|
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
 |
||||||||||
|
 |
|
|
|
|
|||||
|
||||||||||
<< Back: Governance of The Nature Conservancy
Work of Outside Advisors on Key Issues
The Nature Conservancy aspires to set a standard of best practices for a highly-decentralized, global nonprofit organization, committed to a culture of innovation through competent risk taking. While confident that the Conservancy has the right values and strategy to serve its mission, the Board is constantly seeking to improve and enhance its governance, transparency, and accountability. Therefore, the Board decided at its meeting on June 13, 2003 to enlist outside perspective and expertise to help in these areas. This memo will further define this work.
The objective of the work with independent advisors will be to provide the Board of Governors of The Nature Conservancy with a set of forward-looking recommendations on key issues facing the organization in the areas of governance, transparency, and accountability.
The outside advisors will be given latitude in determining the scope of their work with the caveat that we are not looking for an evaluation of the past but rather advice on how to move forward in the areas of governance, transparency, and accountability. This Governance Advisory Panel will be chartered by the Board of Governors and the group will deliver the recommendations to the Board and keep the Board informed throughout the group's process. The Panel will have the opportunity to make recommendations related to other issues discussed at the June 13 Board meeting but its focus will be on questions that were not addressed or remain unresolved after that session. These outside advisors will not be staff or Board members of The Nature Conservancy. The outside advisors will be asked to serve pro bono, however they will be reimbursed for their expenses. A final report of the Governance Advisory Panel’s recommendations (PDF, 216 KB, new window) will be made available to the public.
The group will include five individuals with diverse and broad experience in the issues of governance both in the for-profit and nonprofit arenas. These individuals will have a reputation for integrity and a commitment to conservation. The Panel will be fully supported by professional staff hired for this purpose. The Conservancy will raise funding to cover the costs of this staff.
The Panel will make an interim report to the The Nature Conservancy's Board at its meeting in January. It is anticipated that final recommendations will be made by March, 2004. The advisors will be asked to develop answers to a series of questions. These questions are drawn from the discussion of the Board of Governors at the June 13 Board meeting. The questions are in the following areas.
The Board would like the outside advisors to provide their advice on how the Board ensures that we use our governance processes to achieve the highest levels of integrity throughout the organization. Some questions the advisors might choose to address are:
- How can the Conservancy's governance approach better ensure that it achieves its foremost value - integrity beyond reproach?
- What types of backgrounds and experiences should be reflected on the Board of Governors and in what proportion to the total Board membership? How many members should the Board have? Should there be any other entities created (i.e., advisory councils) to help the Board do its work?
- What is the optimal committee structure arrangement and what should be the charges to those committees?
- How should issues be identified for Board consideration and review?
- How should potential Board members be identified?
- How does the Board ensure that our procedures are designed and executed so as to support the policies established by the Board?
Transparency
We would like the advisors to give us their opinion on the meaning of transparency in the non-profit sector and how to apply this perspective within the context of The Nature Conservancy. Some questions the advisors might choose to address are:
- What can the Conservancy do to reach its desired standard of becoming a model of transparency in the non-profit sector?
- What categories of information should be easily available to all the constituencies that are important to The Nature Conservancy?
- How do we ensure there is no gap between how we describe ourselves and who we really are?
Accountability
We are seeking assistance in thinking about the issue of accountability. To what constituencies are we accountable and how are we accountable? Other questions the advisors might provide an opinion on are:
- What are the key areas in which the Board of Governors needs to step up its oversight of The Nature Conservancy's activities in order to minimize risk to the organization?
- What benchmarks should the Board establish to monitor the organization's performance?
- What role should members, donors, and partners play in evaluating the Conservancy's effectiveness
Introduction to The Nature Conservancy
The Nature Conservancy was first incorporated as a non-profit organization in 1951 and has grown to be the world’s largest private land conservation and biodiversity protection organization with operations in all 50 states and 30 other countries. The Conservancy launched the first biological inventory of the United States in 1970 that became the basis for the Natural Heritage data system now maintained in each state and has been a leader in the science of biodiversity protection ever since.
The mission of The Nature Conservancy is to preserve the plants, animals and natural communities that represent the diversity of life on Earth by protecting the lands and waters they need to survive.
Our Approach
The Conservancy takes a systematic, science-based approach to identifying sites for protection. Called Conservation by Design, this approach begins by identifying distinct divisions in the natural landscape defined by climate, geography and species – known as ecoregions. For each ecoregion, the Conservancy identifies a portfolio of high priority sites – those places that collectively capture the biological diversity of the region. The Conservancy then develops customized conservation strategies, ranging from outright acquisition, to environmental education, to working in partnership with private landowners to ensure lasting protection of these target sites.
The following principles describe The Nature Conservancy’s approach to land conservation:
The Nature Conservancy works collaboratively with partners – communities, businesses, government agencies, multilateral institutions, individuals and other non-profit organizations.
- We employ the best available scientific information and practices to guide our conservation actions.
- We pursue non-confrontational, pragmatic, market-based solutions to conservation challenges.
- We tailor our conservation strategies and tools to local circumstances.
- We work across landscapes and seascapes at a scale large enough to conserve ecological processes and to ensure that protected lands and waters retain their ecological integrity.
- We work with willing sellers and donors, both public and private, to protect plants and wildlife through purchases, gifts, exchanges, conservation easements, and management agreements and partnerships.
- Outside the United States, we work with government agencies and like-minded partner organizations to provide scientific information, infrastructure, community development, professional training, and long-term resources.
The Conservancy has protected more than 14 million acres of wildlife habitat in the United States. Some of these lands are in the more than 1,400 preserves owned and managed by the Conservancy. Other protected lands have been left in private ownership with permanent conservation easements or transferred to government agencies for management.
Organization
The Conservancy is a decentralized organization with its conservation activities focused in chapters in each of the 50 states and more than 400 offices around the world. The Conservancy employs more than 3,000 people, including 400 scientists engaged every day in research and management activities to improve habitat functions at high priority sites.
The work of the Conservancy is legally governed and guided by a 39-member national Board of Governors. The Conservancy also benefits from more than 1,500 unpaid, volunteer chapter trustees who provide leadership and guidance to our programs.
Financial Support
By far, the most significant source of support and revenue to the Conservancy comes from its more than one million members and other individual supporters. In the past five fiscal years, on average individuals contributed 34 percent and foundations 16 percent to the Conservancy’s total revenue. Corporate donations over this time period typically represented less than 10 percent of the Conservancy’s total support and revenue. The remainder of the Conservancy’s funding comes from a wide variety of sources including government grants, investment income, and contracts.
The Conservancy has grown to be the largest conservation organization and one of the largest charities in the United States with assets of more than $3 billion (reflecting primarily the value of the land we own and manage) and a 2003 operating budget of nearly $350 million. The Conservancy focuses on “direct action” working to conserve important lands and through partnerships with a diverse array of landowners. Recently, the Conservancy launched a series of five priority conservation initiatives reflecting the principal threats to important wildlife habitat at our sites. including programs to address invasive species, global climate change, impairment of freshwater quality, threats to marine life, and the build-up of hazardous fire conditions on forested lands.
