Rare

This is an organization that takes Pride in investing in local communities to inspire and change the way we relate to nature and the environment. A group of big and innovative thinkers that also internally invest in their own people development. Donating to this organization is donating to the present and future of humanity and the planet. I donate generously since the need people in all continents leading this type of change.

I have been supporting RARE since before 2004 (my records start then) when I first found out about it because someone I knew worked there. They have gone on to other things many years ago, but I never stopped supporting RARE because of their on-the-ground personal, effective and focussed approach to conservation and environmental impact. Their focus is to educate and inspire the individual communities to value their own unique and precious assets, and over the years they have spread a powerful message that has delivered positive results. I feel my contributions go to supporting the mission, NOT in re-soliciting me, or for fancy ad campaigns.

I am so proud as one of the conservation fellows trained by RARE. This experience is forever cherished and highly valued as I continue to be working in development world. RARE has truly helped us in putting inspiration on the way we protect our resources. It has been noted that our country's resources are in peril, I am hoping the RARE's operations in the Philippines would help these resources to continuously provide food for every Filipino's table. A more meaningful years for RARE in the Philippines! RARE is truly an inspiration!

Rare is a unique, extremely focused and nimble group. Working at the crossroads of conservation, economic development, and poverty reduction in some of the poorest and most biologically rich areas on earth, Rare makes an impact on human and ecological communities well beyond organizations comparable in size. Its commitment to excellence is unsurpassed and its ability to engage local communities in the management and care of the natural resources on which they depend is exceptional.

Of the many groups in the conservation business, Rare is the very best at engaging local communities and effecting real behavior change that benefits nature. Their model of training local spark plugs to help their communities understand and care about their unique natural treasures - through Pride campaigns - is original, effective, and enduring.

I was given the opportunity to work as an intern with Rare as part of my MBA programme at the Kent Business School. I worked for three months with the organisation in relation to the launch of a new concept. It was a pleasure to work with Paul Butler who was my supervisor throughout my internship period. My internship gave me the opportunity to learn and understand how the organisation works in the area of conservation and sustainability. My internship also helped me appreciate and understand the kind of efforts undertaken by the organisation for promoting conservation education and for launching social marketing campaigns for conservation worldwide.
As part of my internship with Rare I was required to finish a number of tasks within a short time frame, but the support that I received from Paul and the organisation as a whole was truly incredible. I think Rare has extremely talented conservation focused people who are also very friendly and approachable. Whenever I needed any information it was always provided to me on or before time.
I interacted with a lot of Rare alumni and associates during my internship who seemed genuinely connected with the organisation and who are keen on being associated with it even in the future. I must say my internship with Rare has been a great learning experience for me which has also helped me appreciate the conservation related efforts being made by the organisation and its people. I will love to be a part of any activities that the organisation engages in the future.

As an advisor to Rare in various capacities over the past decade, we’ve been particularly impressed by their remarkable commitment to continuously learning, measuring and evolving as an organization. They never stand still; they’re always in motion seeking new ideas and new ways to grow their conservation impact around the world.

And they play a critical role in conservation: Motivating people to change their behavior so that they protect their natural resources in ways that benefit themselves and their communities. Rare figures out what works in one community and brings those solutions to other communities and helps them make them their own. As they continue to refine and expand this model, their impact on conservation will only continue to grow. The staff is focused and passionate and brings a level of business-savvy to their work that any business would envy. Rare is the real deal, helping to create a better future for people and the planet.

I have been working at Rare since January 2008 until now. Ever since, I have never found any other organization that has the value that Rare has and put it into their daily practice. Here at Rare, we call 'problem' as 'challenge'. We do not hide them, but we embrace them. Here at Rare, we appreciate our partners, they are equal with us. We try to be as transparent as possible and try to solve the challenges together. We anticipate risks as much as possible, but when things go wrong we do not hide and blame others, rather we learn from it and find the solution. We call that solutionology. We call it a Rare value. Donation put Rare will be a worthy investment. Here at Rare, each and every one of us believe that every single cent that Rare has is other people's money, their donation, trust, and their good will to make the world a better place to live in. I am proud to be Rare and partnering the way we are partnering with others right now, and even getting better. If you actually meet and talk to a Rare staff or Rare partner, you'll know what I mean :)

I'd known Rare back in year 1998 when I attended presentation by Paul Butler at the Ministry of Forestry, Later on, I learn more of the organization as I became one of the conservation fellow of the first university based Rare Pride program at Kent university and very honored to work directly with Paul Butler. I became a Rare Pride Alumni, with a dream to play active role in having abundance of conservation fellows as conservation leader in my country and working with all community for conservation work for Indonesia people. In almost the last 7 years, I have been living this luxury of life, translating my passion into real life, through working with Rare. Pride focus and achieving behavior change for conservation working with local communities and stakeholder. In addition to successes in working with communities at grass root level, the process started with building conservation leaders in the region. Up till now, more than 48 people in Indonesia, Timor Leste, & Malaysia had a life changing experience through Pride to become a well-known conservation leaders in each of their site and within the region, starting as conservation fellow.These new generation of leaders in Indonesia not only come from local NGOs but also from government sectors. Alumni from government sector were becoming significant contributors to decision making in conservation, innovators in the region, as well as continue to putting their hand and feet on the ground to make conservation happens. I have goosebumps every time I learned a conservation fellows is successful in their conservation career or making important decision and action in conservation. In short, Rare is the best place to: built vision of behavior change for conservation, to be innovative-have courage-taking risk-treat challenges positively -be on the ground to make the changes happened, and to witness the conservation vision being expanded and continue to bloom by people that had been reached throughout the program.

Rare is a very unique organization. It is very entrepreneurial and the staff are committed to finding conservation bright spots around the world that can be replicated and enhanced through social marketing and implementing a Rare Pride Campaign. Rare works closely with local partners, providing training and ultimately a masters degree to a strong local leader who will work in the community and run the Pride campaign. Rare's campaigns have been quite successful in addressing a variety of conservation challenges in many differnent regions of the world as the pride campaign facillitates both increased awarenes and human behavior change. I have visited a number of Rare campaigns in places like Ecuador, Mexico, and the Bahamas. It is truly inspirational to see the impact that Rare has on both the people and nature.

Rare is emerging as the only organization capable of scaling up changes in behavior that are required to bring lasting results for biodiversity at the time scale in which they are actually needed. Incremental gains are no longer an option if we are to halt widespread extinctions, the loss of ecosytems services and the irreversible deterioration of our natural resource base. I strongly recommend Rare as the organization to be involved if your cause is biodiversity and the environment in general. They have developed and tested innovative solutions that can be readily boosted by your involvement and financial support.

Context Partners has worked with Rare as a thought partner and consultant supporting their ground breaking work with the Solution Search challenge. Rare is the type of client we seek out and enjoy having in our network. We have a great amount of alignment with Rare culturally and a have a deep respect for their conservation work, methodology, and achievements.

I coordinate a global partnership which Rare has in the last three years become engaged with. Last year they hosted our global steering committee meeting, this year they co-organised events in India with us - at all times they have been wonderful to work with, their actual work is inspiring and they are just an example of what being a supportive and great partner would look like. I have not met or engaged with a staff member of Rare who hasnt been inspiring and helpful.

Rare Conservation gets it! While many conservation organizations like to talk about change and think the more money you throw at a problem, the better, Rare has a different approach. Their laser-focus approach of sponsoring and educating locals to be engines of change has proven to be both effective and efficient.
Our company has been impressed with Rare’s holistic approach of ground-up conservation and we have enjoyed working with their staff because their energy and passion is not only evident but inspiring.

I came to know about RARE in this year when we are doing an awareness campaign in Bangladesh for protecting tigers in the Sundarbans. Here we are also following social marketing approach to increase public awareness. I got a chance to attend one side event organized by RARE at COP11, Hyderabad where I found RARE as a wonderful organization which is keenly working for the conservation of nature. It was a very significant experience for me and also was an opportunity for me to get to know more about RARE and learn from them. I highly appreciate their activities and wish its continued success in future.

I first heard of Rare when attending a special talk at an international wildlife conservation conference back in 1998. I was amazed by the Pride method - Rare's signature approach to adapt social marketing processes to conservation. Since that moment I hoped I would one day have the chance to work with Rare, and that day finally arrived, 12 years later. My experience working with Rare over the past two years has fulfilled my expectations: this is an organization that explicitly and specifically goes out if its way to value the role people play for the conservation of our planet. This works at several levels, starting with Rare's own staff. If you work for Rare you feel like you belong to a global family. There is a team of talented people whose sole mission at Rare is to help each member of staff do his or her best to achieve success - individually, departmentally, regionally and globally. But Rare's main investment in people is of course through its Pride Programme, with which each year dozens of Conservation Fellows all over the world are supported and guided through Rare's social marketing methodology. This approach ultimately is, once again, directed at people - hundreds if not thousands of people all over the world directly engaged by Rare's local partners under the leadership of the Conservation Fellows. The aim of all this: to change people's perceptions, attitudes, and ultimately behaviours concerning the way they - and the decision makers for whom they vote - relate to our planet's natural resources. As the years have passed, adding more and more Conservation Fellows and multiplying their impact, we can safely say that Rare has helped influence millions of people to in some way or anothercare more about Nature.

As a Grants Manager at Rare, I have found that Rare is a rare and wonderful organization to work for. It is one of those rare organizations that genuinely value and appreciate their staff and senior leadership is always working hard to ensure that staff are valued, respected and are fully engaged. The organization is also sincerely committed to its mission and everyone works hard collectively towards the success of Rare.

I found Rare by researching several charity information sites. After reviewing their website I was impressed by the scope and quality of their work. After my donation I received personal follow up, not just the standard "Thank You" letter. They continue to follow up and send updates. Very professional and personal at the same time. That and the great work they do!

I was an intern last summer. I am fortunate to have seen such a progressive non profit organization that also invests greatly in their people and their development. Engaged employees can only achieve better conservation results - and these people get that! Great experience, great results - and a very generous group of people.