Graduate student Meredith Barnes (left) and Dr. Shannon Orr walk over land protected by the Black Swamp Conservancy. The property is owned by BGSU biology
faculty Drs. Moira Van Staaden and Robert Huber, who signed a conservation easement with the conservancy.
FOR LOVE AND MONEY
CLASS PUBLISHES FUNDRAISING GUIDE FOR LAND TRUSTS
Moving people from wanting to see land spared from development to actually donating money to help conserve it requires a skill set that many grassroots
land trust groups do not possess.
But there are tangible steps that are effective in creating support, and Dr. Shannon Orr's fall 2014 Environmental Management class is sharing that
information through an academic paper in New Visions for Public Affairs, a student-run, peer-reviewed journal. "Fundraising during an Economic Downturn:
Best Practices for Nonprofit Organizations" will be published in the May edition of the journal, just after the students graduate.
"Having a published article on our resumes will be really great when we're looking for jobs," said class member Meredith Barnes, a Master of Public
Administration Program student from the Akron area. "We were ecstatic when we learned it had been accepted."
Publishing was not the original intent when the class took on as a client the local Black Swamp Conservancy, which had asked for help in identifying
fundraising practices. Like most regional conservancy groups, its membership is made up of volunteers, who typically do not have fund-raising expertise.
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Arthur Mitchem