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Our Vision

By 2020, a network of protected core reserves, corridors and buffer zones across Western North America will support ecologically effective landscapes and viable wildlife populations.

Our Mission

Wilburforce Foundation protects wildlife and targeted wildlands in Western North America by actively supporting organizations and leaders advancing conservation solutions.

Why We're Here

Wildlife, wilderness and human communities are intricately intertwined. Natural landscapes support a wealth of species and ecological services that sustain the quality of all life. In Western North America, some of these landscapes have unique combinations of ecological and biological features found nowhere else on earth.

Leading scientists recognize that human impacts on the natural world are causing an unprecedented rate of species extinctions. Conservation science tells us that the fragmentation of landscapes is one of the leading causes driving these extinctions.

We exist to preserve the North American West's irreplaceable biological diversity and ecological integrity. We believe there are positive, achievable solutions to current challenges based on sound science, conservation policy, and community action. We believe that conservation is powered by a hopeful vision in which wild places and wildlife thrive alongside human communities. And we believe the future of conserving nature reaches beyond Wilburforce to a collaborative community of individuals, organizations, agencies and allied partners who together seek to sustain wildlife and wild lands.

Our Values

These values guide us in all aspects of our work:

• Our work is science-driven. We continually seek out and integrate into our work the expertise and knowledge that come from a wide range of biological, ecological and social sciences.
  
• We have a long-term commitment to our mission, which is reflected in our efforts to develop lasting partnerships with our grantees, foundation colleagues and other constituents who work for positive change in our priority regions.
  
• Integrity and respect are essential in our institutional and individual interactions with the public, our grantees, our colleagues, and among our staff.
  
• We believe that the empowerment of organizations and individuals is essential for making our vision a reality, and we are committed to demonstrate and cultivate organizational and individual leadership at every level.
  
• Risk-taking is both a necessary and desirable element of our work. This may mean such things as investing in innovative but untested strategies or relying on traditional strategies when the probability of a successful outcome is unpredictable.
  
• We strive toward sustainability in all aspects of our philanthropy by minimizing waste, recycling and buying recycled materials, and by using energy and other resources as efficiently as possible.
  
• We encourage exuberance in everything we do by taking our work seriously and ourselves lightly. To win long-term struggles, we have to balance hard work with unabashed fun.
  

Our Approach

We use conservation science to help us identify those habitats in Western North America that are critical to the long-term health of ecologically effective populations of indicator species.

We primarily engage in efforts that will result in the protection of large, intact ecosystems and the landscape linkages that are essential for maintaining ecological connectivity.

We work where our funding is likely to have a significant and lasting impact because the opportunities for success are supported by sound science, strategic planning, effective organizations, strong leadership, and community-based constituencies.

We work in direct partnerships with organizations using advocacy, capacity-building, communications, economics, law, policy, research, science and technology to find successful solutions to conservation problems.

We recognize that many conservation decisions are ultimately political decisions, and we support efforts to inform the public about the actions of their political leaders on key conservation issues.

We provide long-term capacity-building support to organizations so they increase the knowledge and skills needed to effectively plan, lead, prosper, manage, communicate and engage their constituencies.

We actively support new, emerging and experienced leaders in conservation.

We recognize that our Strategic Framework conveys only the basic elements of our overall mission, vision, values, and approach. The social, political, economic and ecological contexts of the places in which we are active differ, so we will work with our grantees and funding partners to develop place-specific plans that build upon the unique contributions we all make towards conservation successes in these regions.

Our Priority Regions

Wilburforce has identified several priority regions throughout the North American West, using conservation science to identify regions that correspond with our focus on habitat security, focal species, and wildlife linkages. Within these wide-ranging priority regions, we've identified specific areas to focus our funding based on our assessment of opportunities and/or threats to the landscape.

[The green areas in the map below are our priority regions. See the Funding Areas section of this site for more details.]

What We Do

Wilburforce Foundation funds projects and programs in our priority areas that will strengthen work to permanently protect critical wildlife habitat and defend wildlife and wildlands from immediate threats.

To do that, we:

• Make grants to organizations whose programmatic work is consistent with our mission and vision in our priority regions.
  
• Invest in the organizational capacity of our grantees to help them become more efficient and effective at achieving programmatic outcomes.
  
• Support research to build knowledge about priority regions to better inform education and advocacy efforts.
  
• Convene our partners to share knowledge and advance common outcomes.
  
• Collaborate with funders and others to assure that our resources are being deployed strategically.
  
• Generate interest in priority regions and secure additional resources, when possible, from other sources.
  
• Evaluate our progress and share what we learn with others to build a knowledge base about effective strategies.
  

What We Will Achieve

Wilburforce Foundation will make program and capacity investments that contribute to the following types of outcomes:

• Increasing the amount of protected critical wildlife habitat.
  
• Assuring the quality and extent of key connective lands between core habitat areas.
  
• Lessening immediate threats to critical wildlife habitat.
  
• Improving management programs that preserve the ecological integrity of existing or proposed protected areas.
  
• Increasing knowledge of wildlife populations and/or improving management plans that ensure the viability of focal species in a region.
  
• Building the capacity of our grantees working to protect our priority areas by:
  
• Supporting more efficient and effective organizational planning.
  
• Recruiting, training, and retaining new and existing leaders working to protect critical habitat.
  
• Improving organizational communications to better educate, influence, or mobilize key constituents.
  
• Enhancing financial systems to improve organizational accountability.
  
• Increasing funds raised to support program work.
  

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