How would you use a small grant to help tackle the war on wildlife?
That was the question we were asked recently: if the War on Wildlife Project were given a donation, how would you use it to help tackle the war on wildlife? What a question! So what would we do? Make a one-off lump sum donation, perhaps – many organisations are desperate for finance after lockdown after all. Or perhaps break up that money into smaller grants, spreading it across a number of smaller organisations or groups to help them fund their work?
It’s a fantastic problem to have!
We’ve obviously thought long and hard about what to do (as the donor would expect), and while there are numerous charities and sanctuaries we would always like to help, we think that setting up an ‘equipment fund’ to help smaller groups (many of which we know from experience are pretty much a handful of highly-committed individuals often having to fund their extraordinary work themselves) buy items to use in the field like video cameras, trail cams, night vision scopes, go-pros, recording equipment etc would be the most effective way to distribute the money we’ve been given. We feel that a ceiling of around £500/group (and /item) would be fair to everyone (so, sorry, that new Land Rover is not within our budget I’m afraid).
We think we can make the process as quick and painless as possible too. After all the monitoring season is upon us and there’s no time to waste! Hopefully nothing more than a phone call and a form to cover a few conditions (like a guarantee that the equipment won’t be used illegally, and will be used to help tackle the war on wildlife).
We also feel that for logistical reasons on this occasion we should make this offer available in the UK only. There may perhaps be another round of funding in the future, and with more experience of the processes involved we may be able to look further afield.
This is a wonderful opportunity for the War on Wildlife Project to be what we always hoped – part of a movement that is actually helping tackle the war on wildlife on the ground rather than just writing about it – and we want to make the most of it! So, additionally, we would like to offer (offer, not insist in any way) interviews with the groups we fund or this website as a platform to write about their work. Not to ‘thank us’ in any way, just as an option to promote what they’re doing to tackle the war on wildlife. And of course such follow-ups would help us see that what we’re putting in place is working and demonstrate that it is genuinely available to other groups/organisations that might be interested.
So, that’s our thinking. But of course if it’s not what you need, then perhaps we need to think again?
We would really like to know: would an offer to buy equipment be useful to you or your group? What items do you need? Do you have a better idea?
Please let us know in the comments below or on social media. If the response is positive, we would hope to be able to start rolling this out very quickly. Thanks.