing the need to prepare The Conservation Alliance for the future, our founders and some more recent friends have come together to seed The Conservation Alliance Legacy Fund. The four founders - The North Face, REI, Kelty, and Patagonia - are committed. So are CamelBak, Merrell, KEEN, The Forest Group, and Montrail founder Menno van Wyk.
We're off to a great start, but we have a long way to go. The Alliance belongs to all members, large and small, and we invite all of our members to participate at whatever level is appropriate. The Conservation Alliance Legacy Fund Campaign represents our commitment to the future – our own, and the planet’s. Like the many places our funding has helped protect, we now have the opportunity to permanently protect The Conservation Alliance; to ensure that wildland conservation remains a permanent priority for the outdoor industry.
What's Your Legacy?
Just as we look back on the four founding members and admire their foresight in founding The Conservation Alliance, future generations within the industry will recall with admiration the day we decided – with the Legacy Fund Campaign – to make The Conservation Alliance permanent, a gift to everyone in the outdoor industry who shares our belief that we must save our spectacular wild forests, mountains, rivers, and deserts.
In August 2009 – our 20th Anniversary – we look forward to reaching our goal, and becoming a permanent player in the fight for our spectacular wild areas. Are you in?
Click here for essential information about the Legacy Fund.
