In the Intermountain West, long-lasting conservation doesn’t come about without a hefty amount of time and effort devoted to building relationships and developing partnerships. However, doing so is almost never straightforward or easy.

Luckily, the North American Bird Conservation Initiative (NABCI) has released a guide to help with this tricky process. Called “Field Guide to Developing Partnerships,” the guide is the result of an effort involving 40 contributors representing 23 organizations and 13 partnerships. It focuses on looking for unlikely partners, communications, and relationship development, as well as providing an overview of partnership opportunities.

Access and read the document here: https://nabci-us.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/01/Partnerships-NABCI-20210120.pdf

“We hope that this guide will serve as a resource and a tool of empowerment and encouragement,” a statement from the NABCI Committee read. “Within the bird conservation community, we are promoting a culture of relevancy and encouraging ourselves and our colleagues to ‘think outside of the bird box’ to identify and develop partnerships based on goals that are good for people and good for birds. When we think beyond birds, we can build broad and diverse partnerships with positive impacts that reach far beyond what we can do within bird conservation alone. [We] hope that this Guide will give us that extra push we may need to research a new partner, pick up the phone, consider a new perspective, and expand our thinking.”