What is a Rare Pride campaign

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What is a Rare Pride campaign? Some of the
worlds most important sites for biological
diversity are threatened by a lack of awareness
and local community support. Targeted
awareness-raising initiatives can dramatically
build momentum for conservation by creating the
constituencies necessary for initiating policy
changes, legislative reform, and new protected
areas by catalyzing in-country private and
public sector funding by shifting public
behavior toward more sustainable practices and
by focusing public attention on critically
threatened ecosystems and species. Through more
than 15 years of working in grassroots
conservation education, Rare has developed a
replicable social marketing program for awareness
raising the Pride campaign. Proven successful in
more than 30 countries, Pride campaigns
dramatically build momentum for conservation by
inspiring enthusiasm and commitment in those with
the most at stake local communities and
individuals who live in earths most ecologically
valuable regions. Pride campaigns turn a
charismatic flagship specieslike the St. Lucian
parrot or the manatee in Belizeinto a symbol of
local pride. Through a combination of grassroots
and mass-marketing techniques, ranging from
catchy songs about the flagship species to church
sermons, music videos, and puppet shows, these
campaigns generate broad based support for
ecosystem protection on a regional and/or
national level. Pride campaigns are always
implemented locally by conservation educators
trained and financed by Rare and other donors and
collaborators. The foundation for each campaign
is a comprehensive site assessment to analyze the
complex interplay of social, political, economic,
and legal factors that cause biodiversity loss.
The campaign objectives, flagship species, and
target audience are then carefully selected in
order to address a specific, realistic, and
measurable threat. Target populations have ranged
from 5,000 in Kosrae, Micronesia to more than
200,000 in the Bahamas. In larger countries,
like Mexico, the campaigns have been more local
in scope, focusing on specific communities
surrounding biosphere reserves.

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The type of results achieved through
PrideRares Pride Program is a hybrid of
traditional conservation education and pure
social marketing focusing on behavioral change.
Pride campaigns generate a groundswell of public
advocacy and peer pressure that has helped to
change knowledge, attitudes and behavior. By
replicating the Pride formula, campaigns have
successfully influenced attitudes and behavior
related to environmental protection in more than
40 countries. The key to their success, Pride
campaigns involve and engage every segment of the
community teachers, business leaders, elected
officials, and the average citizen. Here are
examples of the types of environmental
conservation advances that Pride campaigns have
supported and inspired

• Greater community participation in sustainable
  practices Campaigns in Mexicos Sierra de
  Manantlán and El Triunfo Biosphere Reserves
  promoted best practices for the reduction of
  forest fires caused by slash and burn
  agricultural techniques, as well as litter and
  garbage disposal. Forest fires in Manantlán were
  reduced by 45.
• Capacity building for civil society institutions
  A Pride campaign helped the Palau Conservation
  Society build itself as Palaus first home-grown
  NGO and one of Micronesias leading voices for
  conservation.
• Greater community participation in development
  planning In the Micronesian State of Yap, the
  campaign mobilized local stakeholders to draft
  legislation mandating local participation in all
  development decisions.
• Improved management of natural resources The
  campaigns have facilitated the creation of new
  reserves in Indonesia, Costa Rica, Grenada,
  Dominica, Saint Vincent, the Bahamas, the Cayman
  Islands, and the Philippines and contributed to
  the passage of new or enhanced natural resource
  management legislation in Saint Vincent,
  Montserrat, Saint Lucia, Kosrae, Yap, Palau and
  Costa Rica.
• New funding for natural resource management from
  the private sector. All Pride campaigns have
  helped local partners secure funds and in-kind
  contributions from local businesses who are drawn
  to their positive, high profile approach.
• New capacities for community education Local
  agencies and NGOs receive training, technical
  assistance, and first-hand experience in running
  outreach programs.
• Successful conservation of flagship species
  Pride campaigns, such as the ones that focused on
  the St. Lucia Parrot and Grenada Dove, have
  generated the momentum necessary to implement
  species conservation measures.

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How a Pride campaign works
Selecting a Campaign Manager The key to a
successful campaign manager is a willingness to
learn, to work hard, and to take personal pride
in his/her work. Enthusiasm is difficult to
measure, but an essential element in the success
of a Pride campaign. Campaign managers must be
able to engage a variety of local stakeholders
(from farmers or fishermen, to teachers, to
businessmen and government officials) and
motivate them to take action. Ideally, Pride
campaign manager candidates will have been born
within and at a minimum now reside full time in
the target area of the campaign. A prospective
campaign manager must have at least a high school
diploma and must be a full time employee of the
organization with whom Rare will sign a
memorandum of understanding. The campaign manager
must work exclusively on the Pride campaign for
its 18-month duration. There is also a language
proficiency requirement in English or
Spanish. Training Campaign managers participate
in university-level training before and after the
campaign. The diploma programdeveloped in
partnership with the University of Kent at
Canterbury (UKC) and the University of
Guadalajaras Centro Universitario de la Costa
Sur (CUCSUR)includes two formal classroom
phases at the universities in which campaign
managers gain a background in the principles and
techniques of ecology, education, evaluation, and
conservation marketing. The centerpiece is the
Pride campaign itself, in which the campaign
managers develop and implement full-scale,
field-based campaigns. By successfully completing
both the coursework and the campaign, campaign
managers earn an accredited diploma from the
university. Planning Behind every button and
poster is a concrete conservation objective.
Understanding a site and those who live in and
around it is the key to reducing threats. These
campaigns recognize that success is based upon
careful planning, the identification of barriers
and benefits to sustainable behavior, an analysis
of target groups, the design of a communication
strategy, and the careful crafting of key
messages. Each campaign begins with a rigorous
site assessment and data collection phase. The
results help campaign managers and their
supervisors set specific measurable objectives
for reducing biodiversity threats (for example,
increasing the number of reserve residents who
adopt a sustainable agriculture technique by
25). Campaign managers work closely with local
staff and community members to design the
campaign, including the target species, target
population, objectives, and educational messages,
so that the campaign supports larger site
conservation objectives. Implementation and
Evaluation Through a series of over 26
high-profile activities, campaigns use all
available local media to broadcast their
messagesfrom fact sheets, posters, bumper
stickers, and billboards to mass marketing
techniques (campaign songs, TV and radio
announcements, newspaper articles, and music
videos) to school presentations, community
festivals, sermons, and puppet shows. All
segments of the target population are reached,
from resource users (farmers, fishermen, hunters)
to clergy, teachers, government and law
enforcement officials to children and students.
Each campaign is measured and evaluated.
Monitoring techniques and procedures are selected
on the basis of what questions need to be
answered and how much time and funding is
available to carry out the work.
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• Pride Campaign Methodology
• Behind every step is a measurable conservation
  objective
• After completing 10 weeks of training at a Pride
  University training center, the campaign begins
  developing a comprehensive project plan. First, a
  literature review is conducted by the campaign
  manager to better understand the site and what is
  taking place there. Special emphasis is made on
  understanding who the key players are and what
  activities are taking place. One of the products
  of this process is a stakeholder matrix which
  identifies key players and their interest in the
  site.
• This matrix is used to identify and invite groups
  and individuals to a stakeholder meeting during
  which participants work together (facilitated by
  the campaign manger) to develop an Initial
  Concept Model of key threats.
• The concept model identifies the key direct,
  indirect, and contributing factors (or root
  causes) of the threats influencing the target
  site.
• Pride campaign managers then survey between 1 and
  3 of the population of the target site to gather
  information on peoples knowledge, attitudes, and
  behavior. The questionnaire validates the key
  threats identified by stakeholders in the concept
  model, and helps to rank these threats through a
  random sample of individuals living in and
  adjacent to the target area. Control group data
  is also gathered.
• Once the questionnaire survey data is analyzed,
  the concept model is revised in a second
  stakeholders meeting. Stakeholders assist the
  campaign manager in identifying campaign
  objectives that focus on knowledge and awareness
  changes likely to influence key threats.
• A good objective is one that is SMART Specific,
  Measurable, Action-oriented, Realistic, and
  Time-bound. These SMART objectives are linked to
  a monitoring plan with clear indicators. Campaign
  managers design activities and a plan for
  accomplishing each. Objectives are reviewed by
  Rare staff and local participants at the second
  stakeholder meeting.
• These objectives are incorporated into a Project
  Plan that becomes the foundation guiding the
  campaign.
• Once the Project Plan is approved, a year-long
  Pride campaign is implemented. A suite of
  activities (such as school visits, costumes,
  puppet theatres, billboards, religious sermons,
  popular songs and music videos) are conducted.
  Throughout the campaign, the campaign managers
  communicate with Rare, course lecturers and each
  other through an online student club and are
  visited twice for additional support. Campaign
  managers complete long-distance assignments which
  support the campaigns goals.
• The questionnaire survey is conducted again at
  the end of the campaign, and the results are used
  to compare pre-and post-campaign changes in
  knowledge, attitudes and behavior.
• At the end of the campaign, managers return to
  the university training center for a two-week
  session of sharing lessons learned and
  evaluation, as well as designing a follow up plan.

I. Literature Reviewand Site Analysis
II. Stakeholders Meeting 1
III. Initial Concept Model
IV. Questionnaire Survey
V. Stakeholders Meeting 2
VI. SMART Objectives
VII. Project Plan
VIII. The Pride Campaign
IX. Post Campaign Survey
X. Evaluation, Lessons Learned, Follow up Plan
Rare 1840 Wilson Blvd., Suite 204, Arlington,
Virginia 22201 USA 703.522.5070
www.rareconservation.org