The Florida Wildlife Federation is a statewide, non-profit citizens' conservation organization composed of thousands of concerned Floridians and other citizens from all walks of life who have a common interest in preserving, managing, and improving Florida's fish, wildlife, soil, water, and plant life. As the State Affiliate of the National Wildlife Federation, FWF has been improving Florida's wildlife since 1936. Our mission is to conserve Florida's wildlife, habitat, and natural resources through education, advocacy and science-based stewardship.

A future where Floridians stand united to protect and conserve Florida’s wildlife, habitat, and natu

Source: Nonprofit submitted responses

Goal One: Influence Conservation Policies and Programs

Goal Type: This goal reflects our commitment to further our advocacy work for our organization and or cause area.

Goal Two: Expand and Motivate Membership/Supporters

Goal Type: This goal reflects our commitment to further our advocacy work for our organization and or cause area.

Goal Three: Inspire Action through Impactful Communication

Goal Type: This goal reflects our commitment to further our advocacy work for our organization and or cause area.

Describe an investment in leadership

Meredith Budd, Southwest Regional Policy Director graduated from the 2021 Leadership Collier program, designed to build a broad-based network of community leaders. The program provided her with hands-on experiences in various components of the SW Florida community including local government, education, economic development, environment and arts. It transformed the way she interacts within this community and showed her how best to work together to implement positive change. This program helped build a strong local network of influential leaders. We've also sent staff to the National Wildlife Federation Women in Leadership Summit. The Summit provides a space for the women of our Federation to build and strengthen leadership skills in order to elevate women’s voices in the conservation movement as well as tackle challenges and issues unique to women in the workplace.

This organization mobilizes for mission in the following ways:

• Strategic Partnerships

• Networks of Collective Impact Efforts

• Thought Leadership

• Raising Awareness

• Community Building

• Policy Advocacy

What are this organization’s external mobilizaton efforts?

Florida is the national epicenter for environmental and conservation issues, with a rapidly increasing population impacting fragile water resources, unique ecosystems and wildlife. It is therefore essential to coordinate and share resources with other conservation non-profits statewide to meet these challenges. Collaboration is conducted via social media and other methods of communication to expand participation among not only groups, but individuals to advance various conservation goals. Advocacy in the state and federal legislature, and on the county level, are facilitated with partner organizations to increase the likelihood of success. Leadership activities such as spearheading citizen lobby days are a function of our work to bring residents into contact with their representatives as to issues important to them and to increase the likelihood of environmental sustainability across the state.We partner with other groups to promote environmental education of teachers and students.

The COVID pandemic caused significant challenges for an organization such as the Florida Wildlife Federation (FWF) as mask wearing and social distancing have become the norm. In person meetings are limited and virtual meetings have become standard. Work schedules have also had to adapt to the realities of COVID and some employees work from home more of the time. That said, we have remained a closely connected entity with employees sharing and performing many tasks not formerly required of them. Fortunately, our two Regional Policy Directors, who are located far from the main headquarters in Tallahassee, are very motivated individuals and run their one-person offices in highly efficient and goal-oriented ways, even as their workloads have increased. As a smaller organization with a very large task, is it critical that all employees communicate well with each other and that all know what the plan is for each particular issue or campaign. Indeed, many individual issues are engendered from the local offices and supported by the Headquarters’ staff. External changes during the last year have included the hiring of a new Regional Policy Director even as we tightened budget items elsewhere in the organization. It was critical that we expand our reach in this diverse and geographically large state. Adaptation is actually a day-to-day requirement, even prior to COVID, as each employee is critical to the mission of FWF. From fundraising and grant efforts to keep the organization in the black, to high level policy and legislative campaigns, to environmental education of our citizens, all of us are at least in some way participating. That is what keep us moving forward.