Partnerships for Preservation
SOCIETY FOR WILDLIFE RESEARCH AND ENVIRONMENTAL EDUCATION (SPVS)
Organizational Vision
Citizen Base Strategy
How It's Working
Lessons Learned
The Society for Wildlife Research and Environmental Education (SPVS) has a crucial mission: to protect and preserve the remaining tracts of Atlantic Brazilian rainforest in the states of Santa Catalina and Parana, Brazil. SPVS has worked for twenty years to protect these areas by carrying out environmental education programs, partnering with government agencies and businesses, lobbying officials, and developing models for the appropriate utilization of these valuable natural resources. Since its inception, SPVS has launched over 100 different campaigns and educational programs. To realize this vision, SPVS knew they couldn’t accomplish it without help. The partnership model developed and instituted by SPVS has become crucial in the success of the organization and the larger network SPVS affects.
Partner from the inside and out
SPVS leverages the idea of “partnerships” both within the organization’s internal structure and external relationships. Internally, SPVS treats its more than 100 employees as partners jointly carrying programs for effective protection and preservation. The staff includes technicians, from backgrounds ranging from biology to cartography, administrative staff and active field assistants, such as park rangers and reserve area administrators. The diverse staff demands that SPVS practice strong collegiality and collaboration amongst its staff. This internal philosophy in turn allows them to build solid external relationships. SPVS considers external business partnerships, which ultimately lead to its greater public exposure, an essential strategy for its sustainability. As founder Ashoka Fellow Clovis Borges explains, partnerships take work. “We start relationships by doing our research and identifying the interests of the business. We then use these interests to establish partnerships and raise money. But it doesn’t end there; these relationships are used to open new doors. People hear about our work with TIM (an Italian cell phone producer) and they want to get involved.” Over the past two decades, SPVS has built its network of corporate contacts and its related portfolio of partnerships methodically and responsibly. It has created a reputation for itself as not only an effective environmental organization, but also as a team player within the socially responsible business community it engages.
Having formed so many visible and successful public partnerships with powerful corporations, SPVS has become a widely respected and attractive partner. It has also created a very recognizable brand, so that when businesses want to improve their corporate social performance portfolio, they look to partner with SPVS.
Include values as a criterion for success
Once SPVS identifies a new environmental initiative, the organization begins the process of researching the corporate sector for potential partners. SPVS builds a short list of partnership candidates around select criteria. Partners must fit the following characteristics:
- Financial resources required for the program
- Customer base of size and location relevant to the current SPVS campaign
- Direct benefits from supporting SPVS’s work
- Alignment with SPVS’s mission and principles
Borges emphasizes the importance of the values mentioned above in SPVS’ partner selection process. They help weed out unwanted relationships with companies seeking partnerships within the citizen sector simply to improve public relations. These values also help SPVS identify business partners that might try to use a potential relationship as a means to cover questionable business practices.
According to Borges,"You must be careful not to be used. If this partnership might damage you, avoid it and drop it. You need to keep your eyes open. Even if they are nice people and really involved in change, that may or may not be enough. Some companies will give dollars, feature you in their advertising, and continue polluting.”
Enable all partners to emerge as winners
SPVS always delivers “win-win” partnership proposals to the corporate institutions it solicits. The organization crafts each initiative—and its respective course of action—to address the specific environmental issue SPVS intends to address and to target what the corporate institution might be willing to donate. SPVS then writes the partnership proposal. For example, SPVS decided to initiate a massive cellular phone recycling campaign. Reacting to the recent law that required Brazilian cellular phone manufacturers to recycle its cell phone batteries, SPVS saw an opportunity to elevate public awareness about hazardouswaste recycling. After careful planning, SPVS approached Telecom Italia Mobile (TIM), a major Brazilian cell phone manufacturer, two years before the law was to go into effect. SPVS offered to partner with TIM. SPVS would take on TIM’s job of recycling batteries if TIM would take on collection costs. TIM, much more interested in selling phones than collecting batteries, was eager to heed SPVS’s suggestion.
SPVS designed a simple system. TIM’s consumers would leave dead batteries at any of the 700 TIM stores, where they would be deposited in specially designed envelopes to prevent leakage. The post office would deliver them to SPVS’s warehouse, where the batteries were sorted according to the specific battery manufacturer. TIM would then call the various manufacturers to pick up their batteries.
Through this partnership, more than 40,000 cellular phone batteries annually were kept out of Brazilian landfills. For TIM, who preferred the cellphone business to the battery collection busines, this new process was an equally resounding success. It saved TIM both the time and the expense of collecting individual batteries. In exchange, SPVS received $125,000 per year from TIM, an amount that not only covered its collection costs, (e.g., warehouse, shipping and handling fees, and salaries) but also ensured a profit -- a sum equal to 5% of its budget. Moreover, TIM also viewed the project as a partnership. As Borges explained, “They did it to show that they were meeting their legal obligation.” It was a mutually beneficial business partnership.
Beyond its financial aspects, the partnership with TIM has delivered even greater benefits to SPVS in terms of its visibility. As part of the agreement, TIM displays SPVS’s logo in all of TIM’s public service advertising throughout Brazil, including in magazines, on billboards, and on T.V. This has been a windfall for SPVS who never would have been able to afford the exposure otherwise. This publicity continually generates inquiries from the public about environmental stewardship and volunteering. In addition to this public attention, the advertising also educates consumers that tossing out cell phone batteries threatens groundwater with toxic metals.
Building on the high-profile success of its early partnership with TIM, SPVS has been able to generate other corporate sponsorships. It has parlayed its partnering skill to convince 14 medium-size companies in its hometown to each donate $2,000-$3,000. SPVS in turn uses these funds locally to restore a 58,000-acre piece of rainforest on the Atlantic coast that SPVS owns, which is home to a diverse population of black-faced lion tamarins, tapirs, jaguars, and blue-cheeked parrots. In addition, three American energy companies – two oil companies and a utility – have given SPVS an $18 million gift to lobby politicians to help save the remaining 0.4% of highland pine forests left in Parana from being razed for soybean monocultures.
Embrace partnerships that can offer more than money
Money isn’t the only resource corporate partners can provide. As Borges advises, “If you can’t get financial resources, at least get something else.” As part of its partnership strategy, SPVS has been particularly successful establishing relationships that link the public to its mission. The result has been an increase in public donations. For example, SPVS partnered with an advertising company, which provided pro bono services that resulted in several powerful campaigns that publicized SPVS’s programs, while reflecting positively on the advertising firm. Newspapers and television companies have also supported SPVS’s awareness campaigns and made donations of advertising space and broadcasting videos.
SPVS recognized that being environmentally conscious was good business and corporations wanted to partner with them. So, it branded its message and combined its credibility with the marketing power of corporations to further expand the reach of its message. In this fashion, SPVS seizes opportunities by building on the resources of its partners. As part of the reciprocal exchange for corporate contributions, SPVS features the corporate partner’s logo during its environmental presentations around the country, ensuring that all partners are winners.
- Raised significant country-wide awareness of their causes and work
- Restored a 58,000 acre rainforest
- Developed new and effective media outlets that increased brand awareness
- Established local funding partnerships to cover all costs
- Planted over 20,000 native seedlings on highly endangered riverbanks—600 of these were transplanted as part of a program specifically for underprivileged children.
- Recycled more than 40,000 cellular phone batteries per year
- Research potential partners well. SPVS diligently researches potential partners prior to considering collaboration. SPVS selects reputable partners by examining an organization’s history, personnel and operations closely. This practice protects a citzen sector organization’s own image, brand and work.
- Simplify the partnership process. In assuming a portion of the planning and operational responsibility for the partnership, SPVS facilitates an easy, attractive relationship for the corporation.
- Create a brand. SPVS incorporates its organizational brand as regularly as possible to build recognition, credibility, and reputation. The stronger the brand, the more people will want to associate with it.
- Look beyond money. Leveraging partnerships to full potential may involve resources other than pure financing, recognizing that each partnership has unique resources to contribute.