Imagine you’re flying home from a vacation, and the person in the next seat strikes up a conversation. You find out she guides a new foundation, and as you converse, she becomes more and more interested in The Nature Conservancy and what you do and its potential relation to her work. She brings up the topic of water — she wants to know what the Conservancy is doing to take care of this important resource. What would you tell her? We should all be able to answer her questions about our water work — and those of anyone else, from a new staff member to a long-lost cousin — in a simple and compelling way. But most of us can’t. And even if you think can, would your answers match those of your colleagues?

The Conservancy’s work in water is diverse and hard to define succinctly. Through our investments in individual states, countries and regions as well as a result of the Great River Partnership and the Global Freshwater Team, we restore mussel beds and establish water funds, help corporations change their practices and reoperate dams, train the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and purchase water rights, and work at a system scale with huge numbers of collaborators at rivers like the Mississippi, Magdalena, Colorado, Connecticut and Yangtze. Today, the Conservancy’s freshwater community has grown to over 300 people, including scientists, engineers, policy experts, fundraisers and lawyers across all layers of our organization.

But this diversity has meant that no one Conservancy program has had the authority to write the script or state the direction that all programs dealing with water will follow, even when requested and expected by leadership. When “global” programs have tried to advance common messaging around our collective freshwater efforts or exerted influence over the direction of projects and programs too strongly, resistance has been significant and criticisms sometimes harsh. The consequences are expensive for morale and trust as well as our overall efficiency. Yet, if we are not unified behind a common vision, it is hard to fundraise effectively or align global and local efforts, leading to resource constraints that limit our organizational potential.

After 16+ years with the Conservancy (and nearly a quarter-century in conservation), I finally appreciate and understand all sides of this struggle. And I am convinced that there is an elegant way to solve this riddle: Engage the Conservancy’s entire freshwater community and together build a foundation that unifies and focuses all our efforts. This solution seems so simple, but actually requires exceptional patience and facilitation skills to implement. It is within our reach if the final result is truly “owned” by the Conservancy as a whole and not perceived to be the territory of any one program. Shared ownership suggests more than adequate buy-in: Merely stating organizational priorities on paper and sharing them with a few key individuals before finalizing will not be enough. (We’ve tried that and it doesn’t work, even if informed by the very best science and outside experts). The path forward is not necessarily a straight line.

For more than a year, in addition to my role guiding the Conservancy’s Global Freshwater Team alongside Brian Richter, much of my time and energy has been directed toward the process of building that unity and focus. I’ve been listening to conservation practitioners and senior managers, supporters and trustees, and experts in policy and science about the Conservancy’s amazing work around the world. I’ve been looking at the big opportunities and challenges today and on the horizon through all of our eyes. And at every juncture, I’ve been seeking a set of priority strategies that unify our work from local to global. What a journey it has been, but amazingly satisfying too.

I’m pleased to report that we have the beginnings of agreement about how to talk about our organizational efforts in freshwater, focused on the Conservancy’s renowned ability to provide solutions to conservation challenges. We first acknowledge two realities: Water is essential to all life, and water is in trouble globally. We can then explain that the Conservancy’s work is largely focused on four priority strategies that build from our existing investments, unify our local and global efforts, and focus our intentions moving forward:

1. Influence water-related infrastructure development and operations as well as floodplain management to support ecological health and services;
2. Reduce the footprint of farms and ranches on freshwater resources;
3. Safeguard water supplies by improving watershed management through financial solutions, voluntary programs and government policies; and
4. Advance system-scale conservation and management of iconic great rivers around the world to serve as models for others to emulate (the Great Rivers Partnership).

In short: infrastructure, agriculture, water supplies and getting to scale. Simple, right? Well, the devil is certainly in the details.

This structure provides us a way of making sense of our universe within the Conservancy; it also tells us where we are going. Of course, the structure isn’t all that we do regarding water: Individual programs may pursue other activities that make sense given their local circumstances, etc. But it does help.

We also now have a Freshwater Leadership Council, made up of representatives from the Global Freshwater Team, the Great Rivers Partnership, and all the Conservancy’s regions. The Council is chartered to help advance the four priority strategies, including collaborating on fundraising goals.

Much work remains (e.g., business planning for each of these priority strategies to further define this work, etc.), but this is fantastic progress and will be well-represented at the upcoming All-TNC Freshwater Conference in April. This event will be a true celebration of what we have become and where we are going. This event will also be one of my last responsibilities in my role with the Global Freshwater Team.

Leaving any team after over 13 years is melancholy, of course, but this transition is also somehow perfect timing. We have a set of priority strategies that has the potential to unify and focus our efforts, a group of individuals from across the organization committed to advancing this work, a plan for engaging donors in each area of our work, a strong and capable team and a community of practice that is diverse and innovative.

My new assignment is to build the case for conservation learning to help our organization succeed well into the future. I am thrilled to take on this job, particularly given the challenges of conservation in the 21st century. I bring to it all that I have learned during my past roles and from my incredible colleagues across the Conservancy (particularly who have been a part of the Global Freshwater Team and its various incarnations): how to establish a vision and unify others behind it, build capable teams and cultivate excellence, guide processes and achieve results, succeed in fundraising and budgeting, design strategies and use measures, facilitate knowledge exchange, interact with media and global experts, listen to others, value my colleagues, admit defeat and be humble. Most importantly, I carry with me a profound sense of what we are capable of as an organization. 

By Nicole Silk, Co-Manager, Global Freshwater Team, The Nature Conservancy