Yesterday’s work at the Inaugural Rare Pride Latin America gathering brought the first brainstorming sessions to establish a vision for this burgeoning network.   We also had sessions on the use of mobile phone technology for constituency-building, conflict resolution training, monitoring and evaluation skill building, and of course a jam-packed session on Miradi (www.miradi.org) – no surprise given the number of campaign managers years ago who were trained before this software was developed.

Some of the objectives under consideration for the Latin America alumni network and RarePlanet.org include:  dynamic interchange of experiences by local leaders changing community social norms; a platform for securing funding and volunteers; a network of practitioners changing the practice of conservation; a source of mutual support and camaraderie (the Spanish word “companerismo” is tough to beat); resources for practitioners; a bank of stories that highlight challenges and inspiring success; an online translation service that ensures global sharing of good practices; and the dream that within five years even the remote, rural target communities will be able to access RarePlanet.org through mobile phone technology.  Of course, a number of significant challenges were also named, but we have a couple days left to work on those.

Paul Butler, Rare’s Senior Vice President and the founder of the Rare Pride campaigns, was of course pleased as punch. Here’s a quick video made with a Flip camera.

Click here to watch interview with Paul Butler

(By the way, to which Colonel Sanders was he referring?)

Last night, after three days in hotel conference rooms, the entire group took over a local restaurant and demonstrated to Guadalajara how social change agents let off steam, especially in Latin America.  Of course these skills come in handy when it’s time to mobilize communities.

And to think: tonight is the actual party.

July 13, 2009

Feel the excitement!

What a treat! 40  Latin American alumni of Rare’s Pride program are gathered together in Guadalajara, Mexico this week to share stories, reflect on their past experiences, and explore possibilities for launching an alumni network.   I plan on attending two full days of their retreat in order to see what I can learn from them, and to get a sense for myself of the benefits of investing in an alumni organization.

I am not sure I have much with which to compare this program.   My MBA program at Georgetown holds a number of alumni events.  Some are purely social. They are basically cocktail parties.  Some are slightly more business-oriented, such as networking fairs.  Others offer educational opportunities, guest speakers, seminars, even trips.  For the most part, the Georgetown grads are on the receiving end of free alcohol, networking opportunities, and the occasional lecture series.   The alumni don’t produce new knowledge, they don’t often share their own stories except interpersonally, and there is no organized way for us to work together to advance our individual or collective work.  But then again, I doubt many graduates even have these expectations.   For the university, I’m sure the ultimate measure of success for alumni relations is fundraising.  They’re good at this.  In fact, Georgetown just opened a state-of-the-art business school that was paid for with alumni funds.

Rare’s idea of an alumni gathering is a little different.  Let’s start with the goal. We simply want to offer an opportunity to Rare’s past partners to reconnect, gain some additional training, share stories, and if they so desire redefine their partnership with Rare.  While I haven’t yet had a chance to ask them personally, my guess is that many Pride alumni want help running additional campaigns, or they want additional training. Some will want help identifying funding sources to pay for ongoing behavior change efforts;  others want to simply hear what’s going on with other campaigns in the region.

I have my own interests of course.  I’d like to see these local conservation leaders collaborating throughout the region to achieve a host of new objectives, for example:  building greater demand for social change models within the environmental community, perhaps by helping organizations recognize that human behavior is the root cause of environmental challenges;  creating a virtual community of social marketing practices; mentoring newly trained campaign managers or at least following their campaigns and encouraging them along; helping Rare track campaign impacts much longer than the 1-2 year timeframes we’ve grown accustomed to; helping us recruit new sites and new partners as we expand over time; and challenging and supporting us as we try to develop a platform for all this collaboration.

But let’s see what they have to say….

July 14, 2009

Day One – though I spent it on airplanes getting here – was apparently quite good.  If the photo sessions before dinner were any indication, this looks a lot like a Latin America reunion.   It’s a pretty animated group.   Sharon Price, who worked with a team to organize this event, had this to say about day one.

Watch video clip of Sharon!

…Too bad I missed the yoga.
A couple of interesting tidbits I’ll follow up on today:

Elizabeth Cabrera from Paraguay is now launching her THIRD Pride campaign. No Rare funding, no ongoing support, but she’s  won an Overbrook Fellowship, started a Master’s in Sustainable Development at National University, and she’s launching a third campaign.  Not bad for a young woman who only graduated college in 2002.  Here’s a quick interview with her on day one:

Hear Elizabeth as she explains (in Spanish and Guarani, her native language in Paraguay), how exciting it is to be in this reunion and closes with, “I love the Rare family and feel like part of it.”
Stay tuned for more highlights!