The Challenge
Some of the world’s most ambitious philanthropists are committed to protecting the environment and slowing climate change—and they know what it will take to succeed. Donors to environmental causes are many and diverse. The Nature Conservancy came to us looking for storytelling crisp and powerful enough to amp up donor enthusiasm—and flexible enough to accommodate precision and customization.
The Impact
Lipman Hearne created a set of narrative framing devices that elevated and augmented The Nature Conservancy’s storytelling toolkit. Then we got to work building buy-in and confidence among the global team of 6,000 active fundraisers who would use these narratives on a daily basis. The Nature Conservancy’s $4 billion campaign launched, picked up speed, turned into a $7 billion campaign—and then exceeded its goal.
Project components
- Campaign strategy
- Campaign framing: positioning, name, anthem, pillars, messages
- Socialization strategy
- Modular case narrative
- Communicators’ guide
- Pitch deck with script
- Interactive workshops (500+ fundraisers)
- Rollout (6000 fundraisers)
OUR WORLD
The Nature Conservancy’s Global Campaign
The campaign positioning established a confident, energized tone, reclaiming the power of human agency for good and articulating attributes—informed optimism and scientific grounding—with which donors will affiliate.
An intrepid response to the forces that threaten our living earth, summoning the collective will of visionary philanthropists from around the world, bringing to bear the power of science and informed optimism to deliver meaningful, lasting outcomes.
The campaign anthem and pillars offered communicators concise, differentiating, aspirational language—and empowered communicators to make choices informed by their knowledge of prospect interests.
The threats facing nature are real, complex, and changing. But the irrepressible human craving for solutions is a formidable force. The Nature Conservancy and its supporters are well-informed optimists armed with science, ingenuity, and savvy. And we are already delivering outcomes that matter on an unprecedented scale.
Campaign pillars
Protect and restore landscapes, rivers and oceans at an unprecedented scale
Inspire leaders and empower new ambassadors for conservation
Transform the way businesses and governments use nature through innovative science and partnerships
Campaign vision
Campaign success means the lands and waters that support all life are healthy and thriving, and people have the food, water, energy and resources they need to prosper.
Campaign voice and personality
Optimistic, open-hearted, resourceful, ingenious, exuberant
No trace of defeatism about ability to effect real change; we see a way forward
Embracing “and” instead of “either/or”
Embodying irrepressible human instinct to make things better