Entrepreneur in Residence Opportunity
TNC seeks entrepreneur to support North America Regenerative Grazing Lands Strategy
Request for Proposal Deadlines
Interested candidates can submit questions related to the EIR assignment, by September 22, 2023.
Read the Questions and Answers about the Request for Proposals
Applications for the RFP are due by October 6, 2023
Contact: Kayla Sainato, agriculture innovation strategy manager, at kayla.sainato@tnc.org.
Individuals and consulting firms are encouraged to apply.
Livestock grazing on intact, working grasslands is not only vital to feeding a growing world, but it’s essential to the conservation of many native grasslands and shrubland ecosystems. Yet, these lands, like rangeland ecosystems everywhere, are in catastrophic decline. Some experts estimate that all functional and intact North America grasslands could be gone in 75 years if powerful solutions aren’t implemented quickly.
The Nature Conservancy’s North America Regenerative Grazing Lands (RGL) strategy is committed to protecting and restoring 240 million acres of intact grazing lands in the United States by 2030, thereby safeguarding one of America’s most iconic landscapes for the benefit of people, climate and nature.
To help accomplish this goal, TNC is seeking a consultant for an Entrepreneur in Residence (EIR) role to identify tools and solutions that will advance the profitable and sustainable adoption of regenerative ranching practices. We aim to help ranching communities adopt practices that restore and protect natural resources, like wildlife habitat and soil carbon, while providing food and securing livelihoods.
EIR Role Description
The EIR role requires a collaborative and entrepreneurial approach, with the ability to work efficiently, iteratively, and rapidly in concert with TNC and relevant stakeholders and actors. The right candidate will bring a strong entrepreneurial background to the EIR role with experience building and launching successful startups and/or lean businesses. Additionally, the right candidate will have a high level of comfort with taking risks and navigating uncertainty.
The consultant selected for the EIR assignment will conduct a gap and opportunity analysis by reviewing existing information from the RGL team and the beef sector, and by evaluating existing tools against criteria/metrics identified by the team, including improved land management, conservation, and business outcomes.
The EIR will then develop and execute two workstreams from the analysis:
1) Identify the most promising tools, which may need to be iterated for improvement, and create value proposition and business case pitches for ranchers on the use of tool/solution, and
2) Identify existing gaps and draft concepts for new tools/solutions needed.
The EIR will then work with a TNC counterpart to develop an implementation plan, including identifying the roles and responsibilities of TNC and other sector actors to promote the use of best available tools to ranching communities and work with the private sector to develop new tools. Throughout this work, the EIR will conduct analysis and make considerations for how the existing and new tools will aid traditional ranchers and support greater diversity, equity and inclusivity in the ranching sector, as well as how the tools could help ranchers at a future time when traceability and tracking are a focus of the sector.
Applying
For more information on the proposed EIR assignment and details for applying
Download the Request for ProposalsRead the Questions and Answers about the Request for Proposals
Applications for the RFP are due by October 6, 2023, to Kayla Sainato, agriculture innovation strategy manager, at kayla.sainato@tnc.org.
About Us
TNC is a leading global conservation organization working in 76 countries and territories. For more than 30 years, TNC has worked with ranchers, farmers, and the larger agriculture industry throughout the United States. In 2016, our scale of ambition in this area expanded immensely giving us a new level of emphasis, particularly around the opportunity to impact our climate, water and biodiversity goals while helping producers improve their productivity, livelihoods, and resiliency.
The North America Agriculture Program is committed to delivering transformational change in the agriculture industry to support people, climate, and nature. Already, we’ve established critical partnerships with other NGOs, leading food and agriculture companies, and ranchers and farmers on the ground. We’ve advocated for nature-friendly policies and secured support for regenerative agriculture practices in federal legislation. Most importantly, we are helping to change the conversation about agriculture’s role in addressing climate change and biodiversity loss.
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