Rare, a U.S.-based conservation organization, works globally to equip people in the world’s most threatened natural areas with the tools and motivation they need to care for their natural resources. For the last 30 years, at more than 90 sites and in more than 40 nations, Rare has focused as much on people as on science—addressing the underlying social and economic factors that create environmental threats. Rare’s approach has been to develop a suite of social marketing and business development tools that motivate local communities to protect their natural surroundings. Rare has been recognized by Monitor Consulting and Fast Company magazine as one of the “Top 25 Social Capitalists” in America for 2005, 2006, 2007, and 2008, the only environmental group with this distinction. Its conservation toolkit has been embraced by many large environmental organizations, including The Nature Conservancy, Conservation International, Wildlife Conservation Society, and the National Audubon Society. Rare’s signature Pride campaign builds grassroots support for environmental protection by training local conservation leaders in the use of commercial marketing tactics to build awareness, influence attitudes, and enable meaningful change. Pride campaigns produce a groundswell of support that leads to tangible conservation successes, such as new national parks, reform legislation, or reduction of threats from forest fires or over-fishing. Rare has more than twenty years of experience in building local Pride for biodiversity conservation and has trained over sixty locally-based conservationists trained in our innovative methods of community-based social marketing. Over the next 5 years, Rare plans to ramp up its Pride program to more than triple in size and reach.
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