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Year
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 |
2010 |
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Proponent
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Stewardship Society for BC Society |
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Project type
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Engagement |
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FSWP funding source
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DFO Fraser Basin Initiative |
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Grant amount
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$41,900.00 |
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Total project value
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$122,950.00 |
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ID number
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FSWP10-D15-E |
Location: Fraser River Basin,
Basin Wide
Project Summary
SUMMARY
Stewardship Works! is demonstrating the accelerated environmental and social benefits that can be achieved by providing core funding to community-based stewardship organizations to develop their financial and human resource capacity. This project will be the fourth and final year of the Stewardship Works! pilot project and will evaluate the cumulative effectiveness of stable core funding; promote the considerable benefits to decision-makers, stakeholders, long-term funders; and build partnerships for ongoing delivery of the program.
OVERVIEW
This project will be the fourth and final year of the Stewardship Works! pilot project. For the past three years, Stewardship Works! has provided annual core funding grants of $2500 or $5000 to ten community stewardship organizations across British Columbia, including five groups in the Fraser Basin. Data has been collected twice yearly about the resulting environmental, social and community impacts. Stewardship organizations make important contributions to the protection, restoration, monitoring, and community understanding of salmon habitat and watershed health, yet their effectiveness is dissipated as volunteers struggle to sustain the basic needs of their organizations. Stewardship Works! challenges groups to increase their organization’s capacity, grow their volunteer base, better engage citizens, raise more funds and strategically invest in their communities and the environment.
In 2007, the Stewardship Centre for BC (SCBC) and its partners developed the Stewardship Works! program to increase the capacity of community-based stewardship organizations to involve local citizens in the protection and restoration of habitats and watersheds. For the past three years, Stewardship Works! has provided annual core funding grants of $2500 or $5000 to ten stewardship organizations across British Columbia, including five groups in the Fraser Basin. This pilot project is confirming the tangible benefits realized from funders’ investments by evaluating the increased capacity of these organizations to implement on-the-ground conservation work.
Data has been collected twice a year to evaluate the environmental benefits of stable core funding and accompanying financial, social and community changes. The following organizations are participating in the Stewardship Works! pilot project:
PARTICIPANT ORGANIZATION LOCATION
1 Alouette River Management Society (ARMS) Fraser Basin
2 Christina Lake Stewardship Society Columbia Basin
3 Como Watershed Group Fraser Basin
4 Delkatla Sanctuary Society Queen Charlotte Islands
5 Mid Vancouver Island Habitat Enhancement Society Vancouver Island
6 Okanagan Similkameen Conservation Alliance Okanagan Basin
7 Salmon River Watershed Roundtable Fraser Basin
8 SeaChange Marine Conservation Society Vancouver Island
9 Williams Lake Field Naturalists/Scout Island Nature Centre Fraser Basin
10 Vanderhoof Fish and Game Club Fraser Basin
Increased Human Resource Capacity
Six stewardship organizations report significant increases in human resource capacity. SeaChange used their core funding grants to hire an Outreach Coordinator who increased the organization’s ability to attract volunteers and keep them active and satisfied. The Scout Island Nature Centre reports that core funding ‘enabled us to attract and train several volunteers for our native species planting project, including 15 high school horticulture students’. Core funding enabled ARMS to provide gift certificates to volunteers in appreciation of their contribution and they ‘believe this recognition goes a long way to keeping volunteers’. ARMS also trained 9 new staff and volunteers to conduct salmon spawner surveys. Core funding is enabling organizations to take on more volunteers, provide more training, coordinate more hours of volunteer habitat work, improve volunteer satisfaction, and retain experienced volunteers.
Increased Financial Capacity
All of the stewardship organizations report significant increases in financial capacity. Using Stewardship Works! grants as seed money all the organizations were able to apply for and attract more funding. By funding staff to personally contact donors SeaChange was able to increase donations through its 1% for the Planet program by 400%. Christina Lake has been able to attract new funding from BP, retain funding from the Southern Interior Development Trust, and increase donations of goods and services. With this increased support they have retained staff and volunteers through the fall and winter to complete important work like the Annual Watershed Review and their Kokanee Spawning Program. All of the organizations have more than matched the Stewardship Works! grants with cash, donated materials, volunteer labour and other contributions. Core funding is allowing staff and volunteers to focus time and energy on fund raising for habitat and watershed conservation, replacing non-ecosystem related activities (i.e. bake sales) that traditionally pay for society operations.
Increased Community Empowerment
Data collected over the past three years shows that Stewardship Works! core funding has improved the long term viability of participating organizations. Christina Lake reports a higher level of confidence within the Board and their members and a heightened sense of pride that they are able to steward the environment for future generations. The Okanagan Similkameen Conservation Alliance has been able to ‘get their financial house in order’ so that staff, volunteers and board members understand the financial position of their programs. Mid-Vancouver Island has been able to reach out to their community through an updated website and to monitor the change in their community presence. Five groups were able to increase their community profile through attendance at events, contact with the press, media articles, press releases, support for community projects and community partnerships. An exciting new avenue of investigation during the final year of the Stewardship Works! Pilot Project will be to identify indicators that evaluate how core funding has strengthened the role of the recipient organizations in their communities.
Increased Community Influence
Several organizations report that Stewardship Works! core funding has increased their ability to influence behaviour and decision-making. Christina Lake has attracted more than 300 people to its events and meetings and believes that local knowledge of stewardship issues has increased. Scout Island Nature Centre attended 21 Sustainability Committee meetings. SeaChange used Stewardship Works! funds to cover travel costs for regional meetings where they shared their knowledge about eelgrass meadows and estuaries with stakeholders and decision-makers. The Delkatla Sanctuary Society established Friends of Hecate Strait to influence decisions about a proposed wind farm in the Pacific Offshore Migratory Flyway. In the final year of the Stewardship Works! Pilot Project we will evaluate the cumulative three-year impact on human behaviour, local and regional decision-making due to the increased participation of stewardship organization in community processes and partnerships.
A substantial body of useful data has been collected over the past three years and the Stewardship Works! Pilot Project is now ready to quantify the cumulative benefits of stable core funding on watershed health, fish, wildlife habitats and community health.
As described in this proposal, the fourth and final year of the pilot project will evaluate the cumulative effectiveness of the Stewardship Works! core funding model; promote the considerable benefits to decision-makers, stakeholders, long-term funders; and build partnerships for ongoing delivery of the program.
OBJECTIVES
Objective #1 Increase watershed and habitat conservation efforts by increasing the number of volunteers participating in stewardship.
Objective #2 Showcase the increase in habitat protection, conservation and restoration works resulting from providing stable core funding to community stewardship groups.
Objective #3 Promote the Stewardship Works! core funding model by evaluating 3 years of data collected from 10 stewardship organizations and communicating the benefits.
Objective #4 Confirm existing and build new partnerships for on-going delivery of the Stewardship Works! program.
METHODS
In 2010-2011, the Stewardship Works! pilot project will:
1) Conclude the evaluation process: Our evaluation specialist is an integral member of the Stewardship Works! team and will finalize the evaluation framework that has been tracking decisions, changes, impacts and barriers experienced by the ten pilot groups over three years; document and assess the cumulative impacts of multi-year core funding; and prepare the Stewardship Works! Pilot Project final report.
2) Produce and distribute audio-visual vignettes: Building on participant case studies compiled in 2009, short videos will be produced to tell six or more Stewardship Works! success stories. A communications specialist will be engaged to develop the vignettes, position them on-line, at workshops, meetings, and in correspondence promoting Stewardship Works! to targeted audiences in government, communities, and philanthropy.
3) Host Stewardship Works! Legacy Workshop: Working with the Stewardship Works! Advisory Group, the communications specialist will identify receptive leaders in government agencies, stewardship organizations, community development, not-for profit capacity builders, and philanthropic foundations; assess their interests; and organize a workshop to build the foundation for a Stewardship Works! legacy program.
4) Solicit Stewardship Works! Endorsements: Consulting with the Advisory Group, project team and the Stewardship Centre for BC, the communications specialist will develop and lead a networking strategy to obtain written endorsements for the Stewardship Works! legacy program from opinion leaders in government, stewardship, communities, and philanthropy.
5) Attract new funding for Stewardship Works! grants: The project team will identify three or more new sources of potential funds for future core funding grants, communicate the environmental and social benefits of the Stewardship Works! funding model and solicit funds to provide annual grants of $2500 to $5000 to 16 community based stewardship organizations in 2010-2011.
BENEFITS
Stewardship Works! increases the capacity of people in communities to come together and take action for watershed sustainability. Through its program of annual grants Stewardship Works! has increased the capacity of six stewardship organizations in the Fraser Basin to provide services that conserve, protect and restore salmonid habitat and watersheds. Stewardship Works! is demonstrating that local groups can multiply the value of small core funding grants by significantly increasing their watershed and habitat conservation activities.
Engage First Nations, government agencies and community groups/NGOs
Participant organizations on the Advisory Committee and the Stewardship Works! grant recipients collaborate with or are linked to First Nations in their respective communities.
Complement or implement local and / or regional plans (e.g., recovery plans, watershed plans)
Each participant organization is well established in their communities and involved in local and regional planning process. Stewardship Works! funding has enabled several organizations to increase their participation in planning processes.
Value-added aspects
Stewardship Works!:
- increases the organizational capacity of community stewardship groups
- shares information between participating organizations and the broader stewardship community across BC
- supports the recruitment and training of new community volunteers and paid staff in stewardship organizations
- knowledge gained is transferable to funding agencies, the broader stewardship sector and decision-makers
- builds new relationships between community groups, regional, provincial and national entities
- increases the ability of community stewardship groups to influence changes in policies that will positively impact ecosystems
- empowers local communities to respond to emerging local issues by reducing time and energy spent on non-environmental activities
- builds resilience in community organizations and confidence to plan for the future
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