2023 Year in Review

An annual update from 2%’s Executive Director, Jared Frasier

Nothing in the world is worth having or worth doing unless it means effort, pain, difficulty… I have never in my life envied a human being who led an easy life.

- Theodore Roosevelt

As always, I am providing you with a full and honest report of what this year was like for 2% and our membership. It is imperative that we be transparent and honest. You expect it from us. Y’all, 2023 came in like a lion and is leaving like a lion.

In this, 2% for Conservation’s 8th year, we have overcome some hefty challenges and are squared away with a strong renewed focus for 2024.

One serious challenge this year was helping our membership continue supporting conservation through a year when cash was very expensive. Unlike other outdoor/environmental business organizations, we take on business members of all sizes and kinds - including tiny, brand-new startups. This year was very hard for small businesses. Between the tax changes from 2017 going into effect, high-interest rates, increased inflation, and overall higher expenses of operation… all of our members felt the squeeze, but especially the small businesses. Add corporate funds buying/bailing out small businesses into the mix and what we had was some business members either going out of business or selling to new owners that do not care about wildlife conservation.

Yet, the bulk of our membership not only endured but went above and beyond in their support of conservation.

Here are a few highlights:

• Many businesses gave well beyond our 1% of Time + 1% of Gross Sales requirements for 2% Certification. A few, like Flint Ridge Rifles in Indiana, gave 10% or more to wildlife! Montana’s Genuine Ice Cream volunteered well above our time requirement to help improve trails and habitat in their community - despite having to move their ice cream shop at the beginning of the year.

• There was a significant increase in business members hosting events for conservation causes. Looking back at the calendar, things are back up to and even surpassing pre-pandemic turnout and funds raised. At the end of summer, Stone Glacier raised thousands of dollars for mountain goat conservation at their annual summer bash in Bozeman, Montana.

• Many businesses leveraged their skills for wildlife in new and creative ways. Tierra Distilling featured ingredients sourced from their local ecosystems in Northern Illinois in their products to help their local community better connect with the land. Yearning Wild and Bella’s Bones sold dog toys and treats sourced from the local ecosystems they volunteered time in, in New York and Montana respectively. California’s Thunderbird Design used their design skills to highlight wildlife causes.

• Australia’s Fisheries & Wetlands Consulting, Arizona’s Oxbow Engineering, Lousiana’s Palustris Design Studio, British Columbia’s Canadian Wildlife Capture and Filter Studios, and Montana’s Rootbound Arborists and Fresh Tracks TV all gave their time and dollars through their specialized skills directly into their regional ecosystems. Montana’s CEAvet even went to Vietnam to give time and money to help rehabilitate wildlife there.

• Once again, coffee and meal companies went above and beyond promoting conservation as a cornerstone value for their brands. Calgary Heritage Roasting spent a lot of employee time on the land in Alberta. Wild Rivers Coffee moved from Texas to Ohio and immediately adopted local habitat areas to maintain in their new home state. Montana’s local backpacking meal brands, Alpen Fuel and Gastro Gnome, increased their giving to a broad range of local conservation and environmental causes.

• Realtors once again supported the local landscapes that support their work. Stephen of SJBD Land & Homes came on early in the year, supporting his local land conservancy in Kentucky. And, just last week, I saw Bozeman’s own Sarah Day volunteering her time pouring hot chocolate at a booth for her local land trust.

I could go on with the dozens of other ways our members gave back this year (so many local fundraising parties, habitat cleanups, membership giveaways, gear/materials given to conservation causes, and so much cash given directly to conservation causes) but you get the idea: 2% for Conservation members care deeply for wildlife, wild places, and their local ecosystems.

As we look toward 2024, we are refocusing our efforts to support our membership in their giving.

At the end of last year, I mentioned that we were looking to pivot some of our work to better serve individual pledge makers.
After what we have seen this year, that secondary program has been moved to our back burner, indefinitely.

This year, globally, the conservation community saw the biggest drop-off trend in individual volunteer hours and memberships in the last decade. Dozens of conservation partners reached out to us, wondering if we had leads on volunteers and if we were also seeing a drop off in individual memberships. What started as a concerning trend at the beginning of the year turned into the theme for 2023 by the end of summer: Individuals do not have the bandwidth to give what they had just a year ago.

The trend of individual volunteer burnout that we first reported on back in 2019 has reached what we believe to be its zenith.

If historic patterns hold true, we believe that 2024 should show an uptick in individual volunteerism and giving as folks adapt to new norms and get their feet back under themselves.

Until that starts, we are placing all of our efforts towards our business members.

• This fall, we launched a new Recertification Portal to simplify annual recertifications for our business members. Whether you are a small business or a large corporation, it is built to make your annual recertification much easier!

• We completed a materials upgrade this week — all of our packets and assets for business members have been revamped and are available on our Business Certification page. They are now more mobile-focused, load faster, and work with most language translation plugins.

• We recently relaunched our Referral Program, with improved perks for both business members and individuals who refer a new business to become 2% Certified. We had multiple business members wipe their dues this year and individuals earned conservation group memberships for their referrals.

• We revamped the “2% Certified Business” badge to better work on printed materials, vehicles, and booth assets. You can request the upgraded badge by contacting us, here. It is our goal to have every business member current with the new badge by summer, 2025.

• Our blog will have a running stream of profile pieces on our business members. Make sure you are signed up for our email list to receive these — They will be full of great inspiration for your own giveback programs and internal programs for your teams! The signup is at the bottom of every page on our website.

We have some programmatic changes to secondary programs this year as well, but we are keeping them pretty close to chest for now. Stay tuned for those updates — there will be branding opportunities tied to them!

Lastly, I want to give a personal shout-out to our volunteer leaders for helping keep the ship upright and on course while I was out on medical leave this fall. If you had no idea that I was out for multiple weeks for a couple of life-extending surgeries, we did it right. It was a very challenging time for my family, but I am so thankful for the leaders in our organization who ensured the health of the organization while I had to focus on mine. The encouragement from our members who knew was also something me and my family cherished — you know who you are. Thank you.

As we head towards 2024, our 9th year as an organization, I take courage in seeing the capacity and tenacity of our members’ love for wildlife and wild places.

You are wildly effective, inspirational, and exactly what the world needs more of.

I look forward to seeing you on the trail in 2024!