Communities>Partners>Conservation Organisations>Guardian>Guardian will fund
Guardian receives the majority of its funding from the general public. We therefore prefer to fund projects that have tangible conservation outcomes that the general public can easily understand. Our model encourages a high level of engagement of donors with projects and projects in which a donor can see a tangible role for their donation will tend to receive more donations. Thus a series of low cost, highly specific conservation action based projects is better than a single, high cost strategic conservation action. We fund specific conservation projects by conservation organisations not the operational costs of conservation organisations themselves.
Guardian will fund:
- Projects in nationally, regionally or community designated protected areas or their formally defined buffer zone.
- Proposals for specifically defined educational, scientific, infrastructural, or administrative projects with a clear and measurable impact in fostering suatained or improved conservation in the designated protected area.
- Proposals that include realistic, tangible and value-for-money conservation actions funding conservation, developmental or educational work on the ground in and around already-protected areas.
Communities>Partners>Conservation Organisations>Guardian>Guardian will not fund
Guardian will not fund:
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Work towards the designation of, or land purchase for, new protected areas,our mission focuses entirely on already designated protected areas. Once designated and legally recognised even new protected areas are eligible for funding
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University, school or college fees including for masters, PhDs etc. Whilst we may support conservation relevant undergraduate, masters or PhD research we would only cover the costs associated with fieldwork and outreach and then only for projects that have clear conservation outcomes.
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Activities within a park that do not already have endorsement and permissions by the relevant administrative parks authority.
- Any activities within privately owned nature reserves.
- Costs that might be considered as core costs for a conservation organisation including fundraising costs. Also administrative, managerial or fundraising posts and core office costs that are not directly focused on the proposed project.
- We recognise that research and consultancy can be important for conservation projects but we prefer to use donors funds for direct conservation, development or educational activities associated with parks that the donors themselves can see the immediate conservation value of.
Communities>Partners>Conservation Organisations>Guardian>The funding process
The funding process (tied park funds):
Implementing agencies (government parks authorities, national and regional NGOs and community organisations) for tied park funds receive all Guardian donations that come in for their tied fund in six monthly blocks. Tied fund projects must focus on sustaining conservation through information and infrastructural improvements, poverty alleviation, education and development in and around the parks. These projects are vetted by HP's board of trustees on the basis of the following criteria before being opened up to donations from Guardians:
- credibility and reputation of the bidding organisation,
- demonstrated capacity of the bidding organisation to carry out the work,
- previous track record of the bidding organisation with HP Guardian,
- likelihood that the bid will have a significant impact on conservation in the park
- likelihood that the bid will have a positive impact on livelihoods, poverty reduction and sustainable development of local communities,
- likelihood that the bid will be of interest to Guardians
- value for money represented by the bid
Successful bids are published in our Guardian system so that potential Guardians view these online and can decide to fund them through their adoption. Funding rounds take place annually as follows:
January : Africa
April : Americas
July : Asia
September : Europe
December : Oceania, Greenland and Antarctica
Communities>Partners>Conservation Organisations>Guardian>Project renewal
Project renewal (tied park funds):
Funding is long term and renewable annually depending on the resources available (i.e. the number of Guardians who continue to support the tied park fund) and progress made in the project. Implementing organisations report progress back to donors annually using our Google-powered system. This way the donors continue to manage the use of their funds for conservation and remain engaged with their park and have a role in sustaining it for future generations. Our aim is to encourage individuals to take responsibility for the protection of parcels of land in perpetuity.
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