National Audubon Society Strategic Plan
Creating a Culture of Conservation
This Strategic Plan serves two ends. First, it is a blueprint for achievement of the National Audubon Society's mission: to conserve and restore natural ecosystems, focusing on birds, other wildlife, and their habitats for the benefit of humanity and the Earth's biological diversity. The Plan seeks to integrate Audubon's unique and unmatched strengths - its network of volunteers and activists, its dedicated staff, its national reach and community presence, its respected name - to accomplish this essential purpose. But the Plan also follows a higher calling: to create a culture of conservation and an environmental ethic. By inspiring individual and collective action, Audubon strives to make unsustainable exploitation of the natural world socially, politically, and morally unacceptable. Engaging people in protecting birds and other wildlife is therefore the essential corollary of Audubon's mission.
Audubon's Strategic Plan was first approved in 1995, following a multi-year collaboration involving all of Audubon's constituents: members, chapters, directors, staff, and outside consultants. It affirms Audubon's identity as a conservation organization that accomplishes its work by engaging people in personal and collective conservation action and establishes three essential elements of our core strategy: (1) Focus on the conservation of birds, other wildlife, and their habitats, (2) Engage people in conservation action, and (3) Build capacity as a decentralized organization and grassroots network. Audubon's Board reviewed and reaffirmed this core strategy in 2001, and again in 2007.
The Strategic Plan remains valid and vital. Since the Plan's adoption in 1995, Audubon 's work has focused on realizing the vision of the Plan with increasing effectiveness - establishing a framework for measuring success in implementing our core strategies, adopting explicit conservation goals, reaffirming our commitment to hemispheric bird conservation, and refining our institutional planning and priority setting processes. Audubon has identified more than 2,200 Important Bird Areas across the United States and is spearheading their protection. With 24 state offices and 490 chapters throughout the country, Audubon's presence in communities is unique and growing. Our network of educators and centers connects people with nature - physically, intellectually, emotionally, and morally - and provides a force for building a conservation constituency. Our policy advocates in Washington and in key states play a pivotal role in advancing environmental protection - and in defeating short-sighted attempts at resource exploitation. Our dedicated staff of 700 and active volunteers numbering thousands give Audubon energy and life.
The natural world still faces threats that menaced it in 1995, and global climate change has emerged as an overriding peril. If any time called for a culture of conservation, that time is now. The parts are in place: no organization has greater potential to protect the natural world and to create a culture of conservation. This Strategic Plan charts a course to unify the parts and attain Audubon's potential.
Audubon Strategic Plan Available in:
Adobe Acrobat Format - (Adobe Acrobat Reader Required)
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