Sustaining Membership
ABWF relies on memberships to support our capacity
Without membership renewals, our staff wouldn’t be able to develop programs, write grants to fund them, or recruit volunteers to make them a success. Many funding programs like to support flashy new projects; few want to pay for the everyday, nuts-and-bolts, keep-the-lights-on expenses needed to make them happen. That’s where our members come in.
But while ABWF has had more than 2,000 individual donors since it was founded in 2007, in 2020 we had little more than 200 membership renewals: a 90% drop in overall donor retention! We have no problem filling our events with volunteers and participants, and still have nearly 2,000 subscribers to our mailing list… clearly we are doing something right. But we need to do more to retain our critical individual donors.
So we are partnering with wilderness-supporting, local businesses to add value to our memberships (beyond the conservation work they help support.) Starting on March 27, 2021 (the A-B’s 43rd birthday!), we are offering ABWF Member Incentive Cards for all Sustaining Members making donations of $10/month or more.
To become a sustaining member:
(2) On the Donations and Memberships page:
- Click the “Membership Level” drop down menu,
- Select “Other,”
- Click the yellow “Donate” button
That will take you to a PayPal page…
(3) On the PayPal page:
- Enter $10 or more for the donation amount,
- Check the box next to “Make this a monthly donation”
- Pay using either PayPal or a debit or credit card
And that’s it! Then look for an ABWF membership card in the mail, and start saving when you support local businesses that support ABWF!
Using your membership benefits:
Download the current list of Membership Incentives (and keep checking back as more incentives are added), and learn more about all our local business supporters by checking out our A-B Wilderness Gateway Community Visitor Guide.
Does your business want to participate?
We want this local business-supported membership initiative to be win-win-win-win:
- A win for our members, as they get valuable incentives from wilderness-supporting businesses
- A win for local businesses, as they get positive exposure, more customers, and more revenues
- A win for ABWF, as we can count on consistent funding from our loyal donors, and last but not least
- A win for the Absaroka-Beartooth Wilderness and all wildlands, as sustaining members help ensure continued delivery of stewardship projects, wilderness education and outreach, and conservation community collaboratives.
In addition to gaining positive exposure to conservation-minded customers and bringing in revenues from folks who are happy to support a business that supports ABWF, ALL supporting businesses receive additional benefits such as inclusion in our A-B Gateway Community Visitors Guide as well as regular social media shout outs on ABWF’s Facebook page and other platforms. Contact ABWF Executive Director Patrick Cross at [email protected] to find out more or propose an idea.